Re: 'Medicinal pot needs to be dispensed by doctors' (Your Letters, Dec. 20)

We are a medical marijuana clinic. Our patients must have a prescription from their doctor and/or their MMAR forms from Health Canada.

There is a list of over 80 medical conditions that marijuana is useful for on our website and we have over 280 members and rising quickly. We are no closer to any schools than the local methadone clinic.

Our store does not intend to harm the community, we do not sell to minors or non-medicinal patients.

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The Canadian Medical Association and the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada are deeply concerned about the advancement of a regulatory proposal to reform the medical marijuana access program.

These reforms may place an unacceptable degree of responsibility on physicians, given the relative lack of evidence regarding the health benefits of medical marijuana. If Health Canada no longer screens applications for use of medical marijuana, this essentially makes the physician the sole decision-maker.

Physicians should not be expected to prescribe medical marijuana unless it meets the regulatory requirement for prescription medication established under the federal Food and Drugs Act. We strongly believe that the same safety and evidence standards applied to pharmaceutical health products should be applied to medical marijuana.

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Regarding Government Oversteps In Grow-Op Case (The Daily News, Dec. 19).

I'm concerned about the lack of information this ministry worker had yet she has the power to remove children from families. With great power comes great responsibility.

How can this worker make this factless claim and this family then have to spend time, money and worry in order to satisfy the ministry they can keep their family intact when the whole issue stems from a power-tripping woman bent not on fact but personal opinion in taking children away from their family.

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Banned Since 1976

To Research Drug's Usefulness In PTSD Therapy

VANCOUVER * Exactly a century after ecstasy was first patented, Health Canada has approved the drug's import for the first Canadian study using the illegal substance in trauma survivors' therapy.

The decision to allow two Vancouver therapists to import nine grams of MDMA from a laboratory in Switzerland - one of only two such permitted facilities worldwide - will kickstart the first experiment with the euphoria-and-empathy-producing drug in B.C. on Jan. 1, according to a Health Canada email obtained by the National Post, dated Nov. 23.

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Local municipal officials are welcoming proposed changes in federal legislation surrounding the production of medical marijuana.

Both the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Union of B.C. Municipalities have raised concerns about illegal grow-ops being converted to medical grow operations, said Victoria Coun. Chris Coleman, who sits on the federal group's board.

The proposed changes - Health Canada plans to take itself out of the production and distribution of the substance and open up the commercial market to companies that meet "strict security requirements" - appear to address that concern. Production of the substance would no longer be allowed in private homes.

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The head baker of the Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada will be acquitted of two outstanding drug offences - but medical-marijuana fans shouldn't celebrate too quickly.

Lawyers say the Crown has left the door open to appeal a landmark medical-marijuana ruling that allowed people authorized to use marijuana to drink it in tea or bake it in brownies or cookies.

In April, Owen Smith won a constitutional challenge against Health Canada's medical-marijuana laws. Smith had been charged in December 2009 with possession for the purpose of trafficking and unlawful possession of marijuana after the manager of the Chelsea apartments on View Street complained to police about a strong, offensive smell wafting through the building.

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Should marijuana be legalized? As an individual I have no problem with legalizing marijuana.

Let the government grow it, tax it, and sell it to those that find it necessary to live their life. I do not think it is my position to tell people what they can and cannot consume.

If you want to poison yourself, far be it from me to stop you. What I object to is paying these individuals with my tax dollars for welfare, income assistance, housing allowance, health-related problems, etc. When people make the decision to take a drug they should be responsible for the problems it brings.

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A prison guard at Kent Institution could find himself on the other side of the bars after he was arrested for allegedly smuggling marijuana and meth into the maximum-security jail.

Paul Fleming, 42, was arrested at Kent at 6 a.m. on Boxing Day and charged with two counts of trafficking a controlled drug, according to an RCMP news release.

"The RCMP and Correctional Service Canada (CSC) have been working together throughout this investigation," said Upper Fraser Valley RCMP Const. Tracy Wolbeck. "This partnership led to an arrest without incident and the two agencies will continue to work together as this case moves through the court system."

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Nelson City Council Debates Marijuana

While Washington state voters approved decriminalizing marijuana this year, the idea of supporting a similar initiative in BC unleashed the greatest furor around the Nelson city council table in recent memory.

In June, councillor Donna Macdonald introduced a motion asking the mayor to join eight of his counterparts in backing Stop the Violence BC - a coalition of academics, law enforcement officials, and others hoping to "starve organized crime of the profits they reap as a result of [marijuana] prohibition."

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There will be a lot of smiling and nodding and happy faces at the news that federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is taking aim at marijuana growers who are hiding behind current laws to operate illegal drug businesses.

Nobody wants illegal grow-ops in their neighbourhoods or in their communities. We all pay for the electricity they steal. We all pay for the service costs they dodge.

Nobody wants the dangers associated with living next door to such operations.

There is always the very real risk that their colleagues in crime will bring violence to their "place of business" - which can easily spill onto the streets as they "protect their interests" or into nearby homes through "mistaken identity" or even into local shopping malls as they engage in open battle.

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GREEKS: New details emerge about drug ring involved in B.C.'s longest criminal jury trial, cops say

They were convicted in three drugrelated slayings, but police suspect they were also involved in four other murders.

In November, five members or associates of the Greeks gang in Vernon were found guilty of three grisly deaths following the longest criminal jury trial in B.C. history.

But what the jury didn't hear was the full extent of their crimes, police say.

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Mik Mann is known for his passion for pot, but he is also a man who uses his creativity and ingenuity to live a life he enjoys. A political activist, Mann is primarily self-taught in his knowledge, but made a living using his hands.

Born and raised in Toronto, Mann went to work right out of high school. Jobs were plentiful through the 1970s and 1980s and he was able to move around to various positions.

He got behind the wheel driving a cab and as a courier for the Bankers Dispatch Company, but construction and painting were his trades of choice. While in the big city, Mann became interested in racing an Austin Mini car as an amateur when the vehicle was first introduced to Canada.

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VANCOUVER-The turkey has just gone into the oven but the smell of frying onions and sage wafts down into the TV room, a hint of the smells to come later this Christmas Day.

Lying on the couch, the young woman in red pyjamas is checking Facebook on her phone. The other woman, in a black knit beanie pulled low over her forehead, is eating a plate of rice and beans.

A short while ago, they were living on the streets in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Their back stories are murky and questions are discouraged.

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I read with interest your recent editorial on medical marijuana.

When I was deputy health critic of the Reform Party official opposition back in the late '90s, along with the other critics led by Dr. Grant Hill, we did an exhaustive study on medical marijuana.

Even though we came out in favour of it long before the government approved it, we were aware that it would have to have major restrictions put on its use and distribution. Now after several years, the present government doing its due diligence has determined, after listening to the experts at Health Canada, that it is out of control. If this is true then of course something has to change. Tougher restrictions will have to be introduced.

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Group Wants Police Checks Expanded

Mothers Against Drunk Driving are calling on police officers to perform saliva tests at roadside checks, in an effort to combat driving under the influence of drugs as well as alcohol.

A recent report by two Western University law professors, prepared for MADD Canada, says drug impaired driving is catching up to alcohol impairment, and may be even more common than drinking and driving among young people.

Since 2008, the Criminal Code has allowed police officers to conduct a standardized field sobriety test for physical impairment, but the report's authors criticized the practice as being "cumbersome, expensive and readily susceptible to legal challenge ... It is therefore likely that drug impaired driving is, and will continue to be, dramatically under-enforced in Canada."

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Re: CMA decries medical marijuana changes, Dec. 17

It is commendable that in the matter of cannabis as medicine the Canadian Medical Association is hewing to Hippocrates' maxim, "never do harm," but I believe their fears are misplaced.

Had the decades-long debate over cannabis been driven by science and intellectual honesty, rather than fear and political expedience, doctors like Anna Reid would be familiar with the numerous studies, many of them sponsored by governments, rigorously scientific, showing the herb to be relatively benign.

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When the federal government gets out of the medical marijuana business, which it intends to do by 2014 after seeing new guidelines in place by next March 31, expect Rade Kovacevic to be among the first to apply for a licence as a regulated commercial producer.

Kovacevic is the founder and operator of the Medical Cannabis Centre of Guelph, a community dispensary of medicinal pot that could be granted such a licence, and the operators of numerous other such dispensaries across Canada are likely to follow suit.

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Tory Plan Will Drive Up Costs, Grow-At-Home Mother Says

Tamara Cartwright-Poulits sees herself as a gardener, not a grower.

So when she's not chasing the three-year-old energy bundle that is her son, the 42-year-old cares for up to 130 plants in various stages of growth, from early clippings to the 30 or 40 plants that bud each month.

"We're normal, everyday people just like anybody else," said Cartwright-Poulits, one of 26,000 Canadians enrolled in Health Canada's medical marijuana program. "We just want to be able to not have to be strung out on pharmaceutical drugs."

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Not Everyone Is Happy With Changes The Federal Government Is Making For Medicinal Marijuana Use

(PETERBOROUGH) When it comes to medicinal marijuana, it's not just that it helped Vycki Fleming reduce her meds from 17 prescriptions to one.

Or that she's no longer being regularly hospitalized or even that it's the one medication she has found that allows her to live a relatively normal life.

She can grow it. And that means she can afford it.

The new regulations from the federal government, she explains through tears, would put an end to that.

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The federal government is bent on pushing medical marijuana grow operations out of residential homes.

Crime and safety - home invasions, faulty wiring and mould - are the main reasons, and the plan has the backing of fire chiefs in B.C.

An apartment fire in Maple Ridge on Dec. 13, which left dozens of people homeless, illustrates their concerns, as investigators found three grow ops on the second floor, where the fire started, and which they believe was electrical in origin.

But Health Canada has said that the proposed legislation, which would regulate medical marijuana grow ops and push them to industrial or agricultural areas, where they would be subject to inspections, will drive up the purchase price.

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