Certain services do not run at a profit.
We don't see schools turned into little widget factories with children bellying up to a conveyor belt. We don't have tollbooths every 10 miles for the few who can afford to use roadways. Police and firefighters don't review a person's credit rating before coming in for the rescue. And, at least for the time being, it doesn't matter what kind of cash a person has in his pocket - he's entitled to medical attention.
But handed over to certain people, all these services and more could potentially be exploited for dollars. Is that the right way to go? Canadians near-unanimously say "No."
That's because there's a compassionate streak in our society that says we should take care of our most vulnerable - lest that next vulnerable person be you or someone you love.
But the federal government's plan to ban personal medical marijuana cultivation and hand it all over to commercial interests goes against this Canadian value.
Marijuana has been used for several thousands of years for medical reasons. Its benefits include increased appetite and sleep, as well as almost immediate pain reduction.
Marijuana can treat people with HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, spinal-cord injuries, seizures and muscle spasms. They express profound relief thanks to medical doses of marijuana.
New regulations will severely undermine these patients' ability to access the product, and in many cases eliminate it altogether.
Under the new proposed system, individuals will have to purchase product from a corporate grower via registered mail at their retail price - that's potentially hundreds of dollars a day in new medication bills.
Health Canada is tasked first and foremost with taking care of the sick and suffering, yet it's not even talking about the detrimental effect these new rules will have on the 10,000 people registered in the program. Why?
Commercializing marijuana cultivation is an extreme reaction to the relatively small subset of people who abuse their privileges and grow more than their license allows.
Imagine if the government responded to license abuse in other industries with such gusto.
How many police officers have been found to abuse their power? Imagine handing over the dear old Mounties to commercial interests.
Ridiculous. We can go into the many reasons that's a dreadful idea - but save us the trouble and look up one of the scary movies with commercial police forces as its plot.
There should simply be adequate checks and balances in place to ensure licenses aren't abused - as is done with childcare licenses, medical practice licenses, teaching licenses and so on. And the notion that it's impossible to keep track of them all is nonsense.
There are a grand total of 29 licenses in Prince George. And for some reason, it was a hard-fought battle to get that information - Health Canada's initial refusal to give us a figure was accompanied by some foggy notion of "privacy" rules. Then a successful Freedom Of Information request proved that need for secrecy wasn't quite the case.
Can anyone be blamed for believing this decision is more political than practical?
-- Prince George Citizen
