February 8, 2011
The quest for marijuana legitimacy
I can’t shake the feeling that advocates of medicinal marijuana have much in common with the Church of the Universe. Both seek to take marijuana use mainstream by associating it with things that already have legitimacy: medicine and religion.
On Monday, an Ontario judge ruled against a bid by the Church of the Universe for an exemption from Canada’s pot laws on the grounds that the group uses the drug as a sacrament. It would be funny if it weren’t such a waste of the court’s time and taxpayers’ money.
I haven’t received much in the way of comments on this blog yet, but I did manage to elicit a couple when I described how marijuana is bad for you. There may indeed be chemical compounds in it that can be used to relieve pain, but until researchers find a way of extracting them and administering them to patients in a safe manner, marijuana is best avoided by people who value their health.
Supporters of medicinal marijuana and, to some extent, the Church of the Universe have to be given credit for making some headway in convincing Canadians that marijuana isn’t so bad after all. It seems we’ve reached a pointed where saying “marijuana is bad for you” in polite company can actually provoke gasps of disbelief.
How times have changed.