Twyman, who has grown pot legally for almost six years, said
officials at Health Canada had been proactive and positive in the early
years of Canada's medicinal marijuana program, and had worked to make
the system effective and efficient for licensed pot smokers that had
acknowledged medical conditions.
He said that began to change shortly after Stephen Harper and his
Conservatives took power in 2006, but he acknowledges that there's more
to the problem.
Twyman said the government has cut staff at Health Canada and
dramatically increased the amount of bureaucracy people have to go
through to attain licences to legally smoke and/or grow the
controversial herb.
Calls to Health Canada and Nanaimo-Alberni MP James Lunney were not
returned by press time.
"Everything we had is slowly being taken away from us," Twyman said
Tuesday.
"If medicinal marijuana users can't legally get it from the government
and are no longer able to grow their own, they will have to break the
law and grow their plants or they will be forced to buy it from
criminals on the streets."
Unlike many pot advocates who call for the immediate decriminalization
of marijuana, Twyman said a lot more research should be conducted on the
drug before any decisions are made on the future of pot in Canada.
"There are 67 active components to pot and we only know about 12 of them
so far," he said.
"The government hasn't done enough research into pot to be so negative
about it."
Twyman is also critical of Marc Emery, the self-described Canadian
prince of pot, and his campaign for legalization. Emery is serving a
five-year sentence in a United States federal prison for selling
cannabis seeds.
"Emery's strategy was to bombard Health Canada with thousands of
applications to grow pot in the medicinal marijuana program in an effort
to have the government just legalize it, but it backfired," Twyman said.
"The system became so jammed up with new applications that it has harmed
all of us who rely on the program to allow us to have healthier and
happier lives. It now takes about a month to have a phone call returned
from Health Canada when it used to take about a day."
RBarron@nanaimodailynews.com 250-729-4234
Bibliography -
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