Posted July 31, 2001
(MarijuanaNews note: The Internet brings things together in a way
that adds meaning. The venom in this first piece speaks for itself, but when the next two
items are read, the full perversity of the prohibitionists becomes painfully clear.

Again and again, the prohibitionists lie about what we are saying, but we want everyone
to see their own words.)

Press release July 31, 2001
From The Hassela Nordic Network
http://www.hnnsweden.com
See
Two Press Releases from Swedish
Prohibitionists Tell Us A Little About Dutch and Australian Policies – And Too Much
About the Prohibitionist Mentality.

Canadian government blesses pot smoking

Drug legalisers have made another inroad after they have managed to convince
Canadian politicians that smoking crude marijuana is good for your health.
See
Canadian Court Says Lack of Provision for
Medical Marijuana Violates Fundamental Rights; Gives Parliament 12 Months to Fix Marijuana
Prohibition — Or There Will Be No Marijuana Laws in Canada.

The Canadian medical excuse marijuana scam has been so successful in Canada that the
Canadian government now has become the first country in the world to run its own pot farm,
Prairie Plant Systems, in a former copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba.
(MarijuanaNews note: For the history of the prohibitionist practice
of calling medical marijuana a scam, see
HREF=”http://www.marijuananews.com/marijuananews/cowan/fooling_our_childrens_children.htm”>Fooling
Our Children’s Children: Lying About the Medical Marijuana Movement; Is There Any
Difference Between The Drug Czar and A Crackpot?)

The government-licensed grower has got a contract worth $3.5 million to
cultivate medical excuse marijuana.

Now anyone with a terminal illness expected to live less than a year will be
allowed to access marijuana if he/she is strong enough to hand over a doctor’s
certificate. It´s not necessary to be almost dead to benefit from the cancer producing
substance. Not at all, the benevolence of the Canadian government embraces large numbers
of Canadians – those suffering from multiple sclerosis, cancer, AIDS and epilepsy and
severe forms of arthritis and spinal cord problems.

In a statement the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) said, “We are
still disappointed the fundamental issues of quality, efficacy and patient safety have
been ignored…These regulations are placing Canadian physicians and their patients in
the precarious position of attempting to access a product that has not gone through the
normal protocols of rigorous pre-market testing.”

HNN-comment: There is every reason to be worried and concerned, especially as
the decision has nothing whatsoever to do with science.
See
NORML Special Bulletin — IOM
Acknowledges:
“There is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions
that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting.”
and
Chairman of
the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee
Criticizes UK Government’s Rejection Of Report On Medical Marijuana

The medical excuse marijuana strategy is a red herring to promote total
legalisation of cannabis. Pot legalisers don´t care about ‘patients’.
See
“Bill chose not to inhale, I’d like
the same choice.” — A Teenage Cancer Patient.

If they really did they ought to have realised that smoking crude marijuana is not a sign
of compassion or care. It might be great fun and cancer producing but stop spreading the
nonsense the smoking pot is sound and healthy. Legalisers are more interested in their own
agenda, including their own possibilities to use pot and make money from selling the
stuff.

Their parrot mantra – “Marijuana to the sick and dying –
Marijuana to the people – Die in style” has effectively embraced non-caring,
ignorant politicians looking for votes. In such a political game you must obviously be
prepared to kill a few people – one way or another.
© Hassela Nordic Network

July 31, 2001
New pot law cuts access, activists say
See
Is Health Canada’s Medical Marijuana
Fiasco A Time Bomb Ticking Under Canadian Prohibition?
(MarijuanaNews note: As predicted, the patients are going into court
to fight these new regs. They do not comply with the court’s ruling.)
Officials should make getting medical marijuana easier for sufferers, woman
says
By Graeme Smith
http://theglobeandmail.com
TORONTO — Denise Beaudoin doesn’t look like a pot-smoking activist. The quiet 56-year-old
from Hull is more comfortable sewing needlepoint than protesting against drug policy.

But Ms. Beaudoin was bold enough to accept a marijuana joint passed among a
dozen patients with chronic diseases who demonstrated as she did on the steps of a
courthouse in downtown Toronto yesterday.

Ms. Beaudoin joined the protesters who say the new marijuana law makes it more
difficult than ever to get medical pot.

“It makes me angry,” said Ms. Beaudoin, who has lived with constant
pain since a collision with a drunk driver in 1989 broke her legs, hip, pelvis and back.
She used marijuana instead of painkillers for three years, until police raided her
basement hydroponics lab last summer.

Since then, she has been trying to gain permission to use pot legally, but the
system is a bureaucratic morass, she said. In the meantime, she’s been forced to replace
her marijuana regimen with 46 prescriptions for various pills that
make her intestines crack and bleed.
(MarijuanaNews note: Doctors complain that they don’t know how
marijuana might react with other drugs, but it would be mathmatically impossible for a
doctor to know all of the possible interactions between “46 prescriptions for various
pills.” And they don’t have a problem with drugs that make “intestines
crack and bleed.”)

“The process is so difficult,” said her husband, Ray Turmel, 49, hefting a
five-centimetre-thick sheaf of court documents and medical records accumulated during
their fight to use marijuana for medical reasons. “And they’re making the rules even
harder.”

Five of the protesters, including Ms. Beaudoin, are asking the courts to compel
Health Canada to grant them permission to smoke the drug legally. Their cases were heard
yesterday in federal court on University Avenue but were deferred to an Ottawa court next
week.

It was just another delay for sufferers such as Barry Burkholder, 36, of
Sudbury. He’s been fighting for two years to smoke marijuana legally to treat hepatitis C.
“They make the process so hard that people are giving up,” Mr. Burkholder said.

These people scoff at suggestions the new laws will allow better access to
medical marijuana. The process is already too elaborate, they say, requiring detailed
submissions from their doctors. Now most applicants will also need letters from medical
specialists and more paperwork.

“What’s being released to the media isn’t what these applicants are
experiencing,” Stuart Chamney, 41, said. His wife, Marylynne Chamney, 37, who has
epilepsy, is among the applicants taking the government to court.

But Health Canada spokeswoman Roslyn Tremblay said the expanded requirements
are needed to define medical necessity and ensure proper safeguards. “The whole
intention was to make sure the process was more transparent.”

It’s only logical to include more medical specialists in the application
process, Ms. Tremblay said. “Would they not be interested in knowing that their
patient is using marijuana?” she asked.

(MarijuanaNews note: This is a bizarrely perverse statement. Two Canadian
specialists who may have never seen the patient before, and who probably know nothing
about medical cannabis, will be required to sign off on the application. That is not
required for any other drug.)

Dianne Bruce, 37, is worried about the new laws for a different reason: She
grows marijuana in her back yard in Colborne, Ont. Her operation used to be legal, she
said, because her 40 customers had medical permission.

But now medical users are not allowed to obtain marijuana from growers with
criminal records, and Ms. Bruce has been convicted of drug offences.

“I’m not supposed to continue helping people,” Ms. Bruce said.
Despite the difficulties, Ms. Beaudoin and the other patients say they’ll keep fighting.

“I don’t go anywhere any more,” Ms. Beaudoin said, “except
doctors, hospitals, tests. . . .”

“. . . and courthouses,” her husband said.

(MarijuanaNews note: This speaks for itself.)
Received July 30, 2001
To: norml@norml.org
Dear Sir or Madam,

My husband is extremely ill because of Cirrhosis and Hepatitis C. He is in dire need of a
liver transplant. We went to the hospital at OSU last Wednesday, and he was seen by a
doctor who was to examine him, refer him to the transplant surgeon, and go through the
necessary channels to put him on the transplant waiting list. We left the hospital that
day with hope that my husband would receive a new liver in three to six months.

However, I was crushed when the doctor called me Friday and told me
that my husband would not be eligible for the transplant list because he tested positive
for THC. He said that my husband would have to go through at least three months (or
more) of drug rehabilitation before he would be put on the list. I am horrified and
outraged. My husband was disabled in 1993 by a severe back injury and was diagnosed with
Cirrhosis and
Hepatitis C in 1999. Marijuana eases his pain and settles his
stomach.

Marijuana is natural, and is easier for his liver to process than narcotic and synthetic
painkillers.

I feel that we have been discriminated against and that my husband should not
be denied from the waiting list because of his marijuana use. He is willing to quit
smoking
and go to rehab, but it is unfair that he was denied being put on the list. He has spent
more time hospitalized than he has at home over the last 4months. I don’t know how he will
ever complete a drug treatment program if he is in a hospital bed. Please make people
aware of this terrible injustice before it happens to someone else!
(MarijuanaNews note: Unfortunately, it already has.)
See
Patient Who
Was Denied Liver Transplant For Using Medical Marijuana Dies
– How Lies Kill — 2 articles

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