That's nice. Now balance out the pot smoker's heightened comfort level and mood with the decreased comfort level and negatively affected mood of people around them--on the sidewalks, beach, and in condos--who are sickened (and no, I don't mean morally) by the stench. So dope makes some people feel better. It's also true that the stench makes others physically ill, the smell so nauseating to them it wakes them out of a dead sleep (read: causes sleep deprivation) when heavy users next door stink up the condo. Whose happiness and health matters most? By the way, how is Marc Emery feeling without weed?
Beth

Wow Beth, you sound truly pleasant. The article is about people with real neuropathic conditions, so no, whiny yuppies moods being "negatively affected" by smells do not matter at all.

By the way, your "suffering" can be fixed with a $30 air purifier.

Toronto City Council are indeed Brave and Bold and made of the right stuff, headed in the right direction. That marijuana provides pain relief is well known to many geriatric baby boomers and well proven in the historical record. However in certain Easter Ontario Ridings we have further to go. This month in SD & G country, an Eastern Ontario Riding, several families had their children kidnapped by child services because one or more parent smoke marijuana. This month in SD & G County Conservative MP Lauzon announced billions of dollars worth of prisons for the unreported crime of using marijuana. If you use marijuana your children will be taken from you and sold to strangers. If you use marijuana you will lose your job and your business followed by your house cause you will be serving minimum mandatory jail time and your business and house will be sold to strangers under Bill S-10. Will old baby boomers be allowed to bring walkers and canes into prison, will their wheel chairs be denied because it is considered a weapon? I wonder if all the people who use marijuana will be sent to a Warsaw ghetto by members of Parliament who follow orders without question? How many marijuana users will stop feeling guilty for who they are and their innocent behaviour behind closed doors that is of no consequence to anyone else? How important is it for the oldest generation in this country to hunt down young people like dogs? Why is it most Police Chiefs in Canada publicly and privately state that marijuana should be legalized? Why did 30 thousand police officers join ”˜Law Enforcement Against Prohibition’? The answer is there isn’t anything even a little bit wrong with marijuana. Marijuana can however reveal those who are not fit to govern and have lost all moral right to authority because of their unbalanced hostile reaction to those who do use it. We must be concerned with Members of Parliament who have little access to science, logic and reason because they will ferment great and vast wrongs in other areas of our adult Canadian lives.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/739996–judge-slapped-for-bias-in-pot-case

Great, smoke pot to alleviate the chronic pain caused by your shitty lifestyle choices. There's a great reason to legalize more second-hand smoke, also a cause of chronic illness and pain in second-hand smokers especially children, so that everyone starts using pot. Just do me a favour you potheads, shut yourself in a small room without ventilation when you light up and begin frying your brain cells even more than they already are and become an even greater strain on the health care system. Unfortunately, you can't tell someone to use their brain when they don't have much of a brain in the first place.

So Burnabarian, you honestly believe conditions like MS are caused by "shitty lifestyle choices" and yet you're calling other people brain dead?

I suggest you stop consuming aspartame, alcohol and other genuine neurotoxins, maybe after a few years you'll develop the ability to read and use google. Then you'll be able to look for studies backing up your bullshit dogma and realize there are none because marijuana conclusively does not kill brain cells.

That said, I'd love to know what kind of weird traumatic right-wing upbringing caused you to become a compassionless humanoid anti-logic regurgitation drone.

Wow, did any of the haters even read the article before blabbing? "They took single inhalations from a pipe three times a day." Three puffs a day, spread over the day - that's got you all worked up over odours and second-hand smoke? Sheesh!

The problem with this is that Chronic Pain is often associated with depression. As a person with a history of depression, I know first hand the harmful effect of marijuana has concerning depression. It makes no sense to accelerate anciety and fear while attempting to allieviate chronic pain to facilitate rest or sleep. Perhaps I am just a chemical freak but my experience with pot and depression make me very adverse to it's use. More importantly, the blind statement that it alleviates pain, without a huge disclaimer that you should also be aware and treating the other symptoms of chronic pain, ie depression et al.

Pot is not a miracle cure or elixer. it is a good way to get fucked up without causing too much damage, (aside from the cancerous stuff you add to your lung if you smoke it) I am 42 and I have not smoked pot since I was 25. I will never try it again in my life as I dislike its affect on me so much. If you use it and like it affects, claim only that. Do not try to fabricate some myth that is has no harmful effects and it cures all.

Reading the comments more closely will reveal who the real haters are, Monkey Man. Hey, isn't there a marijuana pill? Or how about putting it in brownies? That's a win-win situation. But then you wouldn't get everything 100% your own way then.
Beth

Consider that Harper and his thugs are preparing new Jails to hold dissidents and Cannabis enthusiasts,amongst others.(mandatory minimums) Consider yourself fortunate if you are not a marginalized person, many of us face prosecution and persecution daily for being different than Harper and his band of fake Christians. Shame on the Georgia Straight for the ridiculous photo that accompanies the article, How do you justify the photo?

wow, this is a touchy subject for anti-pot people... maybe you should move out of Vancouver; Canada's most liberal pot smoking city. If you don't like it, leave. Because it is not leaving. It's not illegal here so, leave or don't complain. but quit whining.

I also think people confuse the smell of the large skunk population here as skunky weed. I know I can confuse them sometimes until i see the little critter running around... i see them ALL THE TIME. get a life losers!