To James Orban,

RE: “What we know about marijuana” by Margret Kopala, The Ottawa
Citizen,

Saturday, May 31, 2008

This letter is not being submitted for publication in your pages, but
feel free to publish it if in whole or in part you choose…..

I would like to preface this complaint by stating clearly that I
adamantly respect everyone’s freedom of speech rights, and would stand up for
anyone’s right to hold and state their opinions, no matter how much I might
disagree with those opinions or how poorly researched they might be.

I hold as much disdain for censorship as any writer, but this isn’t
about censorship or opinions, it is about subjective opinions, vague notions,
and flimsy science being put forth as “truth”, and the incredibly negative
effect it has on society, and on us.

I would also like it noted that I respect the Citizen’s journalistic
record, and regard your paper as a quality publication. This is not a platitude
or a polite formality, it is meant to show you that I am not merely some
media-hating ranter who can only see my own side of things, or demands
that people succumb to my desires.

But in my opinion, and the opinion of many others across this country,
Margret Kopala has continually used junk science, vague,
quasi-moralistic ideological arguments, and easily dispelled myths as the “truth” on
which she bases her “opinion” articles. We have repeatedly sent her
information to show where she is wrong, in the hopes that she might modify her opinions
or at least temper them with some sort of journalistic balance and integrity.

This, it seems, she has chosen to ignore.

I hope you can agree that this is not acceptable, and I hope you can see
how it sullies your good reputation.

Granted, she is entitled to whatever outlandish and poorly considered
opinions she wants to hold, and is free to express them – on her own.

But when her opinions serve to foster discrimination against a certain group
of people – namely marijuana users and anti-prohibition activists like
ourselves – some serious considerations must be taken. The publishers
and editors are the people who are ultimately responsible for what reaches
the public, so that is why I am bringing the complaint to you directly.

My own Human Rights complaint against the Ontario government
notwithstanding, I don’t care much for official bodies telling me, the
media, or the public what is “acceptable” in public discourse. I would
sincerely like to avoid any “official” complaints processes against your
publication, (Press counsel, Human Rights, etc.) choosing instead to
open this friendly dialogue in an effort to resolve these issues amicably.

Calling in the “officials” usually just fosters more resentment between
the parties (and in the public eye), and causes the recipient of such
complaints to “dig in their heels” just for the sake of it. When all the dust
settles, neither party is pleased, there is much resentment on both sides, and if
one side does win, it is usually unfairly (in my view).

But when you publish Kopala’s articles, you are offering tacit approval
to her opinions. It says to readers “Well, we might not agree with her, but
we are going to let her say it anyway.” Fair enough, and I applaud this
open attitude. But when her words damage us as much as they do, they need to
be addressed. And there is damage, as I will explain later.

Perhaps I flatter her. I am assuming, possibly erroneously, that a lot
of people actually read her articles, respect her opinions, and that they
actually believe what she puts forth as “truth”. Considering that public
discourse on marijuana over the past 80+ years has consisted mostly of
balderdash, junk science, fear-mongering, ad-hominem arguments, and the
reiteration of “commonly held beliefs”, it is hardly surprising that
Kopala keeps doing it. It is far easier than actual research. Add in the
public’s diminished capacity for critical thinking, and it is a recipe for
problems.

If any other group were subjected to this level of discrimination, there
would be far more serious consequences. But because marijuana users -
medical and otherwise – are still considered perfectly acceptable
targets for public discrimination and suspicion, she manages to get away with
it. If we complain, we are dismissed. “Who cares what a bunch of pot-heads
think, right?” Who indeed. The Charter of Rights and the Supreme Court for
starters.

Examples from Kopola’s latetest:
“… Vancouver’s safe injection site, rather than legalized cannabis,
would be the Trojan Horse for the legalization of all addictive drugs…”

“Trojan Horse”. This implies, in no uncertain terms, that the idea of
“legalizing” drugs is some sort of evil “trick” that drug law reform
activists are trying to perpetrate upon the citizens of Canada. It
paints us as villains, instead of the dedicated, altruistic, community-minded
citizens that we are.

In reality, we are committed to reducing danger in our communities,
largely because we are the primary victims of crime, discrimination, and
law-enforcement issues that surround illegal drugs. We are also keen to
protect people’s rights – the rights of the drugs users as well as
society’s right to not have to deal with messy and expensive drug problems.

The idea of legalizing all drugs and regulating them for production and
sale to adults is supported by history and science. Yet drug prohibition (the
status quo), has proven wildly counterproductive, as pointed out in Dan
Gardner’s most recent article about drug policy on the same day as
Kopola’s article.

“Well, right there! That should be fair.” You might say. “Kopola has her
opinion, Gardner has his, and we published both. Fair and balanced.”

Hardly. Gardner bases his opinion articles on facts that are supported by
science and history, and which can be looked up. Kopola’s are not. She is using
misinformation that has been widely criticized – by many far more
learned people than me – as biased.

She goes on: “…no treatment of which I am aware uses the substance
that caused the problem to cure it. Smokers use nicotine gum, not more
cigarettes, to kick the habit, don’t steal to feed their habit and if
heroine and cocaine are so helpful, why aren’t doctors prescribing them
in pill form?”

They are. Drug maintenance programs have been used for decades around
the world, but this paragraph tells the reader that no such thing has ever
existed. In the late 1800’s (a period of time that social conservatives
like to refer to as “The good old days”) cocaine and heroin and cannabis were
all sold without prescriptions. Just because she has never heard of
something, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist, but the readers don’t know that.

Vagueness as fact.

I can only assume that having a global, digital, super-encyclopedia at
her fingertips is still too much of a deterrent to actual research for
Kopala, but that does not excuse the people in the editorial department in
charge of “fact checking”.

She goes on: “According to The Independent, research in the United
Kingdom of an estimated 500,000 cannabis addicts shows some 26,000 sought
treatment in 2006.”

“Cannabis addicts”. Subtle, when one considers that people can become
“addicted” to TV shows, video games, and chocolate. But once again, the
prohibitionist mindset and writing technique lumps marijuana in with
cocaine and heroin, when in reality, caffeine and video games have shown to be
even more difficult to kick than a marijuana habit. The mere use of the term
“cannabis addicts” paints all users as addicts, or on their way to an
inevitable addiction – to cannabis, and eventually hard drugs. That
includes me and my epileptic wife, who, I have no doubt, Kopala would gladly
refer to as “addicts”. We view this as perpetuating scientifically invalid
stereotypes, and using misinformation to do it.

“… a clear connection between cannabis use and psychosis.”
The “clear connection” to which she refers was merely a correlation, but
no cause has ever been found. The actual “studies” which she refers to even
mention this in their reports, but many writers, especially in the
wildly sensationalistic world of UK journalism, don’t bother to mention this.

Leaving out big chunks of information to forward your opinion (“cherry
picking”) is not journalism, it is propaganda. I am sure the UK is
really NOT the measure of “journalism” to which The Citizen wishes to be
compared.

Even Fox News seems fair and balanced by comparison.

She continues: “And while cannabis is addictive and its use commonly
precedes the use of hard drugs, the “gateway” theory, formerly
discredited, is now being scientifically verified.”

No it isn’t. There are some vague new factors that are being explored,
but for her to say that cannabis IS additive is as scientifically valid as
me saying categorically that it is NOT addictive. Since just about anything
can be habit forming, one cannot say for sure that cannabis IS or is NOT
“addictive”. Kopala makes no distinction, and the reader is left with
the idea that all cannabis use is addiction, and that all users are
suffering from some level of mental illness.

The “gateway theory” has been repeatedly debunked, and a casual glance
at history (or the 2002 Senate Committee Report) shows that the large
majority of marijuana users do NOT go on to harder drugs. If it were true that
marijuana use inevitably led to hard drugs, there would be many TIMES
more heroin and cocaine addicts in Canada. Even a ten-fold increase in hard
drug users would still represent only a fraction of the cannabis users in
Canada.

For example, the per capita marijuana use rate in Canada has nearly
quadrupled in the past two decades, but the per capita use of hard drugs
has remained about the same. Meanwhile, the psychosis and schizophrenia
rates that Kopala tries to worry her readers about, has remained roughly the
same.

” ….the British government recently made cannabis possession
punishable by up to five years in prison.” Kopala puts this statement forth as if it
were a wise idea based on solid science, but the UK’s new classification of
cannabis is no more wise now than it was decades ago.

I am sure Kopala would agree that her articles about marijuana have an
agenda, even if it is half-hearted and softly delivered. The message
from her article is clear: “Marijuana is bad, and the best way to reduce
danger is to keep prohibition in place, or increase it, like the UK has.”

This is nonsense, of course. Not because I don’t agree with her, but
because science, history, and common sense don’t agree with her.

I would be troubled to think that this is how you wish your paper to be
regarded. She is, to my mind, exhibiting a level of journalistic
integrity that any high school would be ashamed to print. I would say that these
articles belong on the windshields of cars, not on the pages of a
respectable newspaper. Your readers – and everyone who works for the
Citizen – deserve better.

Okay, so I am not an “expert”, as such. I am a disabled man “with no
letters after my name”, struggling to survive in a society that seems bent on
usurping my rights, so maybe I am a bit biased. I am also a daily
cannabis user who has experienced significant improvements in my health through
the use of cannabis, so that might, in your eyes, skew my opinion even more.

So don’t listen to me. Look it up for yourself. Consult with Dan
Gardner, or Eugene Oscapella, or Alan Young, or any of the other learned and
well-heeled drug policy analysts and experts in Canada. I am sure they would agree
more with my position than with Kopala’s.

Now, as for the discrimination factor:

When race groups, religious groups, gay rights groups, or disabled
groups see articles or comments in the media that they find offensive or
damaging to their groups’ way of life, they complain. When they hear government
or law-enforcement officials using inflammatory or derisive language, they
complain.

Anytime someone incites hate, violence, discrimination, or alienation of
an identifiable group, it is often referred to as “Hate Speech”. As a
result, many insulting and insensitive words and turns of phrase that were once
commonplace in media, entertainment, and in print, are no longer acceptable.

This, I applaud.

Many people think that, because marijuana is more or less illegal, it is
perfectly acceptable to make fun of us, lie about us, exaggerate and
hyperbolize, discriminate against us, and make calls to round us all up
and throw away the key. We are persecuted, jailed, separated from our
families, and forced to endure financial difficulties, all because of a choice (or
necessity) of medicine or relaxation.

These same sorts of dehumanizing tactics have been used against races,
religions, homosexuals, and immigrants in the past, and the damage has
been extensive. There was a time when the “commonly held belief” that women
were inferior to men was taken as fact. There was no valid science to support
this, but as recently as the 1970’s, eye-rolling jokes about “women’s
liberation” were still common. Now, a simple joke about “women drivers”
could have someone dragged before a Human Rights Tribunal. This, I do
NOT applaud! Watching Ezra Levant and Mark Stein’s cases are deeply
disconcerting.

However, millions of people use cannabis in Canada. Hundreds of
thousands do so for medical reasons, even if they are reluctant to admit it. A little
more than twenty six hundred have licences from Health Canada to use and
even grow this medicine.

Medical Marijuana users in Canada have a Charter Right to use cannabis
as medicine, and as such, have a Charter Right to not be discriminated
against for doing so. We are not getting high – we are trying to stay alive.

Repeated government, police, and media rhetoric, exaggeration, and
hyperbole about marijuana’s potency and effects (most of which is based on
scientifically inaccurate information), damages us socially,
economically, physically, spiritually, and mentally. It makes it more difficult for
many of us to get work, maintain our health, maintain friendships and family
relations, feel safe in our homes and communities, and access community
services. We are shunned, ostracized, and ridiculed.

Words like “stoner”, “pot-head”, and “druggies” offend us deeply, as it
dehumanizes and subjugates us. It categorizes us, in the public mind, as
no better than a “hopeless addict” living on the street.

We applaud anyone’s sincere efforts to reduce drug use in our society.
But history and science indicate that lying, exaggerating, cajoling, and
bullying the public into not using drugs – usually for quasi-moralistic
reasons – is counterproductive and damaging.

The creation of this group (Patients Against Ignorance and
Discrimination on Cannabis, which is basically a Facebook group) was prompted by Mark
Bonokoski’s article which appeared in the Fri, August 24, 2007 edition
of the Toronto Sun, entitled: “Having sampled the marijuana of today -
purely for journalistic reasons — I realize how powerful the stuff is compared
to the hippy-dippy ’60s”

This article, we felt, was so full of scientifically inaccurate
balderdash and, what we consider deliberate discrimination against marijuana users,

that were were forced to complain to the Ontario Press Council. It went
no where, naturally. Little surprise there.

PAIDOC’s mission is to draw attention to every occurrence of this type
of discrimination and misinformation, and when possible, to take action.
Marijuana users, medical and otherwise, contribute widely to this
society at all levels, and we deserve and demand the same respect as everyone else.

We should accept nothing less that equal treatment.

I would like to note that humorous, well-intentioned comments about
“munchies” and short term memory loss and so on, will be considered on a

case to case basis. We DO have a sense of humour, after all, and we are
quiet flexible. We make plenty of jokes about it ourselves, just as
Chris Rock might make jokes about race issues.

But the line in the sand is now clearly drawn, and we intend to address
anything that we deem as damaging or deliberately disparaging. We would
much rather have a civilized debate about this issue, but articles like
Kopala’s make it increasingly difficult. Her actions have continued, despite our
numerous complaints and requests, so one can only assume that it is
deliberate.

If she were to actually address the information that counters her
opinions, consider it, and then still held those opinions, I would have less
reason to complain. But she omits information and misrepresents science in an
effort to forward that opinion, and that is not acceptable.

To resolve this issue, I might respectfully suggest that you start a
half-million-word debate on the pages of your publication, giving a
thorough and fair examination of both sides of the issue of drug prohibition, and
let the public figure it out for themselves. Kopala vs Gardner. Fact vs
fact. Opinion vs opinion. Then let an informed public decide.

Please phone me at your convenience so that we might delineate this issue.

Sincerely,

Russell Barth
Federal Medical Marijuana License Holder
Patients Against Ignorance and Discrimination on Cannabis
(PAIDOC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCdNX_k71iw
www.rata.ca/paidoc.html

PS: Recent science out of Germany shows how cannabinoids stimulate the
body’s production of TIMP-1, which helps healthy cells resist cancer
invasion.

www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20071226/pot-slows-cancer-in-test-tube

This might explain why chronic pot smokers have lower – not higher -
rates of cancer than tobacco smokers (as a recent California study showed).

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Here is what he sent back:

Russell, thanks for the note and there is no need for us to discuss
further. You and others have made your point abundantly clear. Thanks,
Jim

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