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Medical Green Makes Tories Blue
To a vast number of Canadians, the availability of medical cannabis to treat a range of ailments is a pharma-free blessing. To the federal government, today’s ruling against the Tories’ appeal to restrict that option is, put simply, a big damn buzzkill.
While Canada’s status as a weed haven includes government-sanctioned grow ops, the government has kept such operations in check by introducing legislation limiting the availability of the federal green to one patient at a time. Prairie Plant Systems, the Manitoba outfit tasked with producing, as critics allege, Health Canada’s ineffectual, skunky marijuana, is the only vendor for those without an exclusively dedicated grower—a proviso that means patients may as well be smoking oregano.
In January, Federal Court Justice Barry Strayer shot down the Health Canada regulation, declaring its limitations “unconstitutional.” A group of thirty pro-pot activists turned up at Osgoode Hall on Monday to support Strayer’s ruling, their lawyers confronting those of the government who, predictably, insist that such restrictions keep cannabis out of the hands of children, organized crime, Al-Qaeda, Satan, and a host of evil influences hell-bent on tearing apart the vulnerable fabric of Canadian society. Despite Strayer’s decision, the law of the land remained, pending today’s appeal.
Without the testimony of the assembled thirty, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled in favour of medical cannabis patients—an historic first. Relieved users will enjoy greater access to the cannabis of their choice, without worrying about being their source’s one and only market.
Photo by splifr.