VIANARCHRIS
Well-Known Member
Here we go again. Predictions of doom and gloom and government conspiracy to deny cannabis patients their meds. The government could ignore the court order and reintroduce the mmpr, but the chances of them willingly wanting to go for round three are pretty slim. They could also ban land ownership and confiscate your property, or take your kids and put them in residential schools. It's happened before. Your theory of "just provide reasonable access" is flawed in a number of ways. The courts ruled on access...not costs. Unless the LP's are able to provide uninterrupted supplies of patient specific strains, one needs to grow their own. Next, they would have to convince voters that their tax dollars should go toward keeping cannabis patients in medicine, rather than wasting the money on schools and hospitals. Should be an easy sell.....we've seen the stories and complaints over the few million spent on Vets, your theory would raise that to hundreds of millions of provincial tax dollars every year. Never, ever going to happen, even in pot friendly BC.Only temporarily for now. We'll see what the government does with the new regs. They certainly do not have to allow us to grow. Just provide reasonable access, which the court may very well rule is covered as long as the government is more proactive in financing people who can't afford to pay on some level whether it's price controls or simply offering the medicine to low income folk are a lower cost... there are many ways to skin a cat here.
The government could hypothetically reintroduce the MMPR with a few modest changes and we're back in court fighting again with either of these options. And it might be a different judge and the result could be much different too.
The real point here is that through the jury system we have recourse against all bad law, at least that's the intent of the Magna Carta. We've tossed that aside in Canada by allowing the Crown to appeal guilty verdicts. It's the most powerful peaceful recourse we have against bad law. By far. Prosecutors are only told to prosecute based on probability of conviction. This is literally the criteria they use. If people aren't willing to convict then they have a real problem, except they can appeal to a higher court without a jury. They can appeal on the grounds of an unreasonable verdict, which is exactly the grounds they would use if a jury went not guilty on a guy who obviously was, in protest of the law.
Double Jeopardy is important. We don't really have it.
I'm not sure where you came up with this magna carta stuff, or how you think it is going to hurt us, but according to this article (http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/magna-carta/) it's alive and well. I honestly think you are being overly paranoid or overly dramatic...or both. Sure the gov can appeal a verdict...but so can the defendant. I's worked pretty well so far...
"(basically not allowing cannabis users to drive legally if Blair has his way". Another flawed and over dramatized statement, imo. Firstly, Blair does not and will not have the authority to pass law unilaterally. I agree some of the talk around driving is just ridiculous, but that's all it is...talk. Any law they introduce must respect our constitution and charter, or much like we've done for the last decade, we challenge it and force change. Only this time we have millions of Canadians demanding fairness and not just 40,000. 2) They've used roadside sobriety tests in BC for years to check impairment if they suspect cannabis use. If the person can walk the line and touch their nose, etc., they are free to carry on. It's happened to me and more recently, my son.
I'm not saying politicians are going to come up with great legislation for rec weed initially, but it will be a base we can work on to get to where we need to be. I don't expect there to be many surprises come August 24 for us patients. My garden ain't going anywhere.
I don't mean to sunshine on your rainy parade, but I'm just not seeing what you are.