Pubdate: Tue, 22 Jul 2014
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Authors: Rachel Rose and Isabelle Fieschi
Page: B7
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v14/n595/a08.html

MARIJUANA NOT SO MEDICAL

Pot dispensaries sell to recreational users

Re: Easy to get, easy to buy, Special Report, July 19

Thank you for Mike Hager's expose of Vancouver's unregulated 
marijuana dispensaries.

We noticed a new Weeks store is opening at Broadway and Collingwood, 
a few blocks from Bayview Elementary.

Despite their colleges prohibiting the practice, naturopaths and 
psychologists are prescribing marijuana because they can make a 
profit. It is impossible the more than 30 dispensaries in Vancouver 
exist only to treat the needs only of chronic pain patients. These 
dispensaries are selling marijuana to people who use it 
recreationally. People who want to use marijuana are able, as Mike 
Hager proves, to obtain it easily. Expecting unlicensed, for-profit 
and unregulated businesses to screen their customers is laughable.

Whose problem is this? All of ours.

Vision Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang needs to take a stand, as 
do the VPD and mayor Gregor Robertson. Whatever we feel about 
marijuana use, we have a duty to our kids to let them grow up in an 
alcohol-, tobacco- and drug-free environment.

The solution: either medicalize marijuana, regulate it properly, and 
allow those patients who truly need it for medical issues to fill 
their prescriptions at regular pharmacies, where they will be 
followed by doctors and pharmacists who do not face the conflict of 
interest that naturopaths do; or legalize marijuana as a recreational 
drug, tax it and regulate it as we already do with alcohol, and be 
prepared for the consequences, including higher rates of marijuana 
use, impaired driving, and other addiction issues.

The social costs of greater use and addiction could partly be covered 
by taxes paid by drug consumers. Legalization would expose the 
hypocrisy of those who claim dispensaries exist simply to meet a 
medical need, and will show the truth: that most purchasers of 
marijuana in Vancouver use it for pleasure.

Rachel Rose and Isabelle Fieschi, Vancouver
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom