Whenever I don't blog for a little while it's usually because things are so busy in a good way that it's tough to find the time. So be happy for me.

And be happy that Canada's federal courts are protecting the rights of medical marijuana users. A federal court just ruled that the Canadian government's policy of having the federal government be the only legal supplier to more than one patient at a time deserved to be struck down. The federal government's policy has been that patients could grow their own or have somebody else do it, but nobody could be the grower/supplier for more than one patient. The court says that policy was arbitrary and unconstitutional (not sure on what grounds. I hadn't seen coverage of this story (I could have missed it over the weekend) south of the border in what Dick Cowan likes to call DEALand.

In some ways Canada is ahead of the United States in recognizing on a countrywide basis the value of madical cannabis, but their otherwise enlightened policies have been stymied by the government's Nanny-State instincts. The government is acting as if it believes patients are running grave risks using a substance that has not killed anyone, so they need tight supervision by enlightened bureaucrats who are only doing it for their own good. Fortunately, the courts are allowing challenges to such nonsense.

Below the level of the Supreme Court, which seems to be still in thrall to the War on Drugs and has made two particularly boneheaded decisions on medical cannabis, both state and federal courts are open to well-crafted challenges to arbitrary restrictions on patients in states with medical marijuana laws, so all is not lost here.