Pubdate: Mon, 15 Aug 2011
Source: Kamloops Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2011 Kamloops Daily News
Contact:  http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/679
Author: Jay Mack

MARIJUANA ACCESS CHANGES WILL HURT THE LAW-ABIDING

I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep concerns 
about the proposed changes to the medical marijuana access program.

Switching from a system where individuals can grow their own medicine 
inexpensively to a system where the medicine must be bought from a 
for-profit vendor is puzzling. By doing so the government, in an 
attempt to curb this unnamed "criminal element," would be doing 
little more then putting a large financial burden on people who have 
been diagnosed as extremely ill.

The average user of the medical marijuana program uses between three 
and five grams of doctor-prescribed medicine a day; this amount of 
medication purchased from a government designated grower would cost 
the average patient between $450-$750 a month ($5,400-$9,000 
annually). Where are theses medically ill individuals to acquire such 
a substantial sum of money?

Also, with the inability for individuals to cheaply produce their own 
medicine at home, these people will seek out government subsidized 
pharmaceutical medications to fill the void left by the absence of 
homegrown medical marijuana. An example of this would be the 
pharmaceutical THC Tetrahydrocannabinol, which would cost between 
$1,000-$1,500 a month.

Although this figure is greater than the cost of buying medical 
marijuana from a government grower, these pharmaceutical alternatives 
are highly subsidized by the government agencies.

With such public concern over the economic sustainability of our 
health care programs, it would be counter productive to add the 
burden of providing a medical marijuana alternative to thousands of Canadians.

One would also be remiss to not look at the threat of non-compliance 
to a change in the marijuana access program. Individuals growing 
medical marijuana now may simply continue to grow marijuana for their 
own use or the use of other medical recipients regardless of the 
change in legislation.

If this were to occur, which it certainly would to some degree, the 
government would have to step in and do one of two things -- ignore 
these individual growers and risk looking ineffectual or step in and 
prosecute medial growers.

To propose that these amendments would "keep our children and 
communities safe" from an unnamed medical marijuana "criminal 
element" is not only misleading but is also inaccurate. The substance 
abuse problems in my community are based on the trade in cocaine and 
crystal methamphetamine.

The government has simply not made a strong enough case for the 
reason to change the medical marijuana access program. Stricter 
regulations will only hurt those law-abiding citizens who follow the law.

JAY MACK

Kamloops
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom