It was with habitual dismay I read the March 2nd comments by Member of Parliament Ed Fast regarding the recent green light given by the courts for people to grow medical marijuana in their homes.
A bit of history that should not be forgotten. Marijuana probably never would have begun being grown indoors, certainly not at the scale seen in the last few decades, if paraquat had not been sprayed on outdoor grown fields of the plant.
That was the beginning of the end of so-called war on drugs. The health scare faced by paraquat-tainted marijuana is what resulted in marijuana being grown in all our neighbourhoods. No one wanted outdoor grown marijuana anymore.
Ed Fast should think about things a bit more before he decides who is to blame for his concerns. People just like Ed Fast and their prohibitionist outlook were the people that brought indoor homegrown marijuana to your neighbourhood.
Moreover, I think it is past time the conservative aspects of our community (hello, city hall) embraced a future which includes marijuana and industrial hemp.
By turning our backs on this valuable crop, grown indoors or out, we are depriving our community of the biggest opportunity for economic growth to come along in quite some time. Our children deserve nothing less.
Randal Dillon