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ONTARIO JUDGES SPRING MARIJUANA ON CANADIANS

The courts in Ontario have become a national menace. The Ontario judges have, in their arrogance, decided that they know what is best for all of Canada, and have set about re-arranging society to fit their own personal liberal biases and their own unique interpretation of the law, not the intent of the law at all.

Use of Marijuana a Questionable Constitutional Right

On the list of menacing decisions by Ontario judges is their determination to unilaterally change Canada's laws on marijuana.

The Ontario courts confirmed their intent to change Canada's marijuana laws in 1999 in Regina v Parker when the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld a lower court decision that an epileptic, Terry Parker, had a constitutional right to marijuana for medical reasons. Never mind that there was no evidence to substantiate the medical use of marijuana: the Ontario courts never permit the facts to cloud their conclusions. The Court's decision gave the federal government one year to amend its regulations under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to permit the medical use of marijuana. It was then that Health Minister, Allan Rock, opened his marijuana garden in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, at a cost of $5.7 M. The purpose of the growing of marijuana by the federal government was to provide a source of marijuana to carry out medical trials of the drug.

In the meantime, without any medical studies to attest to the validity of marijuana for medical purposes, the federal Department of Health authorized 582 Canadians to possess pot for medicinal purposes. Of these, 413 were licensed to grow their own pot.

Pot Smokers Enraged

Pot smokers, who allegedly only wanted to smoke pot for "medical reasons," were enraged that they could not have access to the government's pot. Accordingly, they went back to the ever obliging Ontario courts to successfully obtain an order, in January 2003, requiring the federal government to release its stash of marijuana now sitting at the bottom of the Flin Flon mine. Judge Sydney Lederman of the Ontario Superior Court, gave the federal government six months to provide access to this marijuana for use for the litigants' health. The federal government appealed this decision to the ever "with it" Ontario Court of Appeal, which, not surprisingly, refused, in a decision handed down in June, to suspend the absurd ruling of the lower Ontario court. The Court of Appeal insisted that the government release its marijuana to the public who "needed" it.

Consequently, the beleaguered Minister of Health, who vainly reported that there have been no studies anywhere in the world to confirm whether marijuana use has medicinal benefits, was pressured by the foolish Ontario courts to deliver the pot supply to so-called patients who "require" it for medicinal reasons. The Health Department decided to do so by delivering to doctors 30 gram packages, at $5 a gram, compared to the street price of $10 - $25 a gram. Under this ruling, doctors have now become pot distributors.

Objections by the Canadian Medical Association

The President of the Canadian Medical Association, Dana Hanson, has denounced this preposterous scheme and counselled doctors not to dispense the drug because its effectiveness has not been proven, nor have doctors any knowledge about what dosages to prescribe. (The first Canadian medical tests are not scheduled to begin until this winter.) The drug cannot be dispensed by pharmacists either because marijuana has not been federally approved. What a ridiculous mess!

The vast majority of Canada's doctors apparently agree with their National President and are refusing to dispense the drug. Doctors refuse to do so not only because there is no scientific proof for the use of marijuana as treatment, but also because they believe they will be subject to liability for the negative effects of the drug if they prescribe it. As well, they believe they will become the target for robbery because of their presence of the drug in their offices.

Police Forces in Disarray over Ruling

The Canadian police forces have been thrown into disarray over the Ontario rulings. In the first place, there is no way at the present time to stop government-issued marijuana from being generously funneled into illegal street sales. The wider the availability of the drug, of course, the harder it is for the police forces to keep distribution in check.

The police forces in Canada are now understandably confused, and are struggling about whether to advise their officers to charge smokers of pot. The Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police is advising its forces not to lay charges, but other police forces, such as those in Winnipeg, Halifax, Montreal, Calgary and Saskatoon, have not adopted the crazy Ontario ruling, stating that as far as they know, the law in still on the books and they will enforce it. But for how long? There is no question that the Ontario ruling has undermined the justice system in Canada.

Therefore, in one fell swoop, the Ontario courts have put the federal government in the strange position of being a drug dealer, with doctors serving as a go-between. The police forces have been pushed helplessly to the sidelines, impotent to enforce the now badly confused law.

What a mess these Ontario judges have created. One does not have to be particularly intelligent to foresee the damage that will result from their judgements. Where is common sense? The latter characteristic, however, does not appear to be an attribute of the ideologically-blinded Ontario judges. What has Canada done to deserve such incompetence?

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