Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 2015
Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Black Press
Contact:  http://www.pqbnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1361
Author: Alan Boisvert
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n043/a05.html

COMMUNITY SHOULD SUPPORT POT SOCIETY

Re: 'Police say dispensary is illegal,' Jan. 20 edition of The NEWS.

I am an organizer for Sensible B.C. in Parksville-Qualicum Beach. 
Forty five hundred people in Oceanside signed the Sensible B.C. 
petition initiative to legalize cannabis in B.C. last year and we had 
conversations with adults from every demographic who support changing 
the legal status of cannabis.

Polls show more than 65 per cent of Canadians support legalizing or 
decriminalizing cannabis and those numbers are higher for medical 
use. We heard from people frustrated that cannabis medicines weren't 
more readily available and at the waste of police resources.

Statistics show that in states with medical cannabis, teen use goes 
down, traffic fatalities go down, prescription overdoses go down, 
murder and crime rates go down.

Anyone who doubts the efficacy of cannabis as a medicine can go 
online to read the research being done in Israel, Spain and other 
countries with more advanced cannabis research.

The therapeutic use of cannabis goes back 5,000 years and it's 
impossible to overdose, unlike most other medications.

Will our police and politicians allow people a chance for safe access 
to medical cannabis, or will they continue to restrict access to what 
is being proven to be life-saving medicine?

Cannabis is no longer seen as a drug of abuse in the community and 
putting it into a responsible framework ensures that is treated as 
medicine by people who need it and not as a recreational drug 
(although it remains safer than other recreational drugs like alcohol 
and tobacco).

Here's hoping compassion and the state of the scientific literature 
will convince those in power to allow this society to serve the needs 
of the community, for their better health and safety.

Alan Boisvert

Parksville
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