CFN – Imagine waking one morning to find police officers towing your car out of your driveway.
“What is the meaning of this!?” you demand.
“Um, yeah…” says the officer, “Some people out west – we heard – drove too fast, or, maybe didn’t stop correctly, or drove with an expired permit or something… so no more cars for anyone, period.”
Puzzled, you would likely say “But I didn’t do anything wrong with my car! Why should I have to lose my car because someone else might have done something wrong with theirs?!”
“Um….. because of safety and stuff…?” the officer sighs. He then adds “Listen – you got a problem with this, you call your MP or something, `k? In the meantime, you have to use public transit.”
Then the prices are all fixed – to favor the transit companies because you have no choice – at about four to eight times what it was normally costing you to drive around every month.
Does this scenario seem crazy to you? Well, this is pretty much exactly what is happening to licensed medical marijuana growers – with your tax dollars and in your name. Not only will this policy harm sick people, it further subsidizes illegal growers and gangsters.
Over 20,000 Canadians – most of whom have never violated the terms of their licenses – will lose their constitutionally-established right to grow their own medicine or have a designated person grow it for them. The 164 page regulations were issued on June 19, and can be read here:
http://canadagazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2013/2013-06-19/pdf/g2-14713.pdf
The result of this policy will likely be huge numbers of busts and expensive court battles, all at your expense. A gigantic class-action suit is already in the works, and your tax dollars will pay to fight against that, too. And that is just the ones that I know about!
Meanwhile, sick people will have to get their medicine from a limited number of licensed growers at prices four to eight times what it had been costing them to grow their own. Otherwise, they can buy from that kid on Rideau Street.
It should be noted that the regulations have been unconstitutional for over a decade – as is the prohibition which they prop up, so people, really, are morally obligated to violate the terms of these onerous and humiliating “licenses” to be sick.
Russell Barth is an Ottawa area activist and educator.
(Comments and opinions of Editorials, Letters to the Editor, and comments from readers are purely their own and don’t necessarily reflect those of the owners of this site, their staff, or sponsors.)
Only 1200-1500 can grow son.
People who use drugs should not be operating a motor vehicle at all. The same thing with alcohol. There is a man that we once knew here in Ottawa who died about 6 years ago of lung cancer and went right through his sysem. He was a smoker as well as marijuana, etc. and he used to work with my husband. He lived life like you wouldn’t believe and he had himself to blame for his own illness. I do not believe in drugs like marijuana and all it does is put you in a high just like what alcohol does. If the government is getting people off the road because they are taking marijuana I am all for that. Rideau Street is a very bad area and I avoid that place as much as I can possibly do so. All you see are alcoholics and druggies all over the place.
I think that marijuana should be legal & held to the same rules as alcohol
@ Russell. It’s more that Stephen Harper and his fundamentalist nut-bar party has declared war on sanity. Let’s work for and hope that these clowns get tossed out of power in 2015.
Harper is like what you would refer to as a Nazi type of party because it isn’t just conservative but the grass roots of Reform and they amalgamated and destroyed the conservatives.
I do not believe in young Trudeau’s policies at all and I have nothing against the young man because he is a polite young man but not made as PM but neither is Harper. Harper cannot get along with anyone and it is “his way or the highway” and that isn’t good at all. I do not believe in marijuana or alcohol and neither one is safe. People with terminal cancer find it good for them to ease the suffering that they have to go through and to take down the meds. The thing is that those who grow the drug are going to sell it to drug users and that will get out of control. There has to be control on this stuff and putting it in the hands of people can get out of control. I don’t believe in any of it. I know that the war on drugs has been a failure and look at what Mexico has become – you can’t go down there anymore without coming out dead. There has to be a very tough stand on all of this and I do believe that having those drones in the sky is a good thing in a way to combat this kind of crime. Yes I sound cruel but that has to be done or what kind of a society would be have.
it is safe to drive while using cannabis. studies show pot users are, on average, safer drivers than non-users.
Jules… I hope you are counting prescription pain killers with this. Many folks drive around on this stuff.. Should not be allowed! Cannabis should be legal and everyone should know better than to drive on the stuff.
As for me I’m a medical marijuana user and it had made my condition far more tolerable than any opiates I used to take. I work and provide for my family. I pay taxes and contribute to society anyway I can. My government will now throw me under a bus.. How will I be able to keep working???? Who can afford the substandard, radiated strains they offer. (Only six) and none of them are any good. My health will be devastated. Jamie.. If you want a story in the future let me know. Just ask you don’t reveal my identity. April 1st folks then its under the bus we go! Thanks Mr. Harper
Russell
In all fairness regard public safety, I’d disagree with you respectfully. Under the influence of any psycho active substance should be illegal. We are responsible for the safety of other when we are driving. My opinion
Driving while stoned isn’t safe for me. I know this from experience many moons ago. Riding my motorcycle while stoned would be suicide.
I think I remember driving a 73 Ford Pinto while on acid….or it could have been a movie….but then why was my buddy singing the anthem to Chariots of Fire in a movie….it’s all so blurry…. 🙂
Too funny, Admin. I’ve done exactly that in Montreal in cars and on motorbikes. I have no business still being alive! As a teenager I was a complete idiot, but a lucky idiot.
The cons would do better to rename themselves..The Fundamentalist Party of Canada.. No room for others opinions.
I agree Nonbeliever. Our new minister of justice, Peter Mackay, was just spouting the ancient line about marijuana being a “gateway” drug. And this clown is considered to be from the progressive faction of the party!
Russell…I think you need to do a rewrite or a new article. Most of these comments didn’t understand you were using the driving a car as a metaphor to what is happening to the Medical Marijuana program in Canada.
I totally believe in Medical Marijuana. It has returned a quality of life to me that I won’t give up. I refuse to pay into the monopoly the Harper government is setting up with licensed Medical MJ producers. I will grow my own illegally or buy it of the street at cheaper prices. I’m sure I’m not the only one with this attitude.
Harper’s government just put massive money into organized crimes pockets with these new regulations, which will with out a doubt, finance other illegal activities. The illegal grower and organized crimes involvement in the Marijuana industry will only go away for one reason and one reason only, that is the legalization of Marijuana. This will make Marijuana become worthless and a waste of time for them.
The Honorable Leona Aglukkaq(Health Canada’s Minister), should be ashamed of herself, as a native person of Canada, she should understand how it feels to have rights taken away.
Google Pheonix Tears and find out the amazing medical benefits that pot has in it’s pure oil form. Read about the Canadian man who has tried for years to have our gaovernment support the medical outcomes of this plant. How the medicine in the extracted oil can cure cancer, tumours, seizures, ms, most anything. Google cancer and pot and you will read many scientific and medical ground breaking aricles from all over the world on this natural cure. Remember, the big pharma companies and hospitals make lots of money treating cancer with the existing protocols, you cannot patent a naturally grown plant, therefore there is no money to be made. Bottom line, they are not interested. Smoking pot ofers some releif from chronic pain, nausea, and stress releif, the real cure is not in the smioking of the plant but in taking the extracted pure oil. Cornwall needs a medical pot cafe, hell, have you seen the constant line ups at the methadone clinic lately?
Jules just wondering how if one is DEAD can they get out of Mexico?? Would think that if you are dead you are not going anywhere except underground!!?? just saying.. 🙂
HC has been getting away with murder, in a few states as soon as your application is received they send you a temporary license as soon as you pony uo fifty bucks. In Canada you gan go ten months without hearing from them. That is wrong and any time lag after a Doctor says I need a permit, is a stall or denial of my civil rights and the gov. Needs to be made aware that they are violating everyones right to medicine tgat will even heal cancer, epilepsy many people had tumors that shrank up and dissapeared.
This is a mdeication that your doctor has agreed it would help with my arthritis. Any time is a denial of a right to use and grow. I know that HC has to be held accountable for the lengthy waits. One days waiting is too long, as soon ascyou apply you should be approved
The new regulations will create another 2-5 years of litigation, effectively harming the poor sick people, like those on Disability Benefits. That alone is discrimination and violation of s. 7 of the Charter. Harper government are Nazi Fascists, PERIOD, there is no other description as accurate as that. They hate people and love power! Time for a New Election.
Viva the resistance! Where are we? Is this a dictator ship? Once again Canadians are taking it from behind.I have lost hope in our Canadian political structure.