Harm Reduction Reality Check

If you find yourself standing anywhere in Canada right now with a doobie in your hand, you are immediately considered a criminal by law enforcement.  Remember the old adage "innocent until proven guilty"?  It doesn't apply to you in this situation.

The doobie in your hand may not even be lit.  But you're a criminal.
The doobie in your hand may be filled with plant material grown by a white-coat in one of the fifteen factories across Canada.  But you're still a criminal.

You may even have the required paperwork and the prescription bottle in which the plant was shipped from factory in your pocket or purse, and you're still considered a criminal.

Too pessimistic?  I wish.

It's a funny country we live in right now, as taxes are collected from the sale of merchandise in which we ALL know Cannabis is ingested, yet you're still a criminal if you get caught in public with it.

Oh yes ... silly me.  I forget about the 40,000+ legal MMAR and MMPR patients in Canada.  I mean, it's a legal program, how can they be considered criminals?

I'll tell you how, by not educating law enforcement on this Government run program, that's how.

It must suck to be law enforcement these days.  Especially if you have access to the internet.   Evidence of the safe, medicinal, and yes, life-saving effects of Cannabis are everywhere.  Clinical and anecdotal.  So how could you be the person who's job it is, to bust down doors in search of weed, after you've read about its seizure-stopping abilities?

I guess to pay your rent right?

We all do what we must.

But when does reality click in?  I mean, Marijuana is safer than any other recreational substance going around any Canadian streets~ coffee included ~depending on how you ingest it.  Not only that, but it's "strongest" varieties are the ones that lock you down to the couch, remote in hand, perma-grinned and hungry!  What's the harm in that?

Everywhere I look these days, my fellow Canadians are suffering from addictions.  Whether they're a university or college student or somebody's retired Gramma ... there's a chance there's vodka in that cup they're holding.

And so you say, "but is a stoned student or gramma really better than a drunk one?".

Well, you tell me.  No I'm not a student or a gramma, but I'll be heading downtown soon to run an errand.  When you see me, I won't be drunk or high. I will though be medicated.  My medication being Cannabis Sativa or Indica.  If I make eye contact with you, smile at you, or speak to you, it's because my antidepressant is working.

Some take a pill ... others ingest a plant.

I think we need a reality check on what's more harmful:

Plants, Pills, or Booze?