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ALLAN ROCK'S MARIJUANA GARDEN
It is amazing. With every Cabinet post, Allan
Rock brings down a new series of disasters. He is, in fact,
disaster personified.
It is difficult to understand why this is
happening, since he seems to be a perfectly intelligent person.
He left behind a successful legal career when he first ran
for Parliament in 1993. On his election, he was immediately
appointed Minister of Justice until 1997 when he was shuffled
over to Health, and now he is busy causing more disaster as
the Minister of Industry.
Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that
Mr. Rock had no political experience prior to his appointments
to the Cabinet, and he is unable to grasp what he can and
cannot do as a minister. That is, he does not understand that
his power is not absolute, and there are curbs on him. Perhaps
too, Mr. Rock just has poor judgement.
Pot Growing Flops
One of Mr. Rock's most recent flops was his
enthusiastic undertaking to grow pot on behalf of the government.
The plan was to make marijuana available to medical researchers
to obtain scientific proof as to whether marijuana actually
has any medical benefits.
In 1999, the Ontario Court of Appeal, which
has a well-deserved reputation for legally unsubstantiated
incoherent decisions, decided in Regina v. Parker that
marijuana should be freely available for medical purposes.
A more sound minister would have appealed the controversial
decision to the Supreme Court of Canada for final resolution,
but not Mr. Rock. Even though he was not required to apply
the decision of the provincial Ontario Court of Appeal throughout
Canada, Mr. Rock jumped on the Ontario decision, amending
the regulations under the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act to allow marijuana use for medical purposes, even though
there was no proof it had medical benefits. Patients were
free to grow their own, or have someone else grow it for them.
In 2000, Mr. Rock enthusiastically opened a pot growing establishment
for medical research purposes in an abandoned copper mine
in Flin Flon, Manitoba, at a cost to the taxpayer of $5.75
million. Unfortunately, Mr. Rock's pot garden has been less
than successful.
The project supervisors were unable to acquire
US government-approved seeds from the US National Institute
on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Maryland. Instead, they were obliged
to rely on 10,000 seeds seized by the Canadian police forces.
And what a crop it has turned out to be!
Most of the crop contains 20% - 25% THC, the most active ingredient
in marijuana. Usually, street marijuana has a 5% THC content.
Also, this Flin Flon strain of marijuana is tough to grow.
Further, the crop failed to include acceptable "placebo"
(0.1% THC) marijuana necessary for researchers for control
purposes to demonstrate whether THC is effective in alleviating
some medical conditions. All together, only a third of the
seeds sprouted, producing 185 varieties of widely varying
THC content can be used by researchers, who require a standardized
product. Only this part of the crop, which contained THC in
the 10 - 15% range, has been retrieved for trial purposes
Medical Trials
Currently, there are a few marijuana trials
being carried out in Canada. Health Canada provided the funding
for those latter trials but not the seeds, which latter were
obtained from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse. Why
then did Mr. Rock decide that Canada should grow its own crop
of marijuana for medical trials, when the standardized product
could be obtained for this purpose from the US? It could just
be poor judgement on the part of Mr. Rock, or, perhaps he
saw himself as the "Czar of Pot," as the first step
to liberating Canadians to the "joys" of pot, while,
oddly, as Minister of Health, ignoring its grave medical complications
caused by its use. That is, a combination of poor judgement
and ego may have led to Mr. Rock's extraordinary decision
to grow pot. A poor combination of reasons on which a Minister
of the Crown to act.
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