Anyone who was on campus around 4 p.m. on Oct. 6 likely remembers the pro medical marijuana protest, which occurred in front of Mills Plaza, where one man protested McMaster’s looming smoking ban, arguing that its policy against medical marijuana ignored its health benefits.
The man in question was Christopher Lawson, a local activist known within the community for his work promoting medical marijuana. He does not have any official affiliation with the university. The protest centered on McMaster’s proposed smoke-free campus initiative set to begin on Jan. 1, 2018, at which time smoking of any kind will be banned from campus grounds.
Marijuana remains a point of interest for McMaster, from the administration to the student union to researchers all taking a unique stance.
Protest on campus regarding the smoking ban and its effects on medical marijuana users. pic.twitter.com/damw0JSKov
— The Silhouette (@theSilhouette) October 6, 2017
In its current state, McMaster’s smoking ban will also include a ban on the use of medical marijuana on campus. This ban is a part of a larger effort to improve public health on university campuses, highlighted through Okanagan Charter.
In addition, McMaster administration also received a human rights complaint earlier this year after excluding a graduate student from attending an overseas trip due to her use of medical marijuana.
Halima Hatimy was meant to take an overseas trip to Ghana as a part of her ongoing research on global health in Feb., but was stopped by the university a day before she was meant to leave.
The university felt she did not fully understand the risk associated with taking medical marijuana to Ghana. Hatimy has since filed a human rights complaint against the university.
While the administration takes hard line with marijuana use, the McMaster Students Union has a softer approach toward the subject.
During the Sept. 24 MSU Student Representative Assembly meeting, the MSU SRA voted to adopt a motion cautioning the university’s smoking ban, arguing that it currently does not recognize that marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by addiction and substance abuse.
The SRA motion argued that the university ought to prioritize student safety and accessibility before considering implementation of the ban.
With this in mind, the SRA has not taken an official stance on marijuana itself, but rather a more general stance concerning smoking.
Meanwhile, research on campus is very much in favor of decriminalization and use of the substance. Prof. Michael DeVillaer, under the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research, recently argued for the decriminalization of minor cannabis-related offenses and focusing the legalization discussion around public health.
“The Canadian government should continue to work slowly and methodically towards the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes, with a priority on the protection of public health and safety over revenue,” read a part of the policy analysis available on the PBCAR’s website.
The policy analysis also calls for the establishment of a not-for-profit marijuana authority for all recreational use meant only to address the current demand without actively promoting the substance. For example, the policy analysis would ban product innovation such as edible forms of marijuana.
Overall, the policy analysis is in favor of the decriminalization and use of marijuana, so long as it is regulated through a public health lenses.
While the protest on Oct. 6 remains a foggy memory overridden by the reading week break, McMaster’s multiple sectors continue to have contrasting opinions over marijuana use and its role in our lives.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
Rachel Faber
The Silhouette
On the first day of class, the course outline for Health Sciences 4ZZ3 was thrown away. Instead of learning about advocacy, students would be practicing it.
Though the course has been running for four years at McMaster, this is the first year that experiential education has been a part of the curriculum.
Lead by professor Steven Hoffman, this class takes a problem based learning approach and applies it to global health advocacy. Hoffman explained that this benefits students by pushing them out of their comfort zones and into “doing things they have never done and probably didn’t think they ever would be doing.”
Through this hands-on approach, students have been speaking to Members of Parliament, civil society leaders, and key stakeholders about the policy options that they have been formulating. In prednisone 100 mg order to make their ideas effective and politically feasible, the students have formed an organization called Global Access to Medicines, to advocate for change and engage in global health policy issues.
Their mission is to facilitate Canada’s role in access to medicine, introducing an initiative into the existing “Orphan Drug Framework”, which regulates drugs for rare diseases.
The students saw a policy window in Canada, which has created an opportunity for them to actually make a difference. The students are proposing to give more incentive to pharmaceutical companies with something called “Priority Review Vouchers”, which will allow companies to release drugs onto the market 12 months earlier than they would normally be able to.
Orphan Drugs are expensive to invest in, and this new idea would mean huge revenue for the drug companies and large strides in the research of these important drugs for rare diseases.
Some students from the class attended a conference on Nov. 11 and 12, to which they were invited by the Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders. The goal of this conference was to make any last minute changes to the Orphan Drug Framework that CORD will be presenting to the House of Commons this winter.
The students had the opportunity to present their idea about Priority Review Vouchers in Canada, which has already been a success in the United States. They were the youngest people at the conference by a landslide, and they had a lot of great responses from academics and pharmaceutical companies who attended.
This opportunity to attend the conference has given the students “a real seat at the table,” according to fourth-year Arts and Science student Sarah Silverberg.
The students feel that the most valuable thing they are learning from this course is how to advocate, reach out and talk to stakeholders who can help them reach their policy goals. The students expressed that the process is long and tedious, and are learning just how difficult it is to form policies.
“I’ve been so excited to see my students get more confident in themselves as advocates…this is very much their campaign, not mine,” said Hoffman. The students have been surprised at the positive reactions that they are getting from MPs, Industry Canada and Health Canada.
In December, three students will be heading to Ottawa to meet with more lobbyists from Industry Canada to further discuss their ideas. These important individuals have given the students advice to shape their campaign moving forward.
Hoffman notes that this allows his students to become a part of the public discourse, “their voice is a legitimate voice.” Overwhelmingly, the students in the class admit that this course was not what they were expecting.
“I think we’ve all been surprised at how seriously everyone takes us, if we take ourselves seriously,” said Silverberg.
Hoffman explained that experiential education still remains an experiment, about whether this is the best way to deliver a course on global health advocacy, but the results have been extremely promising.
Said Hoffman, “It’s amazing to be at McMaster where this type of really innovative and wacky educational experiment is not only supported but celebrated.”
