cannabisnews.com: The Flin Flon Flip-Flop The Flin Flon Flip-Flop Posted by CN Staff on September 02, 2002 at 07:57:39 PT By Spider Robinson Source: Globe and Mail Recently I went in hospital for a test that required injecting me with a radioactive drug. I told them, as I always do, that drugs invariably hit me harder than most people, and they nodded and shot me up with the standard dose, as always, and I vomited nonstop for the next eight hours. One of these days I'll write a column exploring why donning a white uniform induces deafness -- but not today. This column's about what they did for my nausea that day -- which was nothing. They shot me up with four successive drugs, starting with Gravol (a standard dose) and working up to the mightiest antinausea drug in the pharmacopoeia, without effect. I retched continuously until it was simply not possible for my stomach to clench any more; then, thank God, I was able to persuade them to stop helping me, and let me go. My problem soon vanished. The impulse to vomit uncontrollably only returned today, when I sniffed the latest mound of media manure from Health Minister Anne McLellan.There's a memorable moment in Casablanca when Claude Rains, as Captain Reynaud, calls down a raid on Rick's Place, announcing, "I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to find that gambling is going on here." What makes the line immortal is that, as it leaves his lips, he's accepting his winnings. Total, bald hypocrisy, naked as a kick in the groin.In that precise spirit, I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that Ms. McLellan is a typical contemporary Canadian politician. That is, a protean pile of adjustable principles prepared to call excrement strawberry jam, if the alternative is to risk offending a trigger-happy Texan.Her bashful confession that the Manitoba Marijuana Mine she's been overseeing in Flim Flam . . . excuse me, Flin Flon, has really been a $6-million dribble-glass joke, and the recent police persecutions of Compassion Clubs in Ontario, demonstrate that her government has sold out every suffering citizen who believed they could look to it for relief from nausea, pain, or other debilitating symptoms.If you believed two years of promises that medical marijuana would soon be made available to sick people who need it desperately . . . what have you been smoking? The cowboy bootlickers we allow to pick our pockets have already made it clear they feel little obligation to provide more than Third World medical care for any of us, so why would they make an exception for troublemakers antisocial enough to acquire diseases that require Ottawa to grow a conscience?What they meant by the best possible medicine was, the best medicine Dubya says we can have.You'll also be stunned to learn Ms. McLellan's been able to find a few doctors either shameless enough to pretend to believe, or perhaps dimwitted enough to actually believe, her "further clinical trials are needed" nonsense -- just as if marijuana's safety and efficacy have not been known for over a century, established repeatedly in every reputable study from the LaGuardia commission in the United States and the LeDain report in Canada to the most recent reports on the subject from World Health Organization or Harvard.Dr. Raju Hajela of Kingston, for instance, told The Globe and Mail "a single joint is as harmful as 10 cigarettes," which is preposterous. Fortunately, for anyone with interest, Internet access can find the true facts effortlessly, as former health minister Allan Rock did. (Try it yourself -- please!)The Globe has also reported on Alison Myrden of Burlington, Ont., one of 806 registered sufferers who've been jerked around by their alleged representatives for the last two years. She now knows "bureaucratic compassion" is an oxymoron, like "ministerial honour." For the rest of her life, according to Dr. Hajela and Ms. McLellan, she'll be much healthier downing 32 pills and 600 milligrams of morphine a day for her MS than she would have been if she'd been able to use a few natural flowers without fear of arrest.There was a time when this country had the guts to tell America to go to hell when it was dead wrong. Back in the 1960s, we were led by a man who actually had the stones to tell the United States that any of its children who had a problem with being forced to murder strangers in Asia were welcome here. Canada gained immeasurably thereby: in prestige, in pride, and in immigrants who've made a powerful positive contribution ever since.Today America tolerates, like a cancer on its heart, a cult of armed hypocrites who pretend to believe marijuana is a dangerous drug like heroin, PCP or crack, and who on the basis of that outrageous lie have imprisoned not tens, but hundreds of thousands of decent people for possession of a plant that causes laughter . . . and incidentally assured themselves steady income and low-risk thrills. In God's name, why are we enabling these foreign parasites -- at the cost of torturing our own citizens? Why not align ourselves with societies with rational marijuana policies, such as the Netherlands, England, or Portugal?How long will we go on like this, spending money we can't afford to pay armed bullies to persecute our own young people for giggling too much, and our infirm and elderly for seeking relief from chronic misery? It's not the money I mind so much -- it's the minutes. Horrid minutes of churning awfulness, that will seem to last a million years each, to every poor nauseous patient who has to rely on the current government for compassion. Every day that it remains illegal here to supply pot to sick people legally entitled to smoke it, this nation is in disgrace.There's nothing nobler than alleviating suffering. And nothing wickeder than failing to, out of cowardice or ignorance or expediency. Note: Anne McLellan's reversal on support for medicinal marijuana should make Canadians sick.B.C. writer Spider Robinson can be contacted at: http://www.spiderrobinson.com Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)Author: Spider RobinsonPublished: Monday, September 2, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A13Copyright: 2002 The Globe and Mail CompanyContact: letters globeandmail.caWebsite: http://www.globeandmail.ca/Related Articles & Web Site:Prairie Planet Systemhttp://www.prairieplant.com/home.htmWhere There's Smokehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13920.shtmlSmoke Out the Politicianshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13880.shtmlHow To Stall On Medicinal Marijuanahttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13823.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #11 posted by kaptinemo on September 03, 2002 at 07:12:01 PT: I've read Robinson's works for years and have always delighted in his deftly skerwering pomposity whenever it raises it's scruffulous head. His "Callahan's Saloon" stories and novels are a paean to libertarianism with a lower case "l", where the people - human and otherwise - get along by putting those principles in action, helping each other, and standing against evil (human and otherwise) from the most mundane mendaciousness of bureaucrats and low-level heroin dealers to God-awful world-killing nasties.If you've got some time, like to laugh, can appreciate irony and double-entendres, and have no patience for officiousness, you might check him out. I believe you'll find him well worth it. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by FoM on September 02, 2002 at 21:33:49 PT Can a Person Love a Newspaper? I'm kidding but I think the way that the Globe and Mail has done stories on the marijuana issue is to be commended. Great job Globe and Mail and all the great writers that have brought such excellent news to all of us. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by tlspn on September 02, 2002 at 18:06:24 PT: Wow!!! This is a stinging indictment by Spider Robinson against Health Minister Anne McLellan.I agree with Sam Adams that very few publishers in the U.S.A. would have the courage to print a story like this. Let's hope it starts a trend toward more honest reporting about cannabis.The Globe and Mail deserves kudos for printing this.t [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on September 02, 2002 at 10:32:04 PT OT: Three doctors say risks of Ecstasy exaggerated Don't know if this has been spotted elsewhere on C-News yet. The doctors aren't saying it is harmless, just that there seems to be a bias to the research which means that only the negative stuff gets the press, and it gets overblown. Gee, docs, I think that happens more or less to every drug ever prohibited. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,784711,00.html [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by CorvallisEric on September 02, 2002 at 10:06:54 PT Personal note to Cannabis Man I like your sense of humor (I'll take the Durban), so I hope you were only kidding yesterday when you said: The easiest way I could change that around is to give her ganja brownies to eat not telling her they were laced with cannabis. But Im not sure if Im ready to do that as it might make her angry at me or something. Medicating someone else without their knowledge and consent is dangerous and just simply wrong. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on September 02, 2002 at 09:00:53 PT CannabisMan Thanks for explaining but when you put in Copyright Associated Press that is something that shouldn't be done. Copyright lawyers watch this site so we must be careful. Thanks! [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by CannabisMan on September 02, 2002 at 08:57:24 PT: *I* am going to do this (made up the article) I am emailing some wealthy people such as George Soros right now who are going to help me do this since I currently dont have much money.Once I do it, others will follow.Fuck the War on Pot. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by FoM on September 02, 2002 at 08:35:47 PT CannabisMan Where did you find this article? Would you post the link so I can check it out. Thanks! [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by CannabisMan on September 02, 2002 at 08:32:56 PT: Amsterdam style coffee shop to open in Las Vegas LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A local man from Henderson, Nevada is set to open the first Amsterdam style coffee shop in downtown Las Vegas on Monday. The shop will feature 5 live cannabis plants growing in full view under High-Pressure-Sodium lighting. The coffee shop will sell up to 3.5 grams of cannabis to customers at a time. Strains of cannabis to be sold will include the following:-- Pure Sativa --* Durban Poison-- Pure Indica --* Afghani #1* Hash Plant* Mr. Nice (G-13 x Hash Plant)* Northern Lights-- Indica/Sativa hybrid --* White WidowWhen asked why the man has set to open the coffee shop he replied, "It is time that America get with the times and follow the Netherlands' drug policy. We can jail peaceful pot smokers no more. We must fight the system directly with open protests such as mine."(c) Associated Press, 2002 [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on September 02, 2002 at 08:22:12 PT What a great paper! This stuff would NEVER get printed, even on the op-ed page, of any American newspaper. Spider is my hero - I like the line have having the "stones" to stand up to Dubya! The truth, for once. Have you guys been following the world summit in South Africa? The US and the Vatican have been working together to keep population control/family planning type issues off the agenda...and Canada is the country that keeps putting them back on! Chretien has also committed to signing the Kyoto treaty!The US stand on family planning stuff is disgraceful. I never wanted to live in a fundamentalist religious state. Canada is looking better and better. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by p4me on September 02, 2002 at 08:10:46 PT Right on Spider I say the guy was speaking from the heart in his article which eliminates the dishonesty contained in most articles. 1,2 [ Post Comment ] Post Comment