America The Great Satan

Says Canadian Teen Idol Justin Bieber..... pop culture mullah....waiting for Fox News to comment.....

In the interview, Bieber also weighs in on the U.S. health care system.

"You guys are evil," he says. "Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2011/02/justin-bieber-shares-his-views-on-abortion-sex-healthcare/1

Yep socialized medicine works......single payer, government delivered, doctors on salary.

Two Tier Alberta Redux

The Stelmach government made several announcements this week concerning seniors. All of them are about their plan to end universality and create a two tier system of seniors service.
Alberta seniors who can afford it to be able to buy extra care
Ironically one of those announcements backfired.
Seniors won't pay for braces, artificial limbs
seniors earning more than $21000 were going to be required to pay part of the cost of the devices that had been free.
And while the government quickly backtracked claiming that it was all a miscommunication, it wasn't. The government is giving with one hand and taking away with another.
Alberta opening doors to for-profit drug providers for seniors
As of January 2010, the Stelmach government will eliminate its universal Alberta Blue Cross benefit for the province’s elderly and replace it with a new income-based system that opens the door to “private, for-profit health insurance companies,” says Elisabeth Ballermann, president of the Health Sciences Association of Alberta (HSAA/NUPGE).
So despite the backpedaling on one miscommunication, the reality is that the government does not have a leg to stand on when it says it is improving seniors care in the province. It is introducing two tiered seniors care. And with that can two tiered health care be far behind?
David Eggen, executive director for Friends of Medicare, said the government's move to charge well-off seniors jeopardizes the universality of health care. "We're very concerned about all the Albertans targeted for increases," Eggen said. "Seniors should be upset after they have been paying into the system their entire lives and then the rules change."
And while the government is claiming wealthy seniors can pay for more care services the reality is that in B.C. such programs have hurt those who cannot afford it. B.C. like Alberta has promoted P3's.
PORT ALBERNI — On Wednesday of this week it was reported that the former residents of Cowichan Lodge are now paying more at the P-3 Sunridge Place. When the Government fired all the workers at Cowichan Lodge and forced the residents to leave a publicly funded facility and move into Sunridge Place, VIHA and the Government promised no extra fees and better service. The extra costs are reported by one patient to be approx $300 per month. This is how the private part of the partnership makes money. They have to charge for “extras” that used to be covered in the main costs at the publicly funded facility. The government may be still paying the same amount per patient, but the company can’t make a profit on that unless they slash wages, lower services and increase “user fees.” This equals less care and more costs for our retired elderly workers and their families. Is this what we want for our parents or ourselves? With many seniors’ loss of assets due to the market downturn these extra charges are even more mean spirited than usual.

See:
Two Tier Alberta
Medicare Calgary Style

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McCain Supports Canadian Style Medicare

For veterans. He was using this as part of his Florida stump speeches last week.

Allowing veterans to use whatever provider they want, wherever they want by giving them an electronic health care card or through another method.

It seems our American friends south of the border fear government single payer systems because of their anti-government ideology in some cases and because they don't understand Canada's Medicare system.

They would rather suffer under the current monopoly market controlled by insurance companies and HMO's (owned by corporations and sold on Wall Street) than have a single payer system like we have in Canada where you take your Medicare card to any doctor you want to go see. Just what McCain wants for veterans.

Of course one of the common attacks from the right on Canadian Medicare is that we apparently have line ups stretching for miles for folks waiting for operations. That image of course is courtesy the Fraser Institute.

The reality is that doctors in Canada run their own private practices and clinic businesses which are paid for by you and me through a single payer program run by the government. A fact that seems to be missed by our friends south of the border when they curse government run, socialist medicine.

And yes we still have unacceptable wait times for some surgeries, that has not changed after two years of the Conservatives being in power. So don't expect much from their counterparts south of the border when it comes to fixing their health care problems.


SEE

Proletarian Doctors



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Blogging For Choice IV

As we approach the twentieth anniversary of the Regina vs. Morgentaler Supreme Court decision the papers are full of coverage of this monumental legal and legislative decision. Colby Cosh in todays National Post chastises the right wing moralists like Frum and Kay who whined about this in the same pages recently. He declares the court decision a victory for Anarchy, Cosh is a libertarian after all. And tongue in cheek he correctly points out the decision left it up to the State to now decide what laws around abortion it wanted to create, and the State in its wisdom decided to abdicate.

Even Justice Bertha Wilson, whose solitary contribution to the majority finding became the cornerstone of a feminist legacy, was unambiguous about this. She described the protection of the fetus as "a perfectly valid legislative objective," offered that "The value to be placed on the fetus as potential life is directly related to the stage of its development during gestation" and said that "The precise point in the development of the foetus at which the state's interest in its protection becomes 'compelling' should be left to the informed judgment of the legislature, which is in a position to receive submissions on the subject from all the relevant disciplines." Do those sound like the words of an estrogen-crazed baby-devourer?

All the court really did was get rid of a senseless morass of dilatory regulation whereby a woman's choice was limited not by a real, rational guideline, but by the local availability of willing physician-monopolists and the whims of hospital committees. The position taken by moderate pro-lifers today is, ironically, more or less exactly that of Bertha Wilson: i.e., that there should probably be some legislative decision, binding upon the whole country, concerning the exact moment when a fetus becomes an individual person for medical purposes. Only a radical, total opponent of abortion could conceivably advocate returning to the broken pre-1988 system, and only as a sly, unfair means of saving some fetal lives.

And this fact really confirms the fundamental wisdom of the Morgentaler decision. The overturning of the old legal regime was decided on a 4-2 vote, with Justices W.R. McIntyre and Gerard La Forest in dissent. The pair wrote that "there is no evidence or indication of general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our society." This must now stand as one of the great inadvertent jests in the history of the court. For the 20 years since their statement, abortion at the will of the mother is just what we have had. The number of people who have proven themselves actually willing to do something about the situation, as opposed to merely inveighing against it as an occasion for outraged verbiage, is minuscule. Domestic politicians of all parties recoil in fear, almost uniformly, at the suggestion that any abortion might ever be prevented by the force of law. And even criticism from other Western countries, which all regulate abortion themselves, has been rare verging on nonexistent.

This is where we are. This is what we wanted, whether we admit it to ourselves or not. And this is as it should be, with the final decision in the hands of the one who must chance the hazards and agony of birth. Long live Morgentaler! Long live anarchy!

As usual the fetus fetishists who proclaim their love of life decided to threaten Dr. Morgentaler's life, again, at the public meeting where the 20th Anniversary decision was being celebrated last night.

Morgentaler escorted from gathering marking 20th anniversary of historic abortion ruling

Jan 26, 2008

Two standing ovations and one death threat.

That's the reception Dr. Henry Morgentaler received at a University of Toronto symposium yesterday marking the 20th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning Canada's abortion law.

"Over the past 37 years I have dedicated myself to the struggle to achieve rights to reproductive freedom and to provide facilities for women," Morgentaler told the symposium, held by the law faculty. "This struggle gave meaning to my life."

He said the Jan. 28, 1988, decision was the impetus for him and other physicians to establish abortion clinics across Canada.

"I am proud to have played such a pivotal role in the decision."

Ah yes and here is the contradiction the very Progressive and Left Wing forces that have supported Morgentaler then and over the years are the same folks who oppose the privatization of Health Care, which is what has made Morgentaler's business prosper over the years.

Morgentaler Clinics provide private health care, the state in its wisdom abandoned any legislation that would provide for abortions being fully funded and delivered in a local hospital. That's the other side of the anarchy coin of abortion in Canada. The Supreme court flipped that coin to the State and the State refused to make a call. The result is in effect no real choice for women, either give birth or pay for an abortion out of pocket.

"The Morgentaler decision was huge in that it has undoubtedly saved the lives and protected the health of countless women," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation (NAF). "No longer did women have to jeopardize their lives or health in order to end an unwanted pregnancy."

The NAF represents abortion providers in Canada and the United States and works to ensure abortion is safe, legal and accessible to promote health and justice for women, she said.

The decision also allowed for abortions to be a publicly funded medical procedure. However, Saporta said many women still face barriers in accessing therapeutic abortion services, particularly because it is not on the interprovincial billing agreement.

Women living in rural areas, such as Chatham-Kent, have difficulty accessing abortion clinics because the majority of abortion care is located in urban centres.

"Some women are traveling 60 miles or more. It can often be a significant barrier for some women that cannot be overcome," said Saporta, adding the closest abortion clinics are in London,Toronto and Detroit.

There are no therapeutic abortion clinics currently operating in Chatham-Kent, however the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance does perform medical abortions if it is necessary for the health of the mother.

"The obstetricians and gynecologists within Chatham-Kent do not include abortions within their scope of practice," said Kim Bossy, director of communications and community relations at CKHA.

The Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit provides women with information on options available to them regarding unwanted pregnancies and remains neutral in the decision, said Kelly Farrugia, school age health program manager.

"Our policy is to review all the options for unplanned pregnancies," she said. "I think every woman has their own reasons why they choose the option they do."

The Morgentaler decision: Choice? What choice?
Two decades after the landmark ruling on abortion rights, poor access and a lack of treatment alternatives still hamper a woman's ability to choose

ANDRÉ PICARD

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

January 24, 2008

While there are, theoretically, no restrictions on abortion, the number of abortions has not increased.

In fact, the number of abortions has held steady over all, and the teen abortion rate has actually fallen.

Each year in Canada, there are about 330,000 lives births and 110,000 abortions.

Despite what you see in Hollywood movies, the vast majority of those having abortions are not teens, but women in their 20s and 30s. They have, almost universally, exercised their freedom of choice judiciously, law or no law.

While the highest court ruled that the state has no place in the uteruses of the nation, the state does have a role in the provision of medically necessary health services, of which abortion is one.

Yet our health system - from the politicians who oversee it to the policy makers and administrators through to the physicians and nurses who should provide non-judgmental care in public institutions - has largely failed women who seek abortions.

The failings are many and varied, but revolve principally around lack of access to timely care.

In short, the arbitrary rules that have crept into the system in the past two decades make a mockery of the Supreme Court ruling.

In Canada, fewer than one in five hospitals perform abortions. One province, Prince Edward Island, offers no abortion services at all. Another, New Brunswick, has created unjustified (and likely unconstitutional) barriers to access, requiring referrals from two doctors.

In the nation's capital, Ottawa, the wait time for an abortion stretches to six weeks, a perversity. (If there is one area of care for which there should be a wait-time guarantee, it is abortion, obviously a time-sensitive procedure.)

But the greatest injustice is that faced by Canadian women living outside major metropolitan centres, particularly those in the North.

Virtually every hospital and clinic offering abortion services in Canada is located within 150 kilometres of the U.S. border, and there is not a single abortion provider north of the Trans-Canada Highway in Ontario.

A woman in northern Manitoba, for example, needs to travel about 20 hours to access the nearest in-province abortion provider. For women in the three territories, travel can be an insurmountable obstacle.

Abortion should be covered by medicare but, in reality, it is expensive. If a woman opts for an abortion in a private clinic - something that is often necessary given the lack of service offered in hospitals - she must pay out of pocket and be reimbursed. (This policy was recently struck down by the courts in Quebec, which deemed that medicare should foot the bill, regardless of where the procedure is done.)

Worse yet, if a woman travels out of province or to the United States - which, again, many women are forced to do because of lack of timely access domestically - she will not be reimbursed at all.

Further, Canadian women wanting to terminate a pregnancy have no option other than surgical abortion.

Drug-induced abortion - the method of choice of about one-third of women in Europe and the United States - is not even available in Canada. Mifepristone (brand name Mifeprex, also known as RU-486) is a safe, proven alternative, and its lack of availability in Canada is a scandal.

Between the legalization of abortion in 1969 and its complete decriminalization in 1988, women fought many tough battles.

NO ACCESS, NO CHOICE

Abortion

CHLOÉ FEDIO / Vue Weekly

In 1983, political activist Judy Rebick became the unintended victim of assault when a man brandishing garden shears lunged at Dr Henry Morgentaler at the opening of his Toronto abortion clinic. She blocked the attack and Dr Morgentaler emerged unscathed, but the incident is just one of several threats Rebick has endured because of her involvement in the pro-choice movement.

Despite it all, Rebick refused to be intimidated in the debate that continues to elicit contention to this day.

“I learned a lot from Dr Morgentaler, because he’d gone to jail—he almost died in jail. He was constantly a target of attack, constantly a target of threats and so on, and his attitude was, if you do this work this is part of the price you pay,” Rebick said.

Rebick was part of the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, the group that encouraged and helped Dr Morgentaler open his Toronto clinic.

“It’s probably one of the proudest things I’ve done in my life. There is a certain amount of courage involved, but it was also such a splendid victory,” said Rebick. “When we started, everyone was against us—the courts were against us, the cops, the government. It was really a magnificent battle.”

In 1969, Dr Morgentaler broke the law to open Canada’s first abortion clinic in Montréal, becoming one of the country’s most controversial figures. But it was only after police raided his newly-opened Toronto clinic in 1983 that he became the central figure in an historic case that paved the way for reproductive rights in Canada.

Before the decision, abortion was only legal in a hospital, and only if approved by a three-doctor therapeutic abortion committee. But on Jan 28, 1988, the Supreme Court struck down that law as unconstitutional, ruling that it infringed upon a woman's right to “life, liberty and security of person.”

But 20 years after the lifting of federal legal restrictions on abortion, women across the country still face significant challenges in accessing the procedure.

Patricia Larue, executive director of Canadians for Choice, a non-profit charitable organization based out of Ottawa, explained that abortion services in Canada are concentrated in urban areas, forcing many women to travel great distances to gain access to the procedure.

“Most of the places that offer abortion services—clinics or hospitals—are located in the south of the country, about 100 kilometres north of the American border. So for women living in the north, or even central Canada, it’s really difficult to have access to a place where they can go for an abortion,” Larue said.

Edmonton is the sixth largest metropolitan region in Canada, with a population of over one million, but there’s only one abortion clinic in the area. In May 2005, the Royal Alexandra Hospital stopped performing the procedure, leaving the Edmonton Morgentaler Clinic with the brunt of the responsibility in northern Alberta. Dr Christa Delacruz, who operates out of Grande Prairie, also provides abortions, but access outside of the major urban centres of Edmonton and Calgary is extremely limited.

Larry Brockman, the executive director of Planned Parenthood Edmonton, explained that having a single abortion provider in Edmonton can cause a backlog, increasing wait times for women seeking the service. He said the single point of access can also allow anti-abortion groups to concentrate their efforts.

“There is from time to time, lobbying or civil action that takes place that attempts to block access of women to abortion,” Brockman said. “It’s a concern that now it’s reduced to one site—it’s a little easier for protest groups to focus on one site.”

Corrie Mekar works on the front lines at Planned Parenthood Edmonton, dealing directly with women who are considering an abortion. She said the recent surge in population, coupled with the single point of access, is causing a strain on abortion services in Edmonton.

“You can kind of talk about abortion in terms of every other type of service that’s out here in Edmonton right now, with the influx of people coming in,” Mekar said. “Our population has exploded because of the economic boom, and because of that I think they’re having trouble with health everywhere, and this is no different.”

Since Jul 1, 1996, all abortion fees in Alberta are covered for any woman with Alberta Health Care or Saskatchewan Health Care coverage. But Brockman explained that women from other Canadian provinces sometimes face challenges with coverage in Alberta, while recent immigrants are left to foot the bill on their own.

Howard May, spokesperson for Alberta Health and Wellness, explained that Alberta Health Care covers the doctor’s fees and hospital costs of medically required abortion outside the province, but won’t cover the facility fee if the abortion is done in a private clinic. He said that under federal legislation, abortions are not included in the multi-province reciprocal billing agreement.

“The rationale behind the exclusion from the reciprocal agreements is that provinces and territories have different rules and regulations regarding the coverage of abortions,” said May. “Some will only cover the costs if the abortion is provided in a hospital. Others require the recommendation of two physicians.”

The cost of an abortion at the Edmonton Morgentaler Clinic ranges from $400 to $800, depending on how far along a woman is in her pregnancy.

There is an alternative, it is for public hospitals to adopt the Morgentaler method and provide fully paid for abortions including pre and post therapeutic consultations. That is the new struggle facing us twenty years later.

Let us not cheer Dr. Morgentaler who acted out of his own self interest and has gained wealth and fame as result and who has undermined the public health system in Canada as a result of the Supreme Court decision.

The Morgentaler decision in effect left women with no choice but of paying for abortions out of their own pocket, furthering the femininzation of poverty. Those who can afford do so, those who cannot have their choices restricted. Which is why you see no real increase in abortions in Canada over the past twenty years.

The struggle continues, and it is the struggle for womens reproductive rights; not just the struggle for abortion or to defend Dr. Morgentaler, as the struggle for reproductive rights was reduced to for twenty years before the SCC decision.

The struggle for womens reproductive rights is the struggle for more than just the right to abortion as I have outlined in my first post.

And that struggle can only be won without and despite Dr. Morgentaler. It is time for the Progressive and Left activists to divorce themselves from Morgentaler and his legacy; the privatization of health care.


SEE:


Blogging For Choice III

Blogging For Choice II

Blogging For Choice


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Henry Morgentaler, abortion, contraception, birth, mortality, Roe vs. Wade, sex, Supreme Court of Canada, sin, murder, embryo, 1988, fetus, fetal, Christianity, Catholic, anti-choice, safe sex, womens health, libertarian feminism, anti-abortion,
women, education, birth contol, contraception, single mothers, US High School dropouts, children, family, family planning, India, USA, feminism,

Blogging For Choice III

As follow up on my previous Blogging For Choice articles; I and II here is more evidence that the Supreme Courts decision over abortion left the door open to privatization of health care in Canada, in particular the privatization of abortion services.

That meant a restriction of genuine choice for women who need or want abortions to using Morgentaler Clinics or else leaving their provinces for clinics in other provinces or in the U.S.

Many Canadian women lack access to reproductive health services

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Proletarian Doctors Redux

Bethune led the way. And Canada quietly has produced a model for creating doctors faster than the monopoly guild that is the College of Physicians and Surgeons would like to admit to.

As I have pointed out here before the way to create more doctors and reform the medicare system is to break the haughty power of the monopoly the doctors guild has on its profession. And it appears that such a possibility has been in place for forty years but nobody bothered to admit it existed.

Add to this a program of nurse practitioners, free tuition and a commitment to work in rural areas, as well as community based health clinics with doctors on salary we would well be on our way to ending the health care crisis. And it would cost far less than any other reform.

Canada could produce a lot more doctors at a lower cost, and medical students would save thousands in tuition if most of its medical schools moved to a three-year program, the Canadian Medical Association Journal suggests.

Such three-year programs have existed for decades at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and at the University of Calgary.

Dr. Paul Hébert, editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal and a professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, wants to know how they measure up against the four-year programs at the rest of the country's medical schools.

"We've had a 40-year experiment go on, and no one's looked at that data as far as I know in a very cogent and detailed manner," he told CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning Friday, the same week he published an editorial titled "Is it time for another medical curriculum revolution?" in the bi-weekly journal.

Dr. Norman Bethune, assisted by Henning Sorensen, performing a transfusion during the Spanish Civil War

Norman Bethune (1890-1939) was a Canadian thoracic surgeon. During the 1930s he became a convinced communist, and this led him to Spain, where he joined the anti-Fascist struggle. On the Spanish battle fields he became aware that 75% of serious battle casualties would survive if operated on immediately. In early 1938, he arrived in China, and proceeded to Yan'an, the revolutionary base area of the Chinese Communist Party. Mao Zedong commissioned him to organize a mobile operating unit in the interior of North China. Although he was forced to work under extreme circumstances, sometimes operating for forty hours straight without sleep, and within minutes of the front lines, he saved the lives of many Chinese party members and soldiers. He died of septicemia, contracted when he cut himself while operating under great pressure from advancing Japanese forces.

Norman Bethune (1890-1939)

• born in Gravenhurst, Ontario
• served as a stretcher bearer in a field ambulance unit of the Canadian army in France in 1915
• a bout of tuberculosis inspired his interest in thoracic surgery
• joined the surgical team at Montreal's Royal Victoria Hospital
• produced over a dozen new surgical instruments
• became disillusioned with medical practice because often patients who were saved by surgery became sick again when they returned to squalid living conditions
• visited the Soviet Union, and secretly joined the communist party in 1935
• opened a health clinic for the unemployed
• promoted reform of the health care system
• fought the fascists in Spain in 1936
• in Madrid he organized the first mobile blood-transfusion unit
• in 1938 he went to aid the Chinese against the Japanese invasion
• in China he formed the first mobile medical unit, which could be carried on two mules
• died of an infection due to the lack of penicillin, the infection ocurred during surgery due to a lack of surgical gloves
• Bethune is regarded as a martyr in China and is referred to as "Pai-ch'iu-en" which means "white weeks grace"
• next to his tomb in China there is a statue, a pavillion, a museum, and a hospital dedicated to him
• the family home in Gravenhurst is now a museum
• played by Donald Sutherland in the biographical film: "Bethune: Making of a Hero"
• biography: The Scalpel, The Sword by Ted Allen and Sydney Gordon
• for more information see Canada firsts (1992) by Ralph Nader, Nadia Milleron, and Duff Conacher

History of the Norman Bethune Tapestry by William C. Gibson, MD, DPhil

One day when I had just arrived back in Vancouver from World Health Organization meetings in Geneva I dropped in to see H.R. MacMillan at his home. As usual he began: "What is the best thing you saw while away?" I told him of a very fine tapestry which was in a travelling exhibition, showing Norman Bethune in the Chinese countryside. "Find it," he said. After months of correspondence with Chinese and Geneva sources, I had to report failure. So H.R. said: "Get one made in China and send me the bill." So I sent off to Shanghai a colour photo to be reproduced, giving the approximate size which we could accommodate. Six months later the Bethune tapestry arrived, almost buried in mothballs! We placed it in the Sherrington Room, where many came to study it.* The setting depicts a former Buddhist temple, which Bethune had converted to his operating room for the Eighth Route Army in Hopei Province in the north. Bethune had sailed on a CPR Empress liner from Vancouver soon after Japan attacked China, because he was at that time in Salmon Arm, B.C. on a fundraising mission for his blood transfusion service in the Spanish Civil War. On hearing of the invasion of China, he gave up his efforts for Spain, where he had done yeoman service for the legal government of Spain despite the Department of External Affairs in Ottawa, which threw no end of roadblocks in his way. With a Canadian nurse he set off for China, accompanied, alas, by an American Red Cross surgeon who turned out to be a chronic alcoholic (as I believe he had been in Newfoundland). In 18 months Bethune became a legend. After his death at age 49 of an infected finger, cut while operating, Mao wrote a eulogy which was memorized by every schoolchild in China. When I first visited China in 1973, with the Bethune Foundation, every stop we made was highlighted by children reciting it. * One visitor was Dr. Wong, who was Bethune's anesthetist, shown in the tapestry. Bethune is doing a rib resection to get at a lung damaged by a bullet. You can see him bending over the wedged-open chest of the soldier.

SEE:

Proletarian Doctors

Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta

Ex Pat Attacks Medicare

Privatizing Health Care

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

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Norman Bethune, privatization, Canada, CMA, Doctors, businessmen, privatizing healthcare, health care, public health care, medicare, private health care
medicare, health care, Canada, physician assistant , nurse practicioners, doctors on salry, privatized-health care, private-medical-services, medicine, privatization,community health clinics,

Fire The Bums

These guys are all Tories appointed by the Tory government. They are the folks who told us to tighten our belts, who closed beds and laid off staff while giving themselves golden parachutes and corporate salaries that would be the envy of those in the private sector. And they still ran up a deficit. Because they cut staff and forced existing staff to work overtime. Fire the bums. And lets demand the right to elect health boards, something the Klein government took away. Once again we suffer a democratic deficit in the One Party State.

Calgary Health Region revealed Thursday that its 2007-08 deficit may balloon to $85 million and Jack Davis will hand over the reins as president in part of a senior executive shuffle.

Davis will retain his duties as chief executive officer in the reorganization that takes effect next week.

The CHR's executive team is being pared from about 18 positions to 11 in an attempt to reduce bureaucracy and allow for quicker decision-making.

But the organizational changes are not expected to produce major cost savings at the cash-strapped CHR, leading the Alberta Liberals to call on the government to assess how the province's health authorities are spending their money.

The financial troubles at CHR -- a $2.8 billion organization that runs Calgary's medical system -- are largely related to massive staff overtime costs, worth about $63 million.

The reorganization -- which includes sweeping changes to the way CHR is structured -- isn't likely to significantly cut costs from the region's $91 million administrative budget, in part because only two executive team members have left the organization. Others who aren't part of the new executive team have been reassigned to other areas.

SEE

Legacy Of The Ralph Revolution

Transparency Alberta Style

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Nova Scota Imitates Alberta

Alberta has the most regressive labour laws in Canada. It long ago banned hospital workers, including nurses, right to strike. That of course did not stop those workers from going on strike. The right to strike is an essential workers right and is defended by the International Labour Organization as such. It is as essential as the right to unionize.

If governments banned the right to unionize it would be seen as the actions of an authoritarian state. The same goes for banning the right to strike. Ironically unions were banned in the 19th Century as 'criminal conspiracies' to limit trade. It was several years after Canada became a nation that Britain changed its laws and Canada followed suit. That did not stop workers from organizing unions, as secret societies; like the Knights of Labor. It meant workers on the job organized, and went on strike because that is their right as workers. All we have to sell is our labour or our time, our presence on the job.

In Alberta hospital workers were declared an essential service that still did not prevent AUPE or the Nurses union from going out on 'illegal' strikes. And win wage and benefit gains.

In Nova Scotia the hospital employers are running TV ads, I have satellite so I get to see them when I watch the CFL or NHL on CBC Halifax, claiming it hurt patients and is in everyones 'best' interest to end the right to strike. They claim other provinces do it and it has brought labour peace. Actually they meant to say appeasement. However that being said these employers are just another arm of government. They are government appointees or hirelings. So while one arm of the government, the legislature, brings in anti-worker anti-union anti-strike laws the other arm of the government, its employer association running the public hospitals, does the PR for the law.

The fact is that if the employer, who is the government, would fund hospitals and medical services properly then workers would be assured of proper wage and benefit increases, and proper hours of work. Instead the employer, which is the government, wants to cut wages, benefits and contract out work, split shifts, end seniority etc. etc.

A group that does not face these draconian attacks is of course the Doctors who are a business monopoly. There are few doctors strikes in Canada, and if they do occur they are short lived because governments assure doctors their services are paid for. Then they turn around and cut services in hospitals and cut other workers wages and benefits and tell them to hold the line.

The reality is that mediation only works between equals. In this case the government and its hospital administration view doctors as indispensable, and other workers as dispensable. If they didn't they would fund hospitals fully so all workers got the pay, benefits and hours of work they deserve. If that was the case there would be no need to strike.

Mediation does not work. Nor does denying workers the right to strike. They will, as history has shown, strike when they get cheated and screwed whether it is against the law or not.

What is interesting is that this balanced and pro-union article is from a Business Journal.

Union Dues: Anti-strike bill 'political posturing'
BY BRIAN FLINN, TRANSCONTINENTAL MEDIA
The Nova Scotia Business Journal

Health workers, the NDP and the Liberals are lined up against the government's highest-profile bill as the Nova Scotia legislature ends a seven-month summer break. Premier Rodney MacDonald said he's pushing ahead with the doomed anti-strike legislation because Nova Scotians deserve to hear it debated and find out how their MLAs vote. But he's not putting his minority government's survival on the line.

"There won't be any confidence votes this fall," MacDonald told reporters.

The government has been working on a bill to replace health strikes with arbitration since a brief IWK walkout earlier this year. Health- and community-care workers don't want to lose collective bargaining rights, and plan to rally outside Province House today while Lt.-Gov. Mayann Francis reads the speech from the throne.

"We're pleased the opposition will defeat this bill," said Joan Jessome, president of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union. "But it can come back again and again. We need to make our point strong and clear enough to put this to rest."

The premier said he does plan to revive the bill later. "I'm a patient person," he said.

Both the Liberals and the NDP plan to defeat the bill at the first opportunity, when it goes to a second reading vote. MacDonald said the Liberals are "stuck in the past," while the NDP is standing up for special interests.

"They receive a lot of funding from the unions. They generally tend to be the biggest contributor to the NDP and most of their candidates," he said. "It's unfortunate; you don't put that ahead of health and safety."

NDP Leader Darrell Dexter said MacDonald is trying to distract attention from bigger problems in health care, such as emergency-room closings and the shortage of nursing-home beds. He said it's unfortunate the government is wasting some of the few days it allows the legislature to sit, on a doomed bill. "This bill is purely a product of political posturing," Dexter said.

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil said he doesn't hear Nova Scotians pleading for anti-strike legislation. He said his party wants to co-operate with health workers, not take away their rights. "Where's the crisis?" McNeil asked. "I have yet to understand why the premier and the government are hanging their hats on this issue."

The House has to sit for only two days to avoid the label of the laziest legislature in Canada for a fourth year in a row. Prince Edward Island's House sat just 24 days this year, one more than Nova Scotia. – The Daily News

EXTRA: Strike threats useful warning system
By Brian Flinn, Transcontinental Media

Taking the right to strike away from health workers would damage an important safety mechanism and jeopardize the care of Nova Scotians, according to a new study by the Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Saint Mary's University professors Judy and Larry Haiven wrote that health workers know when the system is being pushed beyond tolerable limits and can signal it by threatening to strike. They said it's similar to the "red cord" used to stop assembly lines when something goes wrong in a factory.

"Health-care workers must have a way of indicating that the conditions under which they work do not overstress them or the quality of health-care delivery," the Haivens wrote. "Thus, in the health-care system, the red cord can be said to be the power of health-care workers to threaten to, and if necessary, withhold their labour."

Labour Minister Mark Parent has argued a modern health-care system cannot tolerate work stoppages. The report says "management by stress" now predominates in health care, and an outlet is more important than ever. "If politicians and health-care administrators insist on running a system so close to the bone, then the ability of workers to strike, to pull the red cord, as it were, is an essential system mechanism to ensure patient safety in the long run." – The Daily News

And this is from the Dominion Blog

November 23, 2007

NS Government Faces Heat Over Anti-Strike Bill

In one of the more polite demonstrations I've attended, a union coalition lead by the Nova Scotia General Employees Union staged a sidewalk rally of about 500 in front of the province's legislature on Thursday. While members of the crowd, which included a strong contingent of nurses and healthcare workers, heckled Premier Rodney Macdonald's minority government (top pic), the military guard-laden arrival of Nova Scotia's Lt.-Gov Mayann Francis, due to read her first speech from the throne, on the other side of the building was met with no interruption (bottom pic). After Macdonald's assertion that the unions were being "disrespectful" for holding a demonstration during the ceremonial speech from the throne, the union leadership responded by urging demonstrators to remain quiet outside of the legislature while Francis made her speech.

The rally was called in response to a bill due to be introduced by the minority tories banning the right to strike for the 32,000 healthcare workers in Nova Scotia. Macdonald had promised to introduce the bill in May following a one-day strike at a children's hospital in Halifax. The bill seems to be on the verge of being junked as a result of the union campaign, as both the Liberals and NDP have pledged to vote against it, were it to be introduced by the minority government. As a result, Macdonald has admitted he is unwilling to see his government fall as a result of the proposed anti-strike legislation.

Regardless of this apparent defeat, the throne speech outlined the Tory government's plans to establish more publicly funded, private health facilities in the province.

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Still Waiting and waiting and.....

For all their talk about how the Harper government takes action it is just that talk.

Jim Flaherty's timelines on national securities regulator, international tax

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has repeatedly talked about plans to strike two panels: One to create draft legislation for a national securities regulator, and the other to identify ways to improve the fairness and competitiveness of Canada’s system of international taxation.

The latter panel was even suppose to produce an interim report by the end of 2007 and a final report in 2008. But the panels don’t exist yet. When will they be created?

“Soon,” Mr. Flaherty told reporters after speaking at a Rotary Club of Toronto event. Asked to clarify how soon, he said the international tax panel will show up within the next ten days. He did not elaborate on the national securities regulator panel.

Canada's health care rated poorly

Canada has the worst rating in a new study of health care in seven countries when it comes to wait times for seeing doctors and getting elective surgery.

And the Commonwealth Fund says Canadians are most likely to report going to an emergency room as an alternative to a visit to a doctor's office or clinic.

Only 22 per cent of Canadians surveyed say they could get a same-day appointment when they're sick. Thirty per cent -- by far the highest among the countries -- say they had to wait six days or more.

And 15 per cent reported waits of six months or more for non-emergency surgery.

Meantime, two-thirds reported having a lot of difficulty getting care at night, on weekends or holidays.

"The report indicates that Canadians are saying the same thing to politicians that they're saying to the Commonwealth Fund: access to physicians and access to medical services has to improve," said Health Minister Tony Clement.

"We share that concern."

SEE

Finally Some Common Sense

Still Waiting On Wait Time 2

Still Waiting On Wait Time 1

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Proletarian Doctors

Medicare reform can only occur when we break the doctors business monopoly and 'their haughty power' over health care. One of the ways is to put doctors on salary.

Another is by creating integrated community medical centers and thus the proletarianization 0f Medicare through the use of salaried Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants. It's an idea Norman Bethune would approve of.

Dr. Sigurdson, who worked with a physician assistant during a fellowship in Atlanta, just completed a master of business administration degree at Saint Mary's University during which he examined the business case for physician assistants.

"We could do things much better here," he said Wednesday.
Dr. Sigurdson said in an average 10-hour day set aside for operating, he only spends about six hours in the operating room and the rest of the time waiting for patients to be moved, the room to be cleaned and so on.

But much of what he does in the operating room could easily be done by a trained physician assistant.

He said it doesn't require a surgeon to prepare and drape a patient for surgery, sew up an incision or dress a wound.

"A (physician assistant) could sew up just as good as I can," Dr. Sigurdson said.

In fact, by his calculations, a surgeon is needed for only about 37 per cent of what happens during an operation. And a physician assistant could handle 51 per cent of the patients he now sees in a clinic.

About 100 patients were booked to see Dr. Sigurdson on Thursday morning. He needs to see patients having or recovering from major procedures like breast reconstruction. But when the appointment is simply to check whether someone who's had a minor procedure is faring well, a physician assistant would do just as well.

Comparing the cost of hiring a physician assistant at about $70,000 per year to a conservative estimate of Dr. Sigurdson's increased productivity, he estimated the province would see a modest cost saving over 10 years.

But when he compared the cost of a physician assistant plus the space and staff to run two operating rooms at once to simply hiring a second surgeon to work in a second room, he found the province could save $1 million in today's dollars.

A full-time surgeon at the QEII is paid an average $432,521 a year under a contract with the province, meaning the doctor would get no extra pay for doing twice as much surgery.

"I'm a young surgeon; I like operating," Dr. Sigurdson said. "And I'd like to operate more. You don't train 14 years to do something and then you only get to do it a day or a day and a half a week. It's frustrating."

He said it's much too late now to hope that increasing the number of doctors trained in Canada can meet the mushrooming demand for care. The country is just now experiencing the leading edge of a huge group of aging baby boomers who will not accept years-long waits for health care.

"To take business concepts and bring them into the public system is a strategy that we really should be thinking very strongly about before we throw the baby out with the bathwater and bring in a parallel private-care system," Dr. Sigurdson said.

Physician assistants work well in the private American system and could easily be incorporated into the public system, he said.

And there are trained physician assistants in Nova Scotia eager to work, he said. Those employed by the military frequently take early retirement and are left with few work options save providing care on oil rigs.

SEE

Ex Pat Attacks Medicare

Privatizing Health Care

Socialized Medicine Began In Alberta

Laundry Workers Fight Privatization

Two Tier Alberta

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Pay Back II

The Harpocrites throw some crumbs to Calgary.

Calgary home to new mental health commission

In true Orwellian style it turns out that Calgary's advantage is;

"Calgary is the only major regional health authority in the country without a specialized psychiatric hospital, and that's actually an advantage."

More P O R K.

But wait the Alberta Advantage is at play here too, the idea of further private public delivery (P3) of services. More Medicare reform through the back door.

"The Alberta Mental Health Board is a unique structure, across the country, in terms of the way they look at mental health policy without actually delivering services. I think we can learn a lot from that," Kirby said Friday.

And of course since the government doesn't deliver services it waits for the community or market to create those services after the fact. First it and closed existing hospital beds, leaving folks to fend for themselves.

It has also gone further down the road in moving away form institutional care to more community-based programs, Kirby said.

Sure which has lead to this; homelessness.

And after all since Alberta is booming it makes sense to set it up here since;

Work Is A Danger To Your Mental Health

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Canada Goes To Pot

Canada is a nation of pot heads.

\Marijuana use in Canada is the highest in the industrialized world and more than four times the global rate, according to a report from the United Nations.

Forty per cent of Canadian cannabis is produced in British Columbia, 25% in Ontario and 25% in Quebec, the report noted.

 Health

   -   One in 10 Canadian women uses marijuana.

Experts and activists are not concerned about the high rate of Canadian marijuana use reported in 2007 UN World Drug report —even though young people are the largest users of the drug.

The report states that 16.8 per cent of Canadians between the ages of 16 and 64 used marijuana in 2004. Canada is ranked fifth in marijuana use and the country’s usage percentage is four times the world average of 3.8 per cent. To compare, the report found that 12.6 per cent of people in the United States and 6.1 per cent in Holland have used the drug.

Richard Mathias, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of medicine, said he is pleased with the results from the report and is not worried about the high numbers of young people using the drug.

“I think that marijuana is a safer drug than some other options and I know that youth is a difficult, highly stressful time and it is to be expected that youth will explore and that’s good,” he said. “I teach these kids. They’re not criminals.”

A study conducted in 2002 by Carleton University professor Peter Fried also concluded that only heavy pot smokers are negatively affected by marijuana use. Fried’s 70-person study found that only heavy marijuana users between the ages of 10 and 20 had a decline in their IQ scores. The rest saw an increase in their scores.

The study also found that those who smoked heavily and later quit returned to their former IQ level.

Eugene Oscapella, an Ottawa-based lawyer who specializes in drug policy issues, said the UN report shows that the legal status of marijuana in a given country seems to have little bearing on consumption rates.

The report found that only 6.1 per cent of people in the Netherlands, where marijuana use has effectively been decriminalized, reported trying pot.

This shows decriminalization has no bearing on rates of use, and Canada shouldn't be so afraid to follow the Dutch lead, Oscapella said.

"The criminal law does not prevent people from using marijuana, nor does legalization force people to use it," he said.

Jean Chretien's Liberals first introduced a bill to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in 2003, but it was never brought to a final vote. Stephen Harper's Conservatives killed the bill when they came to office in January 2006.

Oscapella added that Canada should be focusing its resources on the root causes of drug abuse, rather than persecuting people for possession.

"It is a health and a social issue," he said. "The criminal law is not the appropriate mechanism for dealing with drugs in the vast majority of cases."

Marijuana and tobacco use among young adults in Canada

The authors characterized marijuana smoking among young adult Canadians, examined the co-morbidity of tobacco and marijuana use, and identified correlates associated with different marijuana use consumption patterns. Data were collected from 20,275 individuals as part of the 2004 Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey. Logistic regression models were conducted to examine characteristics associated with marijuana use behaviors among young adults (aged 15-24). Rates of marijuana use were highest among current smokers and lowest among never smokers. Marijuana use was more prevalent among males, young adults living in rural areas, and increased with age. Young adults who were still in school were more likely to have tried marijuana, although among those who had tried, young adults outside of school were more like to be heavy users. Males and those who first tried marijuana at an earlier age also reported more frequent marijuana use. These findings illustrate remarkably high rates of marijuana use and high co-morbidity of tobacco use among young adult Canadians. These findings suggest that future research should consider whether the increasing popularity of marijuana use among young adults represents a threat to the continuing decline in tobacco use among this population.

We have a large scale industry in producing illicit and licit marijuana. The latter for medicinal purposes. We have approved marijuana and its byproducts for medicinal uses.

Since the 1970's when the LeDain Commission recommended decriminalization to today when the right wing think tank the Fraser Institute recommends decriminalization for controlling grow ops and increased tax income.

Canadians favour decriminalization. However the Harpocrites ignored their old Fraser pals as they ignore 'polls' and once elected declared war on pot. Quietly without much fanfare, what had been Liberal policy waiting for a vote was squashed.

“We will not be reintroducing the Liberal government’s marijuana decriminalization legislation,” Harper announced at a Canadian Professional Police Association meeting. “I thought we might find a receptive audience here,” he added, according to a Reuters report.

The Harpocrites would rather pander to their regressive base with a phony war on drugs, blaming as they do the rise in crime and pot smoking on the Liberals, pathetic.

In view of the former Liberal government's determination to medicalize and legalize marijuana, it is not surprising that, according to a study of young people in Canada released in 2004, our youth now hold the distinction of topping all nations (Switzerland was second) in frequent marijuana use. The lead researcher for this study, Dr. William Boyce of Queen's University, stated that the increased use of marijuana in Canada was tied to the three As - affordability, availability and acceptability. He stated, "in Canada, I think all three of those things come together so that it's actually used quite a bit by kids here. It's not so expensive, it's definitely available and with the legislation introduced in the last Parliament - and perhaps again in this one - that decriminalizes marijuana use, it certainly provides a signal to kids that this is not a highly illegal activity."

Thank heaven, the Conservative government is now providing a different message to our youth on marijuana use.

Please write to Prime Minister Harper and Minister of Justice Toews to thank them for the planned enforcement of the present marijuana laws rather than legalizing its use. Their actions will make a significant difference to our nation's youth. Please also request that marijuana use for so-called medical reasons be stopped if and until such time that it can be scientifically determined that its use has in fact, medical benefits.

The Harpocrites have adopted the oh so successful American War On Drugs Policy. And they have included marijuana as a key element of their new anti-drug campaign. Look forward to more regressive stupidity in the fall sitting of the house as the Minister of Health declares a drug panic.

Clement to MDs: Get tougher on illicit drugs

Federal Health Minister Tony Clement delivered a tough, anti-drug message to doctors yesterday, saying young people need straight talk about the dangers of illicit drugs, including marijuana.

"The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least," Clement told the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver.

"We are very concerned about the damage and pain that drugs cause families and we intend to reverse the trend toward vague, ambiguous messaging that has characterized Canadian attitudes in the recent past," he said.

Ottawa plans a campaign emphasizing the dangers of all illicit drugs in any quantity, Clement said. "We will discourage young people from thinking there are safe amounts or safe drugs."

Meanwhile the Police and Senate disagree with the Harpocrites new War On Drugs.

Victoria's No. 2 cop testified in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday that neither the Vancouver Island Compassion Society nor its distribution of medical marijuana has ever been the subject of a criminal investigation.

Deputy Chief Bill Naughton said the society's Cormorant Street office of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society has not generated any complaints, adding marijuana ranks behind drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin in terms of Victoria police priorities.

"The enforcement of federal laws against marijuana takes a back seat," said Naughton, who was subpoenaed by the defence in the trial of Michael Swallow, 41, and Mat Beren, 33.

Also testifying yesterday in Victoria was Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who chaired the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs, which called in 2002 for the legalization of marijuana in Canada.

Nolin told the court the regulations, as they currently exist, are an obstacle to Canadians who want access to medical marijuana.

He said the rules ask doctors to be "gatekeepers" for access to legal marijuana. It's a role doctors don't want, and so Canadians are being denied access to a medical product.

"[The] medical profession is reluctant, generally reluctant," he said. "They don't want to be the gatekeepers, they don't want that responsibility."

Heck even the da Judge disagrees with the Government.

Rolling a joint might require the removal of stems and seeds, but the legal limbo in which pot smokers in Canada find themselves is far from clear-cut.
On July 13, an Ontario Court judge in Toronto acquitted Clifford Long, who was charged with possession of 3.5 grams of marijuana.
The court held that Canada's marijuana possession laws are unconstitutional. Justice Howard Borenstein cited a seven-year-old Ontario Court of Appeal case, which also described the possession law as unconstitutional, due to its ambiguity on medical marijuana.
Long argued in court that since the government of Canada allowed for medicinal use, but did not change the law on marijuana to accommodate this policy change, then all possession laws should cease to exist.

While the Harpocrites declare a War On Drugs, including marijuana, at the same time they approve big pharma profiting off Medical Marijuana.

GW Pharmaceuticals plc (AIM: GWP) and Bayer Inc., a subsidiary of Bayer AG, announce that Health Canada has approved Sativex®, a cannabis derived pharmaceutical treatment, as adjunctive analgesic treatment in adult patients with advanced cancer who experience moderate to severe pain during the highest tolerated dose of strong opioid therapy for persistent background pain.

While local marijuana growers are limited in providing medical marijuana to one or two Canadians. Clearly the Harpocrites missed the point of the Fraser Institute Report. Local grow ops legally functioning can produce medical as well as recreational marijuana that then could be taxed. Quality and consumer protection, would be assured.

A Vancouver Island grower of organic marijuana is being inundated with pleas for pot from disease sufferers, but Health Canada says he can supply only one person, a provincial court trial has been told.

Eric Nash said he wrote to Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement with a list of 121 people, all approved by Health Canada to use marijuana as medicine and asking him to grow it for them. One of them was a former RCMP officer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

But Nash said regulations forbid him from growing for more than one person at a time. So his company, Island Harvest, can supply only two people, one each for him and his partner, although it could easily supply more.

And Tony's announcement of a new PR campaign in the War On Drugs looks suspicious in light of the governments failure to extend the license for the Vancouver Safe Injection Site.

The Canadian government is ramping up a massive anti-drug campaign, the first in 20 years, amid calls to keep open a Vancouver clinic that monitors heroin addicts as they inject themselves with the drug.

"Canada has not run a serious or significant anti-drug campaign for almost 20 years. The messages young people have received during the past several years have been confusing and conflicting to say the least," federal Health Minister Tony Clement said yesterday in a speech to the Canadian Medical Association in Vancouver.

Meanwhile, the Health Minister was vague about whether the Insite injection clinic in Vancouver would stay open. "There has been more research done, and some of it has been questioning of the research that has already taken place and questioning of the methodology of those associated with Insite," he said.

Isra Levy, president of the National Specialty Society for Community Medicine called for Insite to remain open in an interview with The Globe and Mail, stating that "illicit drug use is indeed a scourge, it's the cause of untold misery for those ill with addiction and their loved ones."

Is Harpers War in Afghanistan an excuse to expand his War On Drugs.....not only against opium but against the powerful Cannabis Indica and Afghani Hash....remember Afghani hash? It ain't been around in North America since the late Sixties and early Seventies when Hippies made their holy pilgrimage to Marrakesh and on to Afghanistan and back. It remains however a staple in Europe.

Hashish is produced practically everywhere in and around Afghanistan. The best kinds of Hash originate from the Northern provinces between Hindu Kush and the Russian border (Balkh, Mazar-i-Sharif). As tourist in Afghanistan it will be very difficult to be allowed to see Cannabis-Fields or Hash Production. The plants which are used for Hash production are very small and bushy Indicas. In Afghanistan Hashish is pressed by hand under addition of a small quantity of tea or water. The Hashish is worked on until it becomes highly elastic and has a strong aromatic smell. In Afghanistan the product is stored in the form of Hash-Balls (because a round ball has the less contact with air), however, before being shipped, the Hash is pressed in 100g slabs. Good qualities of Afghani are signed with the stem of the producing family. Sometimes Hash of this kind is sold as Royal Afghani. Color: Black on the outside, dark greenish or brown inside. Can sometimes look kind of grayish on the outside when left in contact with the air. Smell: Spicy to very spicy. Taste: Very spicy, somewhat harsh on the throat. Afghani can induce lots of coughing in inexperienced users.

Afghani
aka Afghanistan
Marijuana

Afghani Marijuana Strains - The origins of this seed strain come from Afghanistan and travel to Holland. Afghani has big round fat leaves and the same beautiful big fat buds. It usually has a rich smooth hash like heavy smoke taste. The Afghani marijuana plant tends to be very bushy and will yield large amounts of very sticky buds. Well known for excellent growth because it originated in mountainous conditions and over thousands of years a very stocky, sturdy and disease resistant plant was produced.

Well Cannabis in Afghanistan is back in a big way. As Canadian forces found last fall. Hey guys don't put that to the torch or ya' all will fall down.

Maj. Patrick Robichaud, commander of the operating base, this week characterized the security situation around Ma'sum Ghar as "fragile." He said Taliban insurgents appear to have taken advantage of a change in command among the Canadians and the Afghan National Army to slip back into the region. The insurgents are looking to strong-arm local farmers for a piece of the action in the impending marijuana harvest, said Maj. Robichaud.

Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of 10-foot-tall marijuana plants.

Gen. Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

Weed Fields in Afghanistan Video

The United Nations has conducted surveys of poppy crops, but has not done so for marijuana plants. The focus on poppies possibly reflects the view of international donors that highly addictive heroin is the more urgent problem.

Marijuana plants are widely grown in at least three of the 16 districts in Balkh province, which is home to Mazar-e-Sharif. Local authorities have sent letters to villages urging farmers to stop growing the illegal crop, but they have yet to decide how and when they will crack down.

"The farmers have planted this stuff like smugglers," said Saheed Azizullah Hashmi, head of the province's agriculture department. "We don't know how much there is out there."

He said many people associated with the hashish trade were linked to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. But marijuana plants thrived well before they held sway over much of Afghanistan, and local commanders with large land holdings reportedly benefit from its cultivation.

Rouzudin and his fellow farmers made no effort to hide their plants, which loom over nearby cotton bushes. The two crops are interspersed along the road leading to Shibergan, the headquarters of Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek commander and powerful political figure in the north.

Farmer Majid Gul said he can get 5 million Afghanis, or about $100, for 2.2 pounds of hashish, 200 times more than he could earn for the same amount of cotton.

"When we're ready to sell, people in big cars will come from the bazaar in town," he said. "We don't know who they are, we just want the money."

. For the decade before the Soviet army invaded in 1979, the teahouses of Afghanistan were the toking tourist's hangout of choice. And even during 23 years of war, when the Afghans fought the Soviets and then one another, the hash trade thrived. "Afghan black" remained a staple sale for cannabis dealers across the world. Mazar-i-Sharif gave its name to a particularly potent variety. And last year, in the final weeks of the Taliban, Amsterdam's coffee-shop owners even boasted they were doing their bit for the war on terror by buying blocks stamped with a golden Northern Alliance stencil reading "Freedom for Afghanistan."

Now, as Afghanistan emerges from war, dope farming has never been so good�and the drought never so bad. The Taliban banned hash production, but in the postwar chaos of lawless fiefdoms that dot the land, growers and traders across the country are finding themselves free once again to cultivate and export hashish without fear, and often with warlord protection. Moreover, the international perception that cannabis is a relatively benign drug�prompting some authorities across Europe and Australia to decriminalize its use�has persuaded drug-policing agencies to largely ignore it. So, while opium cultivation is monitored to the acre, neither Interpol, the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention nor the U.S.'s Drug Enforcement Agency can offer even rough estimates for how much hashish Afghanistan produces or what the trade is worth. But around Mazar it's almost impossible to find a field where hemp is not being grown, either openly or poorly hidden behind watermelons or knee-high cotton plants. "Everybody's farming chaars now," says former Taliban fighter Faizullah, 27, watering a verdant six-hectare oasis of hemp surrounded by desert. Cannabis used to be outlawed by the Taliban. "But now," says Faizullah, "it's a free-for-all."

Harpers War On Drugs is doomed to fail, as has the American campaign. But this proves once again that he and his pals have abandoned any pretense to libertarianism, while embracing the traditional right wing screed of Law and Order Republicanism. Heck Canadians even support the medical use of opiates despite this governments opposition.

While in the U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate and Libertarian Ron Paul embraces his inner Canadian and calls for decriminalization, and an end to Americas war on drugs. Why Is This Canadian Pot Dealer Campaigning for Ron Paul?

Also, a little known fact is that if Ron Paul got his way, there would be no federal war on drugs. He has called the war on drugs “as stupid as the war in Iraq”. He is uncompromisingly against federal laws banning medical marijuana, and completely opposed to the federal government coming in, when a state has legalized medical marijuana, and using force to nullify this legalization (such as has happened in California, where medical marijuana is legal, but the federal government uses force to effectively keep it criminalized. This would NOT happen under a Paul administration.)

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