Caution – Rant Ahead

On April Fools’ Day new medical marijuana laws come into effect here in Canada. The 30,000 or so medical marijuana users who have registered with the government will no longer be able to grow their own medicine in their back yards. Instead, they will be required to purchase it, by mail, from a government-licensed grow op. Instead of spending $60 or so for a handful of seeds, probably good for growing a couple of years’ worth of personal product, these people will now have to pay that amount for a few grams of herb.

Earlier I spoke about the brilliant suggestions offered up by the Feds about how best to destroy existing weed before these backyard growers all become criminals at the stroke of midnight of the government’s new fiscal year. (See Super (Bong) Bowl). Well, it gets worse. It seems Health Canada has sent a notice to all those registered patients requiring them to provide written notice swearing to the fact that they have destroyed all dried marijuana, plants and seeds and will no longer grow. If they don’t, the government is threatening to pass along their names to the local police. Right. I’m sure those people using marijuana for medical reasons really could use a little more stress in their lives.

I’m also sure the local police will be thrilled. Now instead of chasing murderers, rapists and kiddie diddlers, they can go knock on the doors of chemo patients, epileptics and insomniacs. In other parts of the world, like Colorado, Washington State and Uruguay where this Berlin Wall is crumbling completely, not just for medical use but also for recreation, here in the “true north strong and free” gulag the Harper government marches to a different drummer trying to force us all in reverse, to the detriment of patients and the benefit of those lucky enough to receive licenses to make money in commercial grows. The target here is the medical marijuana patients – the effect on the huge recreational market will be zero.

Shame.

By the way, for those of you who have signed up to receive email notices whenever there is a new post on this site, I just found out that the widget may not have been working for last week’s Shu ha ri post. Fixed now (hopefully). For others, you can sign up with the subscribe button to the side or bottom of this blog (depending on what device you’re reading this on). May be useful since my writing “schedule” is so erratic, i.e. whenever the mood strikes. Reminds me of a sign I once saw outside a gallery in Luang Prabang, Laos…