BPF Submission to Heath Canada on MMAR Changes

Submitted by Kirk Tousaw on Tue, 08/02/2011 - 11:36am
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SUBMISSION OF THE BEYOND PROHIBITION FOUNDATION IN RESPONSE TO PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS TO HEALTH CANADA’S MARIHUANA MEDICAL ACCESS PROGRAM

INTRODUCTION

The Beyond Prohibition Foundation was established in 2010 to advocate for the repeal of cannabis prohibition and its replacement with a system of regulated production and distribution.  It operates the website www.whyprohibition.ca, Canada's largest dedicated drug policy reform website and host to more than 30,000 members.  The Foundation's mission includes advocacy on behalf of safe access to medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts for those obtaining therapeutic and medicinal benefit.

This submission responds to Health Canada's consultation document titled "Proposed Improvements to Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Program" (the "Consultation Document").  In the Consultation Document, Health Canada foreshadows significant changes to Canada's medical cannabis policies.  The Foundation welcomes Health Canada's tacit acknowledgement that the current Marihuana Medical Access Regulation (MMAR) system is deeply flawed and in need of significant reform.  That reform is necessary in two primary areas:  (1) the need to improve access to the legal protections afforded by the legislative and regulatory scheme; and (2) the need to provide consumers with safe access to an effective supply of medicinal cannabis and cannabis byproducts.  This submission lays out the Foundation's view of the proposed changes and offers suggestions for making necessary improvements to the federal program.
Unknown Object Read more »

Form letter: Regarding Proposed Restrictions to Health Canada's Medical Marijuana Program

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 07/07/2011 - 7:31pm
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Sign the petition and make your voice heard at Health Canada!

I am deeply concerned about the response by Health Canada to the various court decisions declaring its existing medical marijuana program unconstitutional. The proposals that have been brought forward fail to deal with the myriad of problems in the program. Specifically, I take issue with the following proposals:

Physician as “Gatekeeper”:
R v Mernagh found that physicians in Canada have effectively boycotted the existing medical marijuana program, and therefore the program itself was unconstitutional. Health Canada's response does nothing to address this boycott beyond the promise of making information accessible to physicians. Any changes to the Health Canada medical marijuana program must abide by the findings in R v Mernagh and meaningfully expand the “Gatekeeper” role beyond physicians, preferably to include Naturopaths, Nurse Practitioners, Doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacists.

Personal and Designated Production:
Individuals have spent thousands of dollars and often years of time setting up production facilities and finding appropriate marijuana cultivars (strains) for their condition. Court cases including Sfetkopolous, Beren and Hitzig have found that denying production licenses on arbitrary grounds violates a patient's constitutional rights to access medical marijuana. Read more »

Download almost 1000 Peer Reviewed Research Articles and Reports on Drug Policy Reform and More!

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Mon, 12/13/2010 - 2:20pm
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This comprehensive (and amazing) collection of references includes the following categories of papers:
 
Alcohol harm reduction
Cannabis
Drug Education / prevention
Drug policy documents - the need for change
Drug policy history
Economic issues
Entheogens and psychedelics
Health and social consequences of drug prohibition
Incarceration
Needle Exchange
Policing and drug law enforcement
Positive or non problematic relationships with drugs
Post prohibition options
PowerPoint presentations
Ranking of drug harms
Science is trumped by ideology
Sex trade work
Supervised injection facilities
United Nations and human rights
Violence and drugs
 
The download time is approx 10 minutes and the file you receive will need to be unzipped. Read more »

Get Involved! Help Defeat Prohibition

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 01/01/2009 - 12:00am
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We need to get a lot of work done to legalize marijuana, here's some ways to help!
 
Get active helping build activism in Canada!
 
May 5, 2012 is the Global Marijuana March, and of course there is always 4/20 (April 20) and Cannabis Day, July 1. We need organizers working across Canada on these and other events.
 
Send that link out over Facebook and Twitter, encourage your friends to sign up! WhyProhibition.ca will is the basis for a number of important campaigns, including a new BC referendum to legalize Marijuana. We need people to register so they can find out about upcoming protests, rallies, and laws.
 
We need bloggers, researchers, newshawks, and activists to get posting! You can use the userblogs section to post blogs, news, upload files (especially pamphlets, we're looking to host as many drug policy pamphlets as we can find!)
 
One of the most important things you can do is get involved in your local community. Join other activist groups, volunteer at soup kitchens, march in local parades. When we get involved, not only do we reach out to potential allies, but we also represent the best of our community to people who may be unfamiliar with it. If you're unsure about a group, attend some meetings and see if they're amenable to drug policy reform.
 

Treat addiction as a disease, MDs tell Victoria

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 7:55am

B.C. doctors are calling for the provincial government to formally recognize addiction as a chronic disease — and provide public funding to deal with it.

The call comes in a report being released today by the B.C. Medical Association that says more than 400,000 British Columbians suffer from some form of addiction.

These people are struggling to get help when they need it, the report says, because of a lack of resources or the high cost of treatment. This in turn puts strains on emergency departments, workplaces and families.

“For many years, addiction was seen as a personal failure rather than an illness,” said Dr. Shao-Hua Lu, an addictions psychiatrist. “One tends to focus on the terrible losses in the Downtown Eastside, but in terms of overall cost, alcohol, gambling and tobacco probably costs society much more.” Read more »

On the world stage, it's the Regressive Conservatives

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 7:40am

Stephen Harper has been taking a lot of flack from his right-wing base. The red-meat eaters say he's a lousy excuse for a conservative. But, on this one, the base is off-base. On fiscal matters, the Prime Minister may have demonstrated a liberal side. In these tottering times, most every leader is doing that.

But look at the other indicators. Check the law-and-order fixation, the leisurely approach to the green file. And look at the record on foreign policy – Mr. Harper has surely earned his hard-line stripes. Previous Conservative governments showed some progressive strains abroad. Not these Regressive Conservatives. With Russia, with China, in the Middle East, they harbour old confrontational attitudes. There's no new outreach as there is in Washington, no new thinking for new times. Read more »

Medical Marijuana Bill Passes New Hampshire House, 234-138

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 7:36am

CONCORD, NEW HAMPSHIRE — The New Hampshire House passed a bill today, 234-138, that would allow seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana if their doctor recommends it – a first for either chamber of the state's legislature.

Now that the bill – HB 648, sponsored by Evalyn Merrick (D-Lancaster) – has cleared the House, patients and advocates are calling on the Senate to pass it and send it to Gov. John Lynch to make it law without delay. Read more »

Clinton: U.S. also to blame for Mexican drug violence

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 7:35am

By Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers Warren P. Strobel, Mcclatchy Newspapers Wed Mar 25, 3:34 pm ET

MEXICO CITY — The United States is at least as responsible as Mexico for the violent drug wars that are roiling its southern neighbor because of an insatiable U.S. market for narcotics, the failure to stop weapons smuggling southward and a three-decade "war" on drugs that "has not worked," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday.

"Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade. Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians," Clinton said.

"How could anyone conclude any differently? . . . I feel very strongly we have co-responsibility," she said. Read more »

Government steals family's home for growing

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 7:57pm
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By Ellis Worthington

It makes perfect sense that an unemployed, elderly, disabled, unskilled general labourer would resort to growing an illegal flower instead of collecting a welfare cheque. A lot of people, especially elderly Asians like Tam Ngoc Tran, value family and honour. They consider collecting welfare very dishonorable, and they won't be able to take care of their family.

These outdated laws against flowers are destroying Canadian families, as evidenced by Mr. Tran's eldest daughter's testimony in court, according to the Toronto Star: "The family has gone through "torture" during the last two years while this has been before the courts, she testified."

The "torture" only happened when they were being ground up by the cruel machinery of the Canadian legal system, not when Mr. Tran was growing harmless flowers. Read more »

Shit or Get Off the Pot

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Wed, 03/25/2009 - 6:20pm

the Stranger

March 24, 2009

The Time to Decriminalize Marijuana Is Now

by Dominic Holden

Jeffrey Steinborn, Seattle's leading pot-defense attorney, was sitting at his desk overlooking Elliott Bay in early March when a client in his mid-30s walked into the office. The man had recently been convicted of possessing pot for personal use. "He went up to this place north of Seattle where they have this shelter full of abused puppies they are trying to get rid of," Steinborn says. "They wouldn't give him a puppy. They turned him down for a pot conviction."

Translation: Pot smoking is so wicked, according to current law, that the state even punishes puppies when humans do it. Read more »

Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 12:03pm

* Story Highlights
* Jeffrey Miron: Thousands have been killed in Mexico's ongoing drug war
* He says U.S. drug policy leads to corruption of politicians and law enforcement
* Miron: Legalizing drugs is the best way to reduce drug violence
* He says drugs should be controlled through regulation and taxation

By Jeffrey A. Miron
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Jeffrey A. Miron is senior lecturer in economics at Harvard University.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.

Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs." Read more »

video: 

Community Policing Defines Nominee to Lead Drug Office

Submitted by Ellis Worthington on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 11:53am
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As Seattle Police Chief, Kerlikowske Is Known for Pragmatism

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; A03

Ten months after R. Gil Kerlikowske became Seattle's police chief, two of his officers arrived at the home of JoAnna McKee, where she ran a co-op giving medical marijuana to patients and teaching them to grow their own. Neighbors, the police told her, had been complaining. Soon, a "cease and desist" order was tacked to her door. Read more »

Managing the addiction

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 10:29am

By Elizabeth Payne, The Windsor Star March 24, 2009

Every day, in the shadow of Parliament Hill, 30 homeless alcoholics are fed, housed and served drinks, each hour on the hour, between early morning and evening.

That this "managed alcohol" program run by Ottawa's Inner City Health Inc. in the ByWard Market, is effective, is beyond dispute. For one thing, it has saved the local health care system in the neighbourhood of $3.5 million by reducing or eliminating its clients' frequent visits to hospital emergency rooms.

For another, it has dramatically improved the quality of life for a group of people many would view as beyond hope. What is remarkable is not so much that the program works, but that it is able to run relatively free of major controversy or political interference. Substitute 30 crack addicts for the homeless alcoholics, and it would be a different story. Read more »

Scientific evidence mounts contradicting Conservative’s efforts against harm reduction

Submitted by Jacob Hunter on Tue, 03/24/2009 - 10:28am

By M.J. Milloy and Evan Wood

In the wake of the release of a scathing report from international experts declaring their efforts to create a “drug free world” a failure, diplomats from 53 countries including Canada gathered in Vienna, Austria last weekend to plan the next campaign in the so-called war on drugs.

Officially assembled to review the United Nation’s progress towards its 1998 goal of a drug-free world within a decade, the envoys to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs were faced with inconvenient truths in the form of expert data showing that illicit drugs—including cocaine, heroin, and cannabis—are now cheaper and no harder to get despite the untold trillions of dollars spent on drug prohibition and demand reduction. Read more »