CANADIAN JUSTICE IS JUNK- PART III

TRAINING THE TROOPS

or

How The Constabulary Creates A Blue Brother

This is very long: almost three thousand words but that is because this is a very complex subject with many inputs that have to be considered. The creation of a cop takes about 5 years and during that time he is exposed to a carefully planned training program that is designed to wipe out his personality as a member of normal society and fill his mind in “Cop Think”. Read it carefully and stop along the way and wonder how you would cope with the regimen. Also think about what can be done to restore the system because the product it is producing stinks.

The first thing a Canadian citizen should understand is that the Blue Brotherhood is not the creation of our Canadian Cops but is international and applies to Constabularies everywhere. Our Canadian version has become an aberration and exceeds the norm as will be explained later. At this point we have come to the point where there is a knock on your door and there is a Cop, a member of the Blue Brotherhood, who wants to ask some questions. To continue:

You stand in your doorway and you look at this Brother in Blue wanting to talk: 

Ask yourself:

1.    Who is this guy?

2.    Where’s he coming from?

3.    What kind of a person am I dealing with?

The answer to those questions was fairly well volunteered by an older Police Officer speaking as a member of the Brotherhood when asked about the effects of a career in law enforcement on officers in general:

“One of the only things that is universal about almost all cops, is the fact that we age too quickly, see too much pain and suffering, lose our trust for almost anyone because EVERYONE lies to the police, and we lose our social grounding. It is very hard to believe that the world is basically good when you spend year after year seeing only the worst parts of it.

That is where it gets really hard, because sometimes we think out friends and families are trying to 'get over' on us, just like the shitbags we deal with at work. That hurts even the strongest relationships. Our ability to see beauty and innocence gets pretty heavily trampled on, and that really hurts when you are raising kids. Thankfully, most police officers learn to live compartmentalized lives: Those who don't die from alcoholism, heart disease, or suicide at an early age.”

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This personal assessment of the damage to self by a career in law enforcement is supported and borne out by the work of Professor Jerome Skolnick, the currently accepted authority who describes the police working personality: what many people, and police themselves, often describe as the police personality. The working personality is characterized as:

1.    distrustful of outsiders

2.    cynical

3.    conservative (not necessarily politically, but resistant to change)

4.    suspicious

5.    pessimistic

6.    pragmatic

7.    prejudicial

8.    and holding other widely-shared attitudes about and beyond the mainstream view.

What the hell happened here? What: in the course of about ten years on the job, turned the top 2% of the ideal recruit crop into a collection of miserable curmudgeons? What happens in the course of this career to render such psychological damage?

What follows is a vivid portrayal of career in law enforcement that I freely plagiarized from the work of Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith of the Chicago Police Department. She is a nationally recognized authority on training and the working personality and I have simply transformed one of her papers into a wake-up call lecture that should be given to every new class of recruits before their training begins

The Road to Remorse and Regret

Good morning Recruits: 

My name is Sgt.  XXX and today I am here to give you an orientation into what the course of your life will be if you do join the Force with the intention of a life time career. The first thing I want you to understand is that your entire life will change in the course of your training and so will your personality and outlook on life. Much of that change will be due to defensive reactions to unpleasant pressures to conform to the system and avoid discipline for failure to do so. Following I am going to chronologically outline what you can expect to encounter in the course of your career and some good advice on how to react and assess each development as it occurs.

Most of us start the academy with a servant’s heart. Remember the old LAPD motto “To Serve and Protect?” That’s all of us, that is supposed to be what cops are all about, but pretty quickly into your law enforcement career, it becomes less about “them” and more about “us.” We separate ourselves from the rest of society, even from our family and friends. But it doesn’t have to be that way, if you learn why this common police pitfall occurs and how to avoid it.

Remember, less than two out of every one hundred police applicants ever become cops, so as soon as you get hired, you start to feel like you’re a member of an elite group. And you are! There are few professions where we are expected to potentially lay down our lives as part of the employment agreement. However, that elitist feeling you have in the academy can be just the beginning of your “us v. them” mentality.

Your first couple of years are consumed with learning the job. You spend a considerable amount of time around veteran officers, trainers, and supervisors trying to learn the profession and earn the trust of your peers. As Dr. Kevin Gilmartin, PhD. talks about in his book Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement, a new officer begins to rely on the friendship and support of other officers, usually to the detriment of their “non-cop” relationships. Because there is so much to do and learn, and so little time to devote to your personal life, new officers find themselves socializing only with their co-workers. Old friendships may begin to fade way, not intentionally, but after all, are any of your “old” friends willing to meet you for a beer at seven o’clock on a Tuesday morning when you get off work? Not likely.

There are no grey areas. The law enforcement officer works in a fact-based world with everything compared to written law. Right and wrong is determined by a standard. They have a set way of going about gathering the proper evidence for the law and can justify their actions because they represent the "good and right side." In the real world, clear rights and wrongs are not as likely to occur. The newspapers are an opinion-based system, the court system is an opinion-based system and, needless to say, relationship decisions and proper parenting techniques are opinion-based systems. 

Adjusting from right and wrong, a black-and-white system, to opinion-based systems is very difficult and requires a complete change in mental attitude.
“The average cop will see more human tragedy in the first three years than most people will see in a lifetime” according to Dr. Ellen Kirschman, author of I Love a Cop. As we become a competent veteran officer, we develop a macabre sense of humour and are forced to control our emotions at all times. We view the world as a violent place full of idiots, con artists, and liars. We become sceptical, paranoid, and hyper vigilant, and we look down on those who do not share our cynical and alarmist view of the society. Not only do we cease most of our “pre-cop” friendships, but our family relationships may begin to deteriorate as well. We become distant and dark-spirited, even when we’re at home. We complain that “my family doesn’t understand,” and we may become overly strict with our kids, not wanting them to be exposed to the outside world that we know is violent, dangerous and unpredictable. Eventually, your family may grow weary of your “us v. them” attitude and decide they’d rather be with “them” rather than being a part of “us.”

You need to be in constant emotional control. Law enforcement officers have a job that requires extreme restraint under highly emotional circumstances. They are told when they are extremely excited, they have to act calm. They are told when they are nervous; they have to be in charge. They are taught to be stoic when emotional. They are to interact with the world in a role. The emotional constraint of the role takes tremendous mental energy, much more energy than expressing true emotions. When the energy drain is very strong, it may make the officer more prone to exhaustion outside of work, such as not wanting to participate in social or family life. This energy drain can also create a sense of job and social burnout. 

It’s no secret that cops have a 75% divorce rate, a high rate of alcoholism, and we die twice as often by our own hand as we do by felonious assaults. After all, if you go from a fun-loving, idealistic, service-oriented rookie to a dark-hearted, cynical veteran, you’re not going to be much fun to be around, and eventually you won’t like yourself anymore than anyone else does. So don’t let it happen!

Your FTO may know everything there is to know about impaired drivers, but why has he been married and divorced) three times? Your favourite sergeant is a wonderfully supportive mentor to you, but why does she end every shift sitting at the bar of the local gin joint? Sometimes the most qualified cops on your agency are also the least successful when it comes to their personal lives. As delicately as you can, try to find out why. Ask them if they could do anything different, what would it be? And then listen to what they have to say.

This can be tough to do. Your “normal” friends are either going to be “weirded out” by your new profession or they may become distant, intimidated, even hostile about you becoming a cop. However, don’t give up on all of them. Your true friends are going to accept you, for who you are, just make sure to touch base with them and occasionally get together; and when you do socialize with them, don’t spend all your time together telling cop “war stories.” Ask about their job, their life, their problems, concerns, and successes, and then really listen. Don’t make it all about you, even if they try to. In other words, don’t get mired in your own self-importance.

Be proactive about your emotional well being. Make sure that physical activity is part of your regular routine. There are two kinds of stress, “distress” and “eustress”. Develop positive addictions, like running, basketball, hunting, and photography, anything that makes you feel good and is good for you. Also make sure you spend time around good, positive people. Go to church, do volunteer work, coach a kids soccer team, do charity work. Get involved in activities that remind you that not everyone is a drug dealing, child molesting criminal, and that in general, life is pretty good. Remember, you took this job to help the community, not isolate yourself from them. One of the great things about policing in a free society is the tradition of being “of the people,” not “over the people.”

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We’re Back Where We Started

Unfortunately Canadians are not living in a free society and the Constabulary successfully biased the Access to Information Act of 1985 with a series of exemptions regarding Investigations. The majority of officers have adopted a tradition of being “over the people” and responsible to no one for anything they do, on or off the Job

So here we are with you, in your doorway, facing a cop who wants entry and to talk to you about something. 

You stood in your doorway and you looked at this Brother in Blue and asked yourself:

·        Who is this guy?

·        Where’s he coming from?

·        What kind of a person am I dealing with?

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At this point you have answered the first two of your questions:

Who is this guy?

He’s a kid who has been ripped out of normal society and forced into another by the Constabulary. He will robotically obey orders, not question his superiors’ judgement, and he will most certainly report his obedience to those orders in meticulous detail. He will never depart from those details regardless of consequence.

Where does he come from?

He comes from on the job training in how to relate to the public: all civilians are suspect criminals in his mind. He’s been trained to lie and is a skilled interrogator in command of any interview with a civilian suspect. He can present himself as a member of any class or occupation to elicit an admission of some fault and is skilled in the use of leading questions to confuse his victim. Any request for information by a cop is prompted by a desire to establish guilt. He doesn’t care whose and he is fishing for information that can move the subject of his questioning into the suspect category if he even admits a connection to another individual suspected or caught in a criminal activity.

Knowing just this about the officer should be enough to deter any cooperation from a witness but the biggest deterrence of all is his belief that he can violate the law and your rights in his attempts to establish your guilt and he is immune from prosecution by doing so.

 That belief combined with the support of his brotherhood is validated by the exemptions of criminal investigation from the normal channels per the Access to Information Act, The Brotherhood has the power to control the whole Justice system, and that will be the subject of my next post 

CANADIAN JUSTICE IS JUNK- PART IV – THE BROTHERHOOD

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

What is an M.D.?

M.D?

Medical Doctor? Mental Defective?

Morally Destitute?

The Profession Has Lost Its Character

Character?

Trustworthiness. Respect. Responsibility.

Fairness. Caring. Citizenship.

The Six Pillars of Character are ethical values to guide our choices. The standards of conduct that arise out of those values constitute the ground rules of ethics, and therefore of ethical decision-making. 

Doctors! Who are they?

The Canadian Medical Association represents the 67000 modern doctors practicing in Canada. To introduce you to my concept of what Medical Practice should be, I’m simply going to compare the conduct of the majority of those members, to that of just one man of character, a real Doctor, still in practice at the beginning of the decline. His name was Dr. T.W.E. Henry and he was the local physician in Ft. Saskatchewan, Alberta where I grew up. At that time the town was about pop. 250 and we were a community who considered him next to Jesus for his Samaritan conduct, common sense and good advice.

Dr. Henry was the center of our social system, he was trusted above all others and he knew every secret and personal detail about every one of his flock. He was a part of every family in town and often if he happened to make a house call at lunch or tea time he would stop for a coffee or to share a meal and take the time to get updated on the family history. He was a skilled interrogator and asked personal questions in such a manner that he created a desire to answer because he would understand and never condemn.

One evening near Christmas I and my family were visiting and just as supper hit the table TWE got a call and he was needed by a sick child. 10-15 degrees below zero, snowing like hell, winds harsh and gusty, driving clouds of icy particles that skin your face like sandpaper. No bloody way I was going out in that! Not!

Blaine! Get with it! I might need a push and you’re it! Crap: on with all the layers, boots, scarves, gloves! All the bulky crap that make wading though powder snow like wading through a swamp and then the open door and Holy Shit its nasty out here. Naturally the damned car won’t start so I harness the team, hook up his runabout sleigh, load the old fart up grab the reins and off we go into nowhere.

You don’t really drive horses in a blizzard: you just sort of aim them and trust them to figure out where the center of the road is. You just sit there and squint and squint trying to pick out landmarks in the little gaps between white sheets of snow. Fortunately it was a straight 5 mile run and only took about an hour and a half to get to the destination.

Modern people have no idea what kind of rotten conditions a lot of poor farm families lived in the 50’s. This was one such family and they were toughing out the blizzard in a two room clapboards shack heated by two stoves, one in the kitchen and a barrel type wood stove in the main room. Unless you have felt it you cannot imagine the drafts in a shack built of planks, you don’t know how cold the air is inside a house with iced up single pane windows. Stand next to one and suddenly your arm is radiated with cold from the glass.

It was a little guy about three and he was sick, you knew he was simply by looking. I don’t know what was wrong but after a long examination by TWE he was given a tablespoon of some syrup, handed back to his mother and she was told that he didn’t think it was serious but he’d like that fever to break. “Take that goose grease you have on the front stove warmer, warm him up, rub him down with it then wrap him up in that flannel blanket and put him to bed. He’s already so tired he’ll fall asleep quickly. He should feel better in the morning but if he doesn’t give me a call and we’ll take care of it.”

We got ready to leave and the husband came over to TWE and explained they were a little short on cash, would he take a couple of chickens as payment. TWE simply told him “John you’ll need them more than I do right now. Tell you what you’re good with a hammer and saw. Come over when the weather gets good in the spring and I’ve got a back porch that needs some repair. What do you say to an Even Steven deal?” John simply looked at him and I thought he would cry, but he just swallowed hard, nodded his agreement and shook TWE’s hand. We left

That was one example of his character at work: it is also the reason why he represents the best aspects of the generations of his predecessors. His position as a respected and admired man of character made him worthy to bear the title Doctor

Once again to stress: The Six Pillars of Character are ethical values to guide our choices. The standards of conduct that arise out of those values constitute the ground rules of ethics, and therefore of ethical decision-making.

Cannabis has been prescribed by Doctors, Medicine men, Shamans for now 4800 years. For 4750 of those years this medication was freely prescribed by a person of trust who had the best interest of the patient in mind. The witch doctor was trusted because he knew every aspect of his patient’s life. He was part of a tight community that no longer exists, and his reward was not financial gain at patient expense but a position of respect and trust far above that of any other profession. The current crop of medicine men, and I call them that because they do not deserve the title of Doctor, are simply skilled technicians who lack the moral and ethical quality to earn the respect they are granted as physicians.

From that point in the past, we fast forward to the present and it is only men of my age has the knowledge of what the title Doctor Represents in terms of how it is earned and expects little from his current Physician. We knew a Model for Comparison and there is no Expectation of Samaritan acts that demonstrate the qualities inherent in the 6 Pillars of Character: Trustworthiness. Respect. Responsibility. Fairness. Caring. Citizenship. These have been lost by the Profession.

The Destruction of Ethical Medical Practice

The practice of medicine has gradually changed into a commercially structured and oriented system designed to derive maximum profit. This was created from the sheer volume of patients that became available as a result of post WWII urbanization. Instead of a couple of dozen or hundred patients in his community, every doctor had a chance to bag any number of visits from the occupants of the hundreds of tenements surrounding them.

Appointments got shorter and further apart separated by many intruding and competing strangers’ entries into a doctor’s capacity to remember his diagnosis and previous treatment for the new volume of patients. Thus came into being the Personal Medical Record to serve as a reminder when a physician’s memory failed. The natural result was simple neglect to bother to remember Mickey Mouse details: a one minute skim of the patent’s last visit began to serve as the entire content of a physician’s knowledge of his patient. There began the complete lack of empathy now apparent in the profession at large and its absence was accompanied by the eventual loss of all character from the profession. That is simple fact.

A modern day patient with any problem needing medical attention assumes that when they make an appointment with their physician they are going to see a Doctor. They are not: they are making an appointment with an M.D. (Medical Doctor) a university graduate who had the minimal qualification to join a College of Physicians with lack standards and qualify to open an office.

His first act after qualification to practice was not to do Samaritan work at the local shelters, but rather, a call to his lawyer and accountant and to approve the creation of his new practice, Dr. False Front, MD, Inc. Shyster and BeanCounter  Consulting already had the necessary plans approved, the forms got filed and the fees got paid. From this point on the man across the desk; the MD in the modern medical office, presents himself as worthy to wear the honorific title Doctor and expects all the respect and trust due him for a title based on Character. He is actually talking to President CEO of the TYMAR Corp acting as the sucker mechanism for the TakeYourMoneyAndRun machine.

To clarify the difference between a Doctor and President, MD, only one simple comparison is required. Imagine wandering down a deserted wasteland road and encountering a man with a severe wound needing medical help. His wound is not fatal but without treatment soon will be if not helped. How would each react to that situation?

I think:

1.   The Doctor would stop, assess the situation, accept the man as a a patient, pack the wound, stop the bleeding and then arrange for his care until recovery.

2.   The President, MD would stop, frisk the man to see if he had the cash or credit to pay for treatment, if not kick him in the ditch. It would probably never occur to him to call an ambulance to get charity involved. That would take too much time and he already had a cash customer waiting for the sales pitch. “Sorry. I can’t be bothered guy, die in peace.

If I am disillusioned it is rightfully so. The machine has no recognition of the patient, only his symptoms are used to maximize the medical billing opportunities and tap them all. Office visits = Prescriptions benefits = repeat = referral to higher priced care of specialists= over-reliance on technology= excess testing = everybody happy and rich = CMA.

The President, MD across the desk does not know his patents, has no idea how they live, or anything about them beyond their ability to pay and the chart details of the last visit.  They do not want to know or be bothered by their patients outside of Office Hours. They move in invisible circles away from the common herd, superior circles by virtue of greed! Away from the place of business they do not exist and cannot be found. They have no addresses, unlisted home phones, and undisclosed and rigidly guarded e-mail. They long ago abandoned house calla and after hour phone calls are answered by recorded direction to go to emergency.

Suddenly the majority of these 67000 MD’s fly in the face of common sense and are balking at allowing Medical Cannabis, and its benefits, on the basis that they don’t have sufficient knowledge of the long term harmful effects of smoking it.

Bullshit! They discount 4750 years of testimonial evidence passed down by all the preceding generations of real Doctors who freely advocated it for its curative power and lack of risk in its use.

Bullshit!

Today’s Doctors all claim to honour what was the primary tenet of the Hippocratic Oath: “FIRST, DO NO HARM”. Nobody reveals that this guiding principle has been removed from the Hippocratic Oath Modern Version and has not been replaced by an equivalent prohibition.. The Watered Down Oath may be seen in its current form as approved by John Hopkins at

http://guides.library.jhu.edu/content.php?pid=23699&sid=190964

I find it interesting that given the respect they are sworn to hold for their predecessor’s intelligence, in another part of the oath they dismiss all the traditional knowledge that Cannabis has shown no harm from occasional or even lifelong use. They swear: “I will respect the “hard-won scientific gains” of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow”.

To claim harm for a product all preceding generations of doctors recommend is to hold their collective intelligence in contempt. To dismiss all of it in favour of the hard-won scientific gains of last 50 years of billing possibility experts, who don’t even know who their patients are, is probably the grossest display of the lack of simple common sense I could have imagined from any profession. They have completely lost touch with the populace they are supposed to be serving.

I hear no outcry from the medical ethics experts: Where are they? because the ethical deficiency list is horrendous! I could keep on ranting forever but I don’t have to. Following is a simple listing of the components of Character from

Making Ethical Decisions

The Six Pillars of Character

at http://josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MED-2sixpillars.html

Simply reading the Index is enough to awaken almost anyone to the manifold shortcomings of the Profession. It seems every little word harkens memories of little things noticed that didn’t add up until now

Character:

• Trustworthiness
     - Honesty
     - Integrity
     - Reliability (Promise-keeping)
     - Loyalty
• Respect
     - Civility, Courtesy and Decency
     - Dignity and Autonomy
     - Tolerance and Acceptance
• Responsibility
     - Accountability
     - Pursuit of Excellence
     - Self-Restraint
• Fairness
     - Process
     - Impartiality
     - Equity
• Caring
• Citizenship

Can you smell the rot too?

Blaine Barrett

The Smee Goan Guy

2014 - What’s Ahead?

2014 - What’s Ahead?

Let me look!

Not a lot of good!

What have we got for openers Jan 1, 2014?

A Slap in the Face from Health Canada for Starters

We’ve got a Government determined to cash in on Marijuana profits at the expense of the patients who need it for Medical relief. The Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations have little or no relevancy or help for Doctors or Patients. The rules are laid down; both become casualties to greed and are dumped. 90% of the pages and regulations of the MMPR are concerned with the operation of a bloated, over regulated micro-managed commercial enterprise doomed to failure.

Why do I come to this conclusion?: Because I found this recent ultimatum from Health Canada to the College od Physicians and Surgeons of  Ontario on Christmas Eve posted as Comment #49 in the CPSO Consultation Discussions.

The Comment did not identify the source only the text.

• Dec 10, 2013

College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario

Policy Department

80 College Street

Toronto, Ontario

M5G2E2

Feedback re: Medical Marjjuana Policy

Introduction:

Health Canada has determined that the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) Program will be completed by March 31, 2014 and in its place will remain the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) program. The MMPR program is quite different from the MMAR in a number of ways.

Health Canada:

- Health Canada will no longer require that specialized forms be completed by physicians on behalf of patients.

- Health Canada will no longer be supplying medical marijuana for sale to patients.

-Health Canada will now be licensing private producers (called Licensed Producers, or LPs) who meet strict standards to grow and sell medical marijuana directly to patients who obtain a prescription-like "medical document" from their physician.

Patients:

- Patients are no longer separated into 2 categories based on their medical diagnoses.

- Patients will no longer be required to have a specialized, Health Canada form completed. Instead, the patient will be required to obtain a "medical document," similar to a prescription from a physician.

- Patients will no longer be able to grow cannabis for their own use.

- Patients will no longer be able to delegate a third party to grow on their behalf.

- Patients will no longer be able to purchase medical marijuana from Health Canada.

-The only route to accessing medical marijuana is for patients to send their "medical document" directly to a Licensed Producer of their choice and order medical marijuana to be delivered to their home, or to the office of their signing physician, if the physician consents to receive this.

1 Physicians:

- Physicians no longer need to separate patients into two categories based on their medical diagnoses.

- Physicians are required to complete an "original document" (essentially a prescription) in order to allow patients to access medical marijuana. A specialized form from Health Canada is no longer necessary.

- The "original document" will be required to include the following information: Patient Name, Date, DOB, number of grams per day, duration of prescription (up to 12 months), physician's name, office address, and license number.

Feedback: Following are the orders to Doctors by Health Canada. I took the liberty to insert my comments and posted it as a reply to Comment #49. I hope it survives moderation.

For crying out loud I almost feel sympathy for you Doctors. The arrogant a**holes at Health Canada bark and you’re supposed to comply and treat your patients like trash.

I beg to differ with Ottawa as follows:

1) Physicians should not feel required to prescribe medical marijuana to patients. Why not? If a patient qualifies and is asking for your help, how can you refuse? You are causing them harm in violation of your Oath not to by your refusal! Are you not going to refund the fee for the visit?I thought not!

2) Physicians prescribing medical marijuana should have some basic knowledge on the medical use of marijuana. Not unless the patient is new to Cannabis and as ignorant as most physicians. If a patient is using pot, find out how, then ask, listen and start recording what you observe in accordance with order #11, #12 and #13 below

3) Participation in CME should be recommended or even mandatory for those who choose to prescribe medical marijuana (e.g. attending

conferences, familiarization with the Health Canada "Information for Health Care Professionals" document as well as other research studies). The CME Continuing Medical Education program at theU of C Faculty of Medicine is just another bastion of bias. I don’t see them blasting the net to make doctors aware of any number of acceptable studies favorable to marijuana. One such prime example is the Harvard Study Cited in the Journal of Schizophrenia Research 

 http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/12/10/harvard-marijuana-doesnt-cause-schizophrenia/63148.html#.Urt4lvumbSg

The "Information for Health Care Professionals" document is a load of misinformation and distortion it’s better to avoid or you risk nausea.

4) Inform patients that marijuana is not an approved drug.

Why? Because some egocentric bastard back in 1923 decided to build a law Empire based on Classifying it as a Class 1 drug. Bull, that’s simply perpetuating a 70 year old myth..

5) Discuss that there is still a lack of clinical evidence for its use.

Bull again! There is any number of recent current testimonial cures on the Web but nobody from the profession is bothering to check them out. Many are supported by a Physician statement certifying his patient’s declaration that he has been cured of Cancer often with diagnostic evidence that cannot be denied. Now that is something actually constructive The U of C Faculty of Medicine could do!

6) Discuss the known risks associated with taking marijuana, including the fact that certain risks may still be unknown.

There are No Known Risks and the unknown ones are unknown. What’s to discuss?

7) Prior to prescribing medical marijuana, ensure that a proper diagnosis of a medical condition is made.

In combination with # 9 approach you patients with paranoia. They are all potential criminal and drug addicts and Health Canada wants to infect you with that perverted belief!

8) Consider screening for respiratory illness and heart disease prior to initiating treatment with medical marijuana.

Why? What justifies this if the patient has no pre-existing condition that warrants it? Nothing

9) Consider screening for diversion or use of other drugs of abuse

Simply more paranoia!

1 0) Discuss alternative treatment options with patients.

If there are any options be sure to discuss all the side effects and surgery to patients in graphic detail: Don’t sugar coat what they are going to go through if they follow your advice

11) Start slow and ensure proper follow up as clinically indicated.

Yes!

12) Develop ongoing relationship with patient, rather than writing prolonged prescription with no follow up.

Yes!

13) Physicians should be encouraged to conduct research studies and collect data in order to further our understanding of marijuana as medicine.

Yes!

14) A physician should only agree to accept delivery of medical marijuana for a patient, if the physician's office is equipped with a safe and secure storage area to store the marijuana in an organized fashion.

Just put it with your Heroin and Oxycontin supply on the second shelf of the fridge!

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance to you in helping

with this policy.

Ditto

TheSmeeGoanGuy

That will do for now but I will have more comment and questions regarding the future role of all the players after the New Year. Doctors, Lawyers,Producers and Media: all are problems that will have to be dealt with. Fortunately, Christmas is over and this won’t ruin it for you

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

An Invitation to the CPSO Consultation re Marijuana

They’ve Given Us an Opening

Sucker Punch the Bastards

For the first time there is a channel available that can permit all of our anger and resentment about Cannabis and the failure to recognize its benefits to be dumped into the heart of the Canadian Medical Community.

Get Off Your Ass and Bitch

Don’t Miss This Opportunity

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has opened its ears and is apparently prepared to listen to input not only from the Old Boys Club but also to the public. When it comes to a review of the College’s Policy re Cannabis it’s about time they actually considered the input of the patients they are targeting with their no signature, no cooperation strike.

The CPSO has issued a Consultation Request as part of a review of their policy on Medical Marijuana. I have checked out their Consultation request and it is a wonderful opportunity to make our voice heard. They have provided access for comment and contribution via several routes and I recommend a submission of a complaint to all of them.

They have requested our thoughts on the current policy

We can submit our comments to a discussion forum, send our comments via Email, complete a brief online survey concerning the current policy, or send our comments via regular mail

The Policy you are being asked to criticize can be summarized into 5 main points that I have listed following along with my first comments just sent to them. Read them all and then give the College your input on any or all. I know this is an opportunity to rant but don’t. Keep it civil and to the point and make them understand that they are failing in their oath to Do No Harm and we feel betrayed..

The Five Points of Policy

1.    Physicians are expected to use their best judgment in deciding whether to complete a medical declaration under the MMPR.

Dr. Louis Francescutti, the President of the Canadian Medical Association in his Initial address to the Association stressed that his primary concern was to correct the Image of the CMA. He was referring to the self-image physicians have of themselves: not to their image from a Patient’s point of view and that of the general public. By and large you are perceived as a pack of liars intentionally depriving patients of needed services for political gain. You are in violation of your Oath to do no harm and you are inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering. Take great care

2.    To date, there have not been adequate studies that prove that marijuana is effective in relieving symptoms associated with serious medical conditions.

This is a flat out lie. None has been listed in CMA approved venues but unless you’re blind you have to be aware of the growing mass of testimonial evidence that is flooding social media. The respectable scientific community without your participation or support has engaged in some serious research of late and every day sees a new properly conducted double blind statistically verified study that indicates great potential for the plant used in various ways besides smoking.

3.    The adverse effects of marijuana use include the harms associated with smoking. Pure Bullshit: everybody knows it.

The only adverse effect of smoked marijuana is a nasty cough when you get too greedy and bogart the joint. Ignore the smokers if you want and look at the medibles, tinctures, elixirs and Rick Simpson oil and start helping your patients. All of them are watching you to see where you guys stand: is there any flexibility to this blockade or ar you as rigid as the CMA with the pokers up their ass?

4.    Physicians are not obligated to complete a medical declaration under the MMAR. Physicians who choose to do so are advised to proceed with caution.

Proceed with caution because to begin signing applications is to violate the orders of the CMA and they are nasty bastards and recrimination is possible. They are acting like a bunch of political lobbyists on a wildcat union strike and the whole country is watching.

5.    Physicians can consider prescribing the oral pharmaceutical form of cannabinoids where possible to address the treatment needs of patients who have chronic conditions.

They can but they should not. Why not? Because they are big Pharma drugs that are more dangerous than smoking: The initial guesswork of an industry that will founder if cannabis actually does cure cancer. There are only two drugs to date and nobody has any idea what side effects can occur if they are used for treatment for a variety of maladies.

No accurate dosage relative to any ailment is known so you’re guessing on the dosage and the frequency; totally ignorant of any potential side effects. There is no index of data available on how to prescribe for various conditions so you’re guessing in the dark. What is so different about cannabis?

Think about it!

I just posted these 5 points and comments as Comment #34 as a Member of the Public to their Discussion Forum. It survived the moderators despite its negative view and criticism so I think we should all give them input.
Just take a peek at the storm they have already kicked up and there is lots more to come Go to

http://policyconsult.cpso.on.ca/?page_id=2593

Enjoy
Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

This is Your Future: Old Age and Loneliness

A Wake-Up Call for the Boomers Kids

Time is Short

I was going to address this to what is called the Boomer generation only to find they are all old farts like me. The Boomers were born in the period 1946 to 1964 and now range in age from 49-67. They’re all too old to benefit from any advice I give because they are now learning the same difficult lessons I have had to absorb. First and foremost, Freedom 55 was a ridiculous idea and its failure revealed our whole generation’s lack of knowledge about how to manage money and plan for the future. If you’ve reached 60 without banking or investing that you can count on for a comfortable retirement, think again, there’s a rough road ahead

If today, you find yourself at retirement and you haven’t got that nest egg in a much protected state, then count on a shortage of yolk down the road. My son was born in 1964 so I guess I’m aiming this at all the Boomers little brats, not the parents. All of you readers who have reached the age of 50 are looking at a future where you will need to take advantage of all the Canadian Social Benefits that the Cons are determined to chop away at knee level. I’m not surprised at where we are in this country. for the last thirty years I have been watching an amoral control freak crawl his way up the political guts of our society to a leadership role. Yes, I’m talking about Harpo the Hypocrite.

A couple of readers have asked me:

Why do I hate Stephen Harper? What do I have against him? Well, here’s the axe I’ve been grinding and have been for 3 decades. I would give a million dollars to have the privilege of being first in line to piss on his grave.

In 1989 we were living in Red Deer, Alberta in the heart of redneck Religious Fundamentalist country with its ignorant belief and prejudices. My son was a homosexual. He was born one, he grew into a talented artist: I knew who he was and accepted the fact. I think it was September when Lee had to go to a dentist and was turned away because he was contagious, he had HIV.

Our leader Mr. Harper was not really into politics as yet but was gathering his base with a thunder and lighting campaign based on religious bigotry and intolerance and somehow he got my attention and I started listening to him. It was not fun hearing my son was being punished by God for his evil ways and perverted conduct but the son-of a bitch would not shut up. It took my son 7 years of hell to die of AIDS when it fried his brain, and we had to watch the process, listening to the vitriol of an asshole on the radio vilifying our son. According to his belief structure my son was a sinner being punished for his perversion and choice of homosexuality and Harpo condemned d him to Hell. I can’t forgive that.

In 1997 my employer went bankrupt and we went through a very tough time when we needed help from the system and actually got it. EI saved our ass. Late that year Mr. Harper, the Great Pretender, gave a speech to a collection of right wing American fundamentalist business tycoons at an event in Montreal. In it he describes his appreciation of the Canadian social network and Canadians inattention, greed, and acceptance of a public dole. That alone displays some of the evil thinking he again needed in designing the MMPR. I quote:

“First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.”

The reality is boys and girls you children are going to experience what remains of our beloved compassionate system of giving a shit about your neighbor. Harpo has a majority and with his bigoted understanding of how to fix shit I will not hazard a guess as to what ruins will remain after his tenancy is ended.

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy