Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jun 2013
Source: Standard Freeholder (Cornwall, CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Cornwall Standard Freeholder
Contact: http://www.standard-freeholder.com/letters
Website: http://www.standard-freeholder.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1169
Author: Marc P. Babineau

SICK, AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE

This is in response to the new rules as presented by Health Canada,
which is "getting out of the pot business."

The way the rules now stand, someone who is disabled due to a disease,
ailment or injury can obtain medicinal marijuana through a friend that
is willing to grow it for them. The only cost is the cost of seeds,
the change on the person's hydro bills and, of course, the taxman.

Now, many people may think that marijuana use is just an excuse to get
high, but there is no other drug or product on the market that makes
people want to eat, and for them to be able to stomach the food, aside
from marijuana. It reduces pain to manageable levels, makes you sleep,
calms leg and other muscle twitches, reduces anxiety, and has many
other beneficial qualities.

Now, Health Canada is making it so that people who are ill, meaning
that they aren't able to work and therefore are living well under the
poverty level, will have to start paying upwards of $400 a month for
their medicine; I don't even get that much money for groceries and
bills, let alone medicine!

For the past five years, my pain and other symptoms have been kept
well in check by the simple smoking of a few cigarettes of marijuana a
day. Now, the government, in another major tax grab, has decided that
the poor are once again the best target to infuse more money into
their coffers so that they can misspend and mismanage it.

When will the idiocy of this government ever end? Instead of raising
benefits for the disabled, they give us tax benefits. Tax benefits are
only good if you have a taxable income!

There has been no rise in the level of income for the disabled since
the government, in its infinite wisdom, cut our benefits by 40%. How
many people out there can live on $980 per month, paying rent,
utilities, groceries, transit, etc., and then have to pay through the
roof for a drug that has been helping them more than any
pharmaceutical drug with their myriad of unpleasant and unhealthy side
effects?

The government has made a major error in the way that they have stolen
the one thing that helps the sick away from us. If only there was some
way to tell them that we're sick of it and not going to take it
anymore. Oh, yeah; we can vote!

Marc P. Babineau Cornwall
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt