Pubdate: Thu, 03 Mar 2016
Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Black Press
Contact:  http://www.pqbnews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1361
Author: Auren Ruvinsky

MITCH CAN GROW HIS MEDS

Mitch Waller of Coombs is among 28,000 Canadians allowed to grow 
their own medical marijuana again after a federal judge overturned a 
ban imposed by the previous government.

"It's a huge weight off," said Waller. "I was so worried I was going 
to have to go back to painkillers again, or go underground and get 
thrown in jail."

"I've got really severe scoliosis and neurofibromatosis, which leaves 
me in pain every day, but I stopped taking pain killers a couple 
years ago," he said.

"Marijuana helps 100 per cent. I wouldn't be able to do anything 
without it," he said of the pain he described as "a burning stabbing 
pain like having a knife jabbed in your back."

He said he used to take 120 Tylenol T3s every month, but now finds 
the marijuana by far the best medication he's tried.

"It's been two long years," Waller said of the federal government 
change in March, 2014 which suddenly made it illegal to grow the 
marijuana the government had previously licensed him to do.

Waller, and about 28,000 other Canadians with a medical marijuana 
licences (MML), were allowed to keep growing, but did so in an 
uncomfortable state of limbo, waiting for answers from the 
government. Waller said a lot of people stopped growing because of 
the uncertainty.

But some, like himself, were stuck growing their own as the most 
economical way to get it.

He'd previously explained to The NEWS that his required 20 grams a 
day would cost him $6,000 per month to buy through the government 
approved commercial facilities, which he can't do out of his $900 
monthly disability cheque.

In his 109-page decision on Feb. 24, Vancouver-based Federal Court 
Judge Michael Phelan gave the government six months to work out a lot 
of details and stressed that his decision had nothing to do with 
legalization or liberalization of marijuana for non-medical patients.

One of those issues is where people can consume their medicine.

"I just went to a Canucks practice in Vancouver and I had some 
medication on me," he said. "I explained to the guy at the door and 
they had a supervisor come in and look at my paperwork and they said 
'come on in'," but said he couldn't smoke it in the building.

He said he believes it should be allowed everywhere, like any 
medicine, but that he chooses to be pretty discrete, not smoking 
around kids or other places where the second-hand smoke might bother people.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom