Pubdate: Mon, 28 Apr 2003
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2003 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Robert Merkin

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA PROMISE DOUBTED

Re: Our pot's too potent (April 21). Only a government could spend $5.75 
million to grow marijuana, and fail.

Eventually the same government will hold hearings and issue a report that 
will explain how it spent $5.75 million and couldn't grow any marijuana. 
That report almost certainly will 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 chemotherapy 
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, Mass.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom