Pubdate: Tue, 19 Apr 2016 Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB) Page: 7 Copyright: 2016 The Calgary Sun Contact: http://www.calgarysun.com/letter-to-editor Website: http://www.calgarysun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67 Author: Michael Platt CITY'S ARCHAIC ATTITUDE TOWARD 'MARIHUANA' NEEDS TO CHANGE No different than liquor stores. If not quite reefer madness, it's a mentality straight out of the archaic past, when marijuana was considered a dangerous narcotic only capable of corrupting our youth and incinerating societal mores, rather than a regulated medicine legally available across Canada. City council, for some reason, remains entrenched in the dope-fiend mythology and fear mongering prevalent a century ago, and this week's Calgary Planning Commission agenda points directly to that paranoia, in grouping medical marijuana counselling with liquor stores under the land use bylaw. The reason? To keep the dastardly dope smokers away from school kids - - and under the proposed bylaw, to be debated Thursday, any clinic or counselling service dealing with marijuana must stay well away from any institution housing impressionable children, the same as booze stores. "We are a doctor's office, and to be lumped in with liquor stores is crazy - what we do here is one hundred percent legal, and in any case this not a dispensary," said Hart Steinfeld, spokesman for Natural Health Services, a marijuana counselling clinic in Calgary. "These are sick people we are dealing with, including cancer patients and patients with MS. And yes, we do have pediatric patients as well." It doesn't seem to matter that the counselling clinics don't supply marijuana or have pot available on the premises, or that this drug is not meant for recreational use and potential abuse, like the alcohol it's being officially linked to. While some certainly do abuse marijuana and many smoke it strictly to get wasted, they are not the ones seeking out a prescription for pot to help alleviate pain - and to suggest legitimate patients are no different than drunks or common drug abusers is an insult to thousands of Calgarians. Federal laws allow patients with prescriptions to access medicinal marijuana by mail through registered grow operations, and counselling centres are set up to help them understand why marijuana may help, and how to negotiate the many regulatory hurdles currently in place. Really, these counselling services are closer to pharmacies than liquor stores, and in many ways they are a lot less worrisome - because pharmacies deal with opiates and a culture of addiction a whole lot more dangerous than weed. But for a city council often blind to progress and prone to meddling, cannabis remains nothing more than a scary recreational drug - and that's enough to demand a ludicrous zoning categorization aimed at keeping the alleged reefer addicts at bay. "The definition includes rules that require Medical Marihuana Counselling uses to be separated by 300 metres from each other and 150 metres from schools. The separation distance is aligned with the similar rules used for Liquor Stores," reads the proposed bylaw amendment. The city, as you may have noticed, still uses a spelling of marijuana that went out of style in the 1950s, which incidentally matches the era to which this silly bylaw belongs, rather than a modern world in which cannabis has become a useful medical tool. And that's the key point which city council appears to have missed. Does this new industry require regulation? Of course, just like any business in the city - but the bylaw needs to be drafted by people working in the present, not under the prejudice of the past. These are not like liquor stores, and medical marijuana is not something people take for convenience or kicks, no matter what some on city council might believe - and to lump the booze and medicine together is a serious slight to legitimate patients, on principle alone. If the time comes that medical marijuana counselling services include dispensing of the drug, city council should ensure regulations are in place to ensure such businesses operate responsibly - just as pharmacies do now, despite handing out narcotics many times more potent than pot. In the meantime, city council needs to just say no - not to medical marijuana, but to a bylaw that belittles the patients who need it. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D