Mountie fights for right to smoke cannabis in uniform

[alphacat]

Canada: Mountie fights for right to smoke cannabis in uniform



A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer has been told he can't smoke marijuana while in uniform, it's reported.

Cpl Ronald Francis, an officer with more than 20 years' service in the eastern province of New Brunswick, has a medical prescription that allows him to take up to 3g of the drug daily to treat symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, Canadian broadcaster CBC reports. While senior officers have said that his marijuana use is fine under Canadian medical and human rights laws, they have drawn the line over smoking in public while wearing the RCMP's famous red serge uniform. Assistant commissioner Gilles Moreau told CBC that "it would not portray the right message to the general public, it's definitely not something we would support or condone."

Francis has drawn the ire of his superiors by telling CBC in a televised interview: "There's no policy in the RCMP that prevents me from smoking marijuana... I have the right to smoke it in my red serge." Officials thought otherwise, with officers arriving at his home last week to seize his uniform, Toronto's Globe and Mail reports.

With the case hitting national headlines, RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson has told a House of Commons committee that he was "disappointed" by Cpl Francis, who is now on medical leave. "It was all very embarrassing, I think for not just the force, but for Canadians," Paulson says. The issue has seemingly split Canadian opinion, with a straw poll on the CBC website showing 54% thinking that smoking pot in uniform puts across a poor public image and 46% who see no problem if the drug is used legally.

[lloydnoise]

LET DA MAN BLAZE

but seriously, can't he take pills instead? why's he got to light up?

[garethom]

I'm all for legalisation, but I don't see why any employer should find it acceptable that an employee is bunnin a fat zoot on the job, ANY JOB, let alone a police officer.

[kidshuffle]

a mountie is more like the fbi too, lol.

fuck em for the most part, I'm cool with this guy tho...I don't think he should smoke on the job tho.

[kidshuffle]

fuck New Brunswick too

[bennyfroobs]

lmao

thinking that getting blazed is gna sort out ur post traumatic stress disorder, and not make it worse like it does 99% of the time

lololol nice science canada

[alphacat]

^ You have PTSD?

[m8son666]

lol why does ur version of the fbi wear those silly hats

[Nihilism]

Nah, crack cocaine suits them better.

[alphacat]

An audio rebuttal (to those who say he shouldn't be allowed.)

[kidshuffle]

lol why does ur version of the fbi wear those silly hats

i probs shouldnt have said fbi since there is also a lot of them that are the police in rural areas - but in the city they deal with a lot of crazy shit.

but, those are their traditional uniforms, worn at special events and photo ops for some reason lol.

[ezza]

lmao

thinking that getting blazed is gna sort out ur post traumatic stress disorder, and not make it worse like it does 99% of the time

lololol nice science canada

lol yeah

after a few months surely the side effects of weed would mix with the ptsd to make it alot worse

[m8son666]

420 blase it fagits

[nousd]

should be made to strip off and smoke in underwear
if only to avoid burn holes in his expensive kit.

[bennyfroobs]

^ You have PTSD?

nope i know a couple of people who do. one of my friend's ptsd actually began the same week he started smoking weed. poor lad suddenly just got MEGA depression (obviously it was underlying and got triggered, he probably would've had sometihng else trigger it later down the line in his life). he's just been rediagnosed with PTSD & bi-polar last month*. another fella i know just got sectioned )-: really nice guy, but he's got ridiculous paranoia and psychosis, hammered the ganja fairly intensely for like a month or two, with a bit of acid chucked in. he'd never done any of it before then (afaik). obv again the drugs were just a catalyst

i've had anxiety, paranoia and depression though and i still have anxiety stuff quite bad sometimes. apparently that makes me fairly succeptible to ptsd *fingers crossed i never get it*

weed exacerbates all these sort of symptoms for a lot of people. its so bad for people who are succeptible to mental illnesses. fuck knows why they're giving it to people with PTSD... they shouldn't be doing that at all...

[kidshuffle]

i dont think you can paint everyone with the same brush...i'm sure for some people it probably would work better, for some it would make their triggers worse.

i'm also gunna guess this mountie has been smoking longer than he's had his prescription.

[alphacat]

^ You have PTSD?

nope i know a couple of people who do. one of my friend's ptsd actually began the same week he started smoking weed. poor lad suddenly just got MEGA depression (obviously it was underlying and got triggered, he probably would've had sometihng else trigger it later down the line in his life). he's just been rediagnosed with PTSD & bi-polar last month*. another fella i know just got sectioned )-: really nice guy, but he's got ridiculous paranoia and psychosis, hammered the ganja fairly intensely for like a month or two, with a bit of acid chucked in. he'd never done any of it before then (afaik). obv again the drugs were just a catalyst

i've had anxiety, paranoia and depression though and i still have anxiety stuff quite bad sometimes. apparently that makes me fairly succeptible to ptsd *fingers crossed i never get it*

weed exacerbates all these sort of symptoms for a lot of people. its so bad for people who are succeptible to mental illnesses. fuck knows why they're giving it to people with PTSD... they shouldn't be doing that at all...

Here's the thing: you take any reasonably strong psychotropic and use it blindly/outside of known or prescribed regimen - then yeah, their state is likely not going to get better simply by merit of having taken "medicine."

As you mention, if it's a prior underlying organic condition it'll likely express itself some way or another sooner or later, but further complicating things are the fact that you guys are (I'm assuming) relatively young, like under 25, which means that shit in your nervous and endocrine system is already a big fat fucking mess from the normal things young men do themselves like drinking, smoking, staying out late, eating like shit, catching 3 hours of sleep in 48 hours, etc. - for most people that stuff's not a problem but if there's a real [diagnosable] issue with unbalanced nervous or endocrine systems then guess what? It ain't gonna take much to fuck it up at all, including any of these common young man activities. And to top it off with acid (which, again, has the potential to be very powerful medicine for some) whose whole action basically centers around plugging every receptor into every other receptor in your brain - well then yeah, clearly the drugs BEING ADMINISTERED THIS WAY aren't working for your mate.

However, to then assume that ganja can't work for PTSD that because some folks you know tried to self-medicate with anything that came their way, including ganja - and to address a prior condition - is a little bit spurious, logically. Further, just because you've seen crazy people smoking crazy amounts of ganja, it's naive to assume a causal relationship in either direction. That guy'd be ingesting whatever he could... if not weed, then huffing paint.

Check it:

Cannabinoid, PTSD neuroreceptors might be one and the same

Veterans for Cannabis on PTSD treatment

"Can Pot Cure PTSD?"

[bennyfroobs]

first guy's 25, the other guy who has psychosis is like 35, ,mebs a bit older
'
they didnt self medicate dude, they all used it before they got ill. also, it wasnt exactly copious amounts either, except for the guy who smoked it every day for two months. they stopped using it when they lost the plot (afaik, i hope psychosis guy has stopped). i didnt see 'crazy people smoking crazy amounts of ganja', i saw people who were my sane friends become my seriously mentally ill friends :\

im sure acid is a great medicine for some people, depending on their circumstances, just like mdma

im not assuming it wont work because ive seen a couple of people lose the plot after trying drugs, im saying it wont work because ive actually read up on the subject a bit and my stance on the (massive) debate is that it does way more harm than good. i know about endocannabanoids and cb receptors man. and that 'can pot cure ptsd' article is a fairly dubious source tbh haha. yea weeds gna tickle the cb1 receptor and help people with ptsd feel happy and 'forget' the bad stuff, but my angle is, if it can be a catalyst for people becoming ill with ptsd and other mental illnesses in the first place, even when used in small amounts, then how do they know its not just gonna exacerbate peoples illnesses? the _common_ side effects of people who use marijuana for a sustained amount of time is anxiety etc, especially for people prone to mental illness.... and people with ptsd are gonna be smoking it every day. does it causing anxiety not defeat the prurpose of smoking it to combat ur anxiety?

its not just as simple as "oh, weed tickles the cb receptors, cb receptors help u forget and make u happy, people with ptsd lack the brain chemical thats naturally used to tickle the cb receptors, vis a vis, smoke weed, fix ur ptsd"

imo

[bennyfroobs]

sorry about my spelling and gramar, im bad at those things

edited my backwards sentences lol*

[test_recordings]

Pot could cure PTSD, go check http://www.maps.org but it won't work for everyone as mentioned.

Maybe it works for this mountie guy. Some cannabis chemicals, notably cannabidioids, are ANTI-PSYCHOTIC and facilitate concentration.