RE Jon Ferry, Province Aug 7

Jon:

You are right that ad hominem attacks are not exactly the most convincing form of argumentation. That said, Health Canada deserves every bit of the scorn heaped on it by Mr. Emery. Its medical cannabis program is a nightmare of bureaucratic inefficiency and callousness, marked by hysterical and unfounded fears and an intentional refusal to make the program workable. I work for many medical cannabis users and the nightmare stories I hear on an almost daily basis cause me to agree, mostly, with Mr. Emery description of that particular government institution.

I have read the study, scientific jargon and all, and I must say that the conclusions actually reached do not fully match the headlines and descriptions used in the press. Of course, that is a common failing of journalism - call it the flip side of ad hominem - making sensational copy at the expense of actual facts.

A final point: Mr. Emery's other comments (that if cannabis really did cause cell damage and DNA mutation we would expect to see some effects in the population given the widespread and long-term use of the plant in our society) were spot on. By way of example, it has long been said that cannabis use can cause or precipitate schizophrenia. But a recent long-term population based study in the UK demonstrated that as cannabis use rates rose dramatically over the past three decades there was no corresponding increase in cases of schizophrenia. The moral of the story seems to be that there is much we don't understand about this plant and that we need to be very cautious when ascribing dangers based on lab testing instead of actual effects on humans.

Best,

Kirk Tousaw
Executive Director
Beyond Prohibition Foundation