OTTAWA — The military may strictly forbid marijuana use by its soldiers, but the federal government has decided to pay for medical cannabis for some veterans.

Veterans Affairs has reversed a previous ban, now saying it “may provide payment in relation to the associated costs of medically required marijuana to clients who have qualified.”

Payments can be made only to veterans licensed by Health Canada to possess medical marijuana, and who buy government-certified cannabis produced on contract by a firm in Flin Flon, Manitoba.

The policy change was approved last October, but is only now being communicated to veterans who require the product for pain management and other severe medical conditions.

About eight veterans licensed by Health Canada are having their medical marijuana bills picked up by taxpayers, said Janice Summerby, spokeswoman for Veterans Affairs.

Wow, a large North American country with legal medical marijuana coast to coast, extending their government-paid Universal Health Care coverage to pay for marijuana!  How are the Canadians dealing with the inevitable socialism and teenage heroin addiction that’s sure to result?

Ted Kindos, of Gator Ted’s Tap and Grill, has filed a federal court application asking that people permitted by Ottawa to use marijuana for health reasons remain subject to provincial laws. He wants the court to declare he doesn’t have to serve such users when doing so would violate the Ontario Liquor Licence Act, putting him at risk of losing his business. The act says he can’t serve anyone possessing a banned substance.

“You can’t put somebody above the liquor licence act – that’s ridiculous,” Kindos said yesterday of an Ontario Human Rights Commission ruling against him last year, saying a disabled person has a right to be served even if doing so breaks provincial laws.

Last month, Ontario Government Services Minister Ted McMeekin sought to clarify rules on prescribed marijuana use, asking federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq for a meeting on the issue. Four years ago, customer Steve Gibson was smoking a joint outside Gator Ted’s when Kindos asked him to move from the doorway.

Gibson, who smokes to control pain, complained to the rights commission that Kindos discriminated against him as a disabled person.

The commission said Kindos must pay Gibson $2,000, and post signs in Gator Ted’s and on his website saying, “We accommodate authorized marijuana users.” He was set to comply when he learned of the liquor act prohibitions.

Once again, Kindos just doesn’t like marijuana and is looking for any way to avoid compliance with the Human Rights Commission’s order.  Medical marijuana is not a “banned substance” for the Health Canada-approved user, so I don’t even see how the provincial liquor law makes any difference at all, even ignoring the fact that Canadian federal law supersedes Ontario provincial law.

ottawasun.com – Ottawa and Region – Right to puff sparks tiff
A federally licensed medicinal marijuana user is fuming after receiving correspondence from his city councillor telling him to “Quit taking up taxpayers’ dollars” with a “frivolous” human rights complaint.

Russell Barth lit up a joint in on the lawn of Ottawa City Hall this weekend as he relayed his disgust at an e-mail he received from Coun. Gord Hunter in response to an e-mail of his own.

“I am not asking for anything special except the same rights that tobacco smokers have,” he said between puffs. “I don’t think I should be forcing my smoke on other people, but I offer tobacco smokers and non-smokers far more courtesy than most tobacco smokers do.”

Barth e-mailed Hunter on Friday asking to meet in person to discuss his assertion that his human rights were violated when a cigarette smoker outside his doctor’s office building “asked me to move along.”

“Tough luck on you that you feel you had your human rights violated,” Hunter responded in an e-mail. “Tough luck on the taxpayers of Ontario that you feel this is a serious matter.”

“Bully for you that you can legally smoke dope. I do not feel that gives you the right to shove it in anyone else’s face,” Hunter writes.

In a phone conversation on Sunday, Hunter questioned why a councillor’s having told someone what’s on his mind would be considered so rare as to warrant media coverage.

“You can’t actually think this guy has a legitimate complaint to go before the Human Rights Commission because some people say ‘Don’t blow marijuana in my face,’” he said.

“Of all the serious human rights complaints there could be … but his is about the most frivolous complaint that probably has come across their desk,” he said.

Canada’s Human Rights Act is somewhat similar to the US Americans with Disabilities Act in that it requires government to modify laws to make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities.  The complainant isn’t asking to “blow smoke in people’s faces”, but rather that he get the same consideration a tobacco smoker would get, which is being able to smoke outside an establishment in the same areas reserved for legal tobacco smoking.

Councilman Hunter may think it is frivolous, but the right of disabled medical marijuana patients to be able to go out on the town and not have to suffer without their medicine is as serious as having a wheelchair-accessible bathroom.  Without those accommodations, we essentially tell the disabled to stay shut in their homes.

Just catching up on some of the reports from the March this weekend:

Close to 500 protesters took to the streets [of Calgary, Alberta, Canada] Saturday in favour of marijuana’s medicinal use and making it more accessible to those suffering debilitating pain.

Amid the incense aromas and reggae beats, several hundred Austinites rallied at the Capitol on Saturday for the legalization of marijuana for personal and medical use.

Rolling out at high noon May 3, the Ninth Annual Million Marijuana March smoked through downtown Portland as part of Oregon NORML’s protest of pot prohibition and to support the use of medicinal marijuana through Oregon’s sometimes controversial Medical Marijuana Act.

“These guys are easy compared to the anarchists,” said Sgt. Voepel of the Portland Police Department, “they’re on time, and they’re orderly.”

According to the Sarge, the only rabble rousers during the march were two drunkards who were pestering people but were unconnected to the peaceful pro-pot gatherers. No pot smokers were spotted.

Thousands of marijuana activists from key Canadian cities puffed joints in public on Saturday as part of the Global Marijuana March – a worldwide protest on cannabis prohibition.

Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg held similar protests which took place simultaneously in 239 major cities across the globe, according to a Cannabis News’ website.

Supporters of legalizing marijuana gathered in Civic Center Park behind the Larimer County Justice Center on Saturday.

The event in Fort Collins was part of the Global Marijuana March; 239 cities across the globe also held events.

Supporters also set up shop in Boulder, Denver and Colorado Springs.

Police have fired tear gas to clear scores of youths during clashes outside a pro-marijuana festival in Athens.

Officers moved in as youths set fire to tires and blocked a busy road outside a university campus. No arrests or injuries were reported during three hours of pre-dawn clashes Saturday.

Roemer, who uses a wheelchair and a cane because of the pain in one leg, was among more than 100 people who marched from Capitol Hill to Westlake Park in downtown Seattle on Saturday in support of liberalizing marijuana laws. She thinks it should be legal for anyone to use.

An AIDS patient and a wounded veteran of the Iraq war joined a small group of demonstrators Saturday in downtown Rapid City who advocated the legalization of marijuana for medical uses.

During a relaxed march from Memorial Park to several of the presidential statues, organizer Bob Newland of Hermosa said he was planning another public campaign to make marijuana legal for medical use in the state. The last such effort failed on a statewide vote 52 percent to 48 percent in 2006.

A few hundred people gathered at Fountain Square [in Cincinnati] on Sunday for a rally to support legalizing marijuana – a scene that played out in many U.S. cities this weekend.

OMAHA, Neb. — A group of young men and women were holding signs and lobbying for marijuana Saturday at the Gene Leahy Mall.

The signs advocated using marijuana for medicinal purposes. The group thinks pot is not dangerous.

Queen’s Park may have been soggy from yesterday’s rain, but sparks were flying as thousands spent the day smoking pot just north of the Legislature.

It was part of the Toronto Freedom Festival and the 10th Global Marijuana March, with the intent of pushing to legalize marijuana.

Intent as ever to shake the Reagan propaganda for good and get people to start calling weed “grass” again, Cleveland’s cannabis activists are on the march. Again. For the 10th-annual worldwide Million Marijuana March. After three years sitting out. And no, the grass had nothing to do with it.

John Hartman, the longtime de facto leader of the region’s cannabis activist community as owner of Lakewood’s Cannabis Connection and founder of the Ohio Cannabis Society, died in February after years of intensifying kidney dialysis. A transplant could have saved him, his friends say, but that wasn’t happening in today’s climate of ignorance and fear.

“He got knocked off the transplant list because he tested positive for pot,” says Jerry J., another longtime activist who was on his way to visit Hartman at the nursing home when he learned of his death. “He got the death sentence for pot.”

If you’ve got news clips or photos or videos from the March, please let us know here on the Stash. Send me an email at stash ‘at’ norml.org.