PR: Re-evaluating our co-operation with the feds
CCC Press Release – February 18, 2000:
****FOR URGENT PRESS ATTENTION****
The Canadian Cannabis Coalition (CCC), a national organization dedicated to facilitating access to a clean, safe, supply of therapeutic cannabis, will be re-evaluating it’s unwritten policy of encouraging people to apply for section 56 exemptions to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in direct response to the government’s obvious mismanagement of the process.
The CCC is shocked that such gross government incompetence is being tolerated. The people being impacted by this leak are the ill and dying. The document in question was a list of section 56 exemption applicants; people hoping to be granted ministerial permission to grow or possess cannabis for medical purposes. Highly sensitive personal information is required for this bureaucratic process, and the government has demonstrated that it is unable to assure the level of privacy to which the applicants are entitled to under the law.
In the wake of the unfortunate raid on the Montreal compassion club and its members, Health Minister Rock opined that the better approach is, “that they (the sick) are given marijuana that is safe and clean from a government source.”
So far Health Canada has granted 20 Section 56 exemptions, but the government has yet to provide access to a safe supply of medicinal cannabis.
Presently there are compassion clubs across the country. They work independently (but in unity), with doctors, health practitioners, and lawyers. The purpose of these clubs is to ensure that medicine is available for those in need and can be procured within a safe, secure environment. The people providing and using these necessary health services should not penalized by this misapplication of Canada’s drug laws.
A 1999 survey conducted by Decima Research showed that 78% of Canadians support medicinal cannabis, yet clubs are still being shut down, and sick people are further threatened by the loss of health, privacy, and precious time.
The Canadian Cannabis Coalition believes that this is a health and welfare issue rather than a legal one; the sick and dying should not be used as pawns in Ottawa’s drug reform debate.
It’s time to have the government listen to the majority, let them hear your voice by contacting the following:
The Minister of Health, Allan Rock
Tunney’s Pasture,
Brooke Claxton Building
Postal Locator 0916A
Ottawa, On
K1A 0K9
Or
1-613-957-0200
Minister Rock’s Office
Or
rocka@parl.gc.ca
Or
Carol Bouchard
Manager of Controlled Substances (office dealing with section 56 applicants)
1-613-954-6540
1-613-952-2196 Fax
Voices in a choir,
The Canadian Cannabis Coalition