Pubdate: Tue, 23 Jun 2009
Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Kamloops Daily News
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679
Author: Russell Barth
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n640/a04.html

POLICE BUST PEOPLE FOR NO REASON

Re: 'Leave me the hell alone'

The police are so desperate to discredit medical marijuana users and the
Health Canada program that they have taken to busting people for no reason
or trumped up reasons. Even if the charges don't stick, the message is
clear: We don't like you medical pot users proving us wrong, so we are
gonna harass you and embarrass you and cost you money.

This is police we are talking about here. Imagine if a woman's right to
choose was determined by a police officer and not her doctor. What if it
was a police officer with no medical licence, no appropriate training, and
perhaps even with a personal agenda to push? What if it was a law
enforcement agency who abuses their stature in the community to make
medical decisions that affect others?

Now, instead of a woman's right to choose, think about a patient's choice
of medicine. Would we as a community allow cops, not doctors, to determine
our course of treatment? Of course not.

Would we allow a faceless bureaucrat in Ottawa to lower your dose and
practice medicine without a licence? Ridiculous.

Would we allow a professional group with a gross conflict of interest to
set the rules for your health care needs? Absurd!

Would we tolerate police and government officials ignoring and violating
repeated court orders? Not likely.

Yet that is the disgraceful situation regarding the medical use of
marijuana in Canada today. The RCMP interfere in the regulations at
stakeholders meetings, governments ignore court rulings, sick and
sometimes dying people are having their medicine confiscated, and their
lives ruined. No other group of people in Canada are forced to endure this
level of discrimination. Carl Anderson should file a multi-million dollar
human rights complaint and lawsuit against the Mounties.

RUSSELL BARTH, Federally Licensed Medical Marijuana User Patients Against
Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis (PAIDOC) www.paidoc.org