Pubdate: Mon, 28 Apr 2003
Source: Edmonton Sun (CN AB)
Copyright: 2003, Canoe Limited Partnership.
Contact:  http://www.fyiedmonton.com/htdocs/edmsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/135
Author: Robert Merkin
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor, headline by newshawk

GOVERNMENT FAILURE

RE: "RED Deer reefer madness," April 21. Only a government could spend 
$5,750,000 to grow marijuana and fail. Eventually the same government will 
hold hearings and issue a report that will explain how it spent $5,750,000 
and couldn't grow any marijuana. That report will almost certainly cost 
taxpayers at least $500,000. To be fair, the contractors have managed to 
grow some marijuana, but the government undertook the project to fulfil a 
promise to provide marijuana to the desperately and terminally ill, chief 
among them cancer and AIDS patients. And this has yet to happen - not one 
single appetite-stimulating puff for one single wasting patient, no matter 
how excruciating and life-threatening his or her medical condition. And 
this will never happen, because this is a promise the government never 
intended to honour. May I offer my services? I can fail to honour a 
humanitarian, merciful promise far more cheaply. For a mere $1 million, I 
will not provide marijuana to desperately ill and suffering Canadians.

Robert Merkin,

Northampton, Massachusetts

(Such the humanitarian.) 
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MAP posted-by: Beth