Those whacky Toronto professors

[Battle_Pope]

Two Canadian professors win right to toke up at work By Natasha Elkington

Mon Nov 13, 10:46 AM ET

The use of medical marijuana has given two Toronto professors the right to something that many students could only dream of -- access to specially ventilated rooms where they can indulge in peace.

The two, at the esteemed University of Toronto and at York University, suffer from chronic medical conditions that some doctors say can be eased by smoking marijuana. They are among nearly 1,500 Canadians who have won the right to use the drug for health reasons.

Using human rights legislation, the two petitioned their employers for the right to light up in the workplace. They faced a legal struggle, but the universities eventually agreed.

"Without the medication, I am disabled and I'm not able to carry out meaningful and valuable, productive work," said York University criminology professor Brian MacLean, who suffers from a severe form of degenerative arthritis.

"It helps me to maintain my mobility as a physical problem but it also helps me to keep the pain at a distance so I can focus on my work," MacLean told Reuters.

MacLean's three-month battle to persuade York University to provide a light-up room, finally obtained this month, is short in comparison to University of Toronto philosophy professor Doug Hutchinson's year-long struggle.

"It took Professor MacLean a season, three full months, to get a similar accommodation and I believe that in Canada now, we should hope that the next person who gets the accommodation should not take more than a month," Hutchinson told Reuters.

MacLean says the three-month response time from the university put him in a vulnerable position both medically and professionally, as he smoked joints on the edge of campus, and thus on the edge of the law.

He now uses a special vaporizer that he says allows him to absorb the medical components of marijuana without the residues that come from smoking a joint.

Health Canada figures show that 1,492 people are authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes in Canada, although it's not clear how the law on using the drug tallies with Ontario provincial legislation that bans smoking in the workplace.

Canada, where laws on possession of marijuana are much less tough than those in the United States, has allowed the use of marijuana for medical purposes since 2001.

The government grows the drug in an abandoned salt mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and sells it to authorized users at C$5 a gram.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061113/wl_can...arijuana1_col_3

medical marijuana's a-ok with me.

[Wind]

5 bones for a probrably BANGIN' gram is a-ok by my book.

[Nega-Brent]

Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't teach toke up and pretend like they know what they are talking about.

[Poophy]

Dude I bet the canadian government could grow some fucking nice shit! But then again, they have all that open space up there and theyre growing in an salt mine…

[Battle_Pope]

Those who can't do, teach, and those who can't teach toke up and pretend like they know what they are talking about.

exactly.

[Siendra]

Where did you hear that crock?

In order to possess Marijuana for medical purposes, you're required to grow it yourself and can only have one plant. It's right in the body of the proposition.

[Battle_Pope]

Where did you hear that crock?

In order to possess Marijuana for medical purposes, you're required to grow it yourself and can only have one plant. It's right in the body of the proposition.

according to the article, that's not the case.

[Reinas]

Where did you hear that crock?

In order to possess Marijuana for medical purposes, you're required to grow it yourself and can only have one plant. It's right in the body of the proposition.

You are required to grow it yourself. However you're also allowed access to it through Health Canada with a physician's help.

Oh, T.O. First you are place a smoking ban on the city, then you allow professors to light up, at the university no less! How ironic and confusing you must be for the impressionable children out in the East.

No wonder the Liberals keep winning out there! :P