Its first sentence makes an excellent point. The Canadian government is really behaving in a bizarre manner. This is the inevitable consequence of the absurdity of marijuana prohibition.)

TIME TO SCRAP STUPID POT LAW

Absurd laws require absurd measures to enforce them - a point that Health Minister Allan Rock underlines with his recent decisions involving marijuana use.

Even as Crown prosecutors were in court to justify criminal sanctions against a couple of Canadians for using or selling marijuana, Rock announced that his department would fund long-term research on the medical use of the drug.
See
Canadian Government Arguments In Court Case Get Weird:
"Hemp Is Marijuana" Or Something Like That…
Another Item For The "We Couldn’t Make This Up" Files
and
Health Canada To Spend Five Years and Millions
Playing the Research Game Trying Avoid Medical Marijuana

As well, he granted permission for 14 citizens suffering from various illnesses to use pot without facing prosecution, although he limited them to growing their own plants instead of buying pot on the streets.

See
There Are Many Thousands Of Medical Marijuana Users In Canada,
But Health Minister Rock Can Only Find 14 Worthy Of His Mercy. 3 Articles

It will apparently take the federal government at least a year to set up a government-controlled pot growing operation that can produce, process and analyse enough marijuana needed for research. It figures that it would take the government a year to accomplish something that petty criminals with access to a few seeds and basic hydroponic equipment can have up and running in a few weeks.

See
In Canada Only the Government Has Difficulty Getting Marijuana.
However, "Canadians who want to take part in a clinical trial
will find application forms on Health Canada’s Web Site"

Hundreds of Canadians with illnesses ranging from AIDS to glaucoma to epilepsy to cancer are using marijuana daily to alleviate medical symptoms and pain. They buy the drug illegally and risk imprisonment because they believe it works.

(Marijuananews note: Actually, there are many tens or hundreds of thousands in Canada. The Vancouver Club alone has almost a thousand members.)
See
British Columbia Compassion Club Has Almost 900 Members
-- Special To Marijuananews

Thousands of Canadians use pot as a recreational drug, convinced, with reason, that it's less harmful than either tobacco or alcohol, both of which are sold under government control and profit.

Polls show that a majority of Canadians believe that marijuana should be legalized. Canada's police chiefs want simple possession of pot decriminalized.
See
78 Percent Of Canadians Favor Medical Marijuana – What Is Rock Waiting On? DEAland?
and
Favorable Reaction By Prohibitionist Canadian Press and Police To Chiefs’ Recommendation
To "Decriminalize" Marijuana Bodes Well – Cover For The Politicians – 2 Articles

Even the right-wing think tank, the Fraser Institute, suggests that current drug laws are absurd because "no one is winning in this war but the drug dealers.

Criminalization allows for the printing of money by organized crime interests."
See
Organized Crime In The Marijuana Trade.
Why More "Law Enforcement" is Counterproductive.
An Excellent Halifax Editorial Says, "Marijuana laws encourage crime."

It can only be hoped that Rock's move to investigate the medical use of marijuana will create a body of research that supports what pot users have maintained all along: that marijuana isn't addictive, toxic or a gateway to harder drugs; that it doesn't cause violent behavior or psychosis; that the occasional, recreational use of the drug doesn't cause people to lose their motivation.

The only proven harmful side-effect of marijuana is its potential to cause bronchitis in regular users. As lawyer Alan Young told court last week in the case of his client trying to have pot legalized: "Parliament has effectively created a criminal law protecting Canada from becoming a nation of wheezers and coughers."

The unwillingness of parliamentarians such as Rock to revisit an absurd law, which has its genesis in ignorance and paranoia, had made criminals out of 600,000 Canadians by 1997 - most of them convicted of simple possession.

It's time that the government stopped tinkering with the ridiculous law and scrapped it altogether.