I'm not a lover of Canada's Wonderland. I've never even been there. I'm a barfer, and the last time I rode a quick-moving carnival ride was about 25 years ago, and it was the Tilt-a-Whirl. The last ride itself, was a Ferris Wheel a mere two years ago. It brought me close to tears with fear.
Yet many of my friends love it. Every summer trips are planned. McCoy tours has lots of buses going too. Some people love it so much that they buy a season's pass. One such guy who did that just lost it. Taken away from him, because he dared use his legally prescribed herbal medicine in the smoking area at Canada's Wonderland.
Y'know about the smoking areas eh? The ones where we allow addicted people to ingest a substance that kills millions of us yearly worldwide. It even kills people who simply live around and near those who smoke it. Anthony dared to smoke a hand-rolled Cannabis doobie in the smoking area because his back was aching, and it's his medicine. Medicine that is Doctor-approved, documentation sent from Health Canada, licensed producer attained, medicine grown, harvested, cured, and sent to him. You can read about his day HERE ... it started off so well.
This post isn't about me telling you how much safer Cannabis smoke is than Tobacco smoke. I'm not going to talk about human rights and freedoms. I won't even expand on the fact that a Medical Doctor, Health Canada, and a Government-approved, licensed producer says that Cannabis treats his ills. I just want to know why the Security Guards and the Law Enforcement responding to this call, haven't been educated on the MMPR program that affects 40,000 Canadians.
Let's look at the Security Guards. They've been called wanna-be cops, but regardless they're usually sufficiently trained. Because they work with the public, they've had all types of sensitivity training. They'd be trained on Sexual Harassment in the workplace, Religious acknowledgment to identify different sects when it comes to wardrobe. They likely have even been trained to some extent in CPR in case a kid chokes on a bite of his lips 'n asshole hotdog. They'd likely have seen many examples of personal identification, all ten Provinces have a different looking Driver's License, not to mention those from foreign tourists. All in all, not just anybody can become a Security Guard.
I guess the training department never considered that they'd have legal MMPR patients spending money there. Could they really think it's not important enough to be able to quickly and efficiently identify legitimate documents? One of the guards assumed that Anthony should have a green plastic card like the Ontario Health Card. Ya ... that would be nice wouldn't it?! Yet it's really not their fault. The Conservative Government of Canada has made no secret that it sees no value in Cannabis as medicine. But does that necessarily mean that the 40,000 tax-paying citizens taking part in this program don't deserve respect from law enforcement and security guards?
As you read, the Wonderland Security department handed the situation to the York Regional Police. They did this after they banned Anthony for life, and voided his season's pass. Wow. Frustratingly, it seems that the York Regional Police have also not been trained on this documentation either. How can we have a Government-run health program, yet neglect to train law enforcement on identifying documentation?
Duty Counsel was also no help, basically calling our friend a fraud who simply printed his certificate off of the internet. I just don't get it. Don't we live in an innocent-until-proven-guilty kind of society?
So Anthony sits in the limbo of bureaucratic bullshit, charged with possession though he followed the proper channels to become legal. I mean, at the risk of sounding naive, can't somebody simply call his prescribing doctor? Can't somebody call the licensed producer? But no, it seems that in the sea of paperwork and waiting periods of our legal system, he could be hanging in limbo for quite some time.
Do you know anyone who is a legal Cannabis patient?
How would you feel if this happened to them? I'd be pissed!! So I've given $10 to Anthony's cause by going HERE. Yes ... freedom is now a "cause" that some people must ask donations for. Crazy isn't that? Through the site "GoFundMe" he's trying to reach $3000 so he can simply retain a lawyer.
Donate if you can. I totally understand if you can't. In that case just share this post and/or the 'gofundme' page so others can learn about this travesty.
It takes a community to make all Government-run programs work effectively.
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