Marijuana, madness and medicine.

    Sun Life Insurance Company, a major Canadian life insurance company has just announced that it will treat cannabis users as non-smokers, thus reversing a long standing policy of treating them as smokers.  This will apply to both medical and recreational use.  There will however, be no change in the manner in which they load the premiums of smokers.  The company made an astonishing statement last week.
   "In our industry, we keep up to date with medical studies and our companies update their underwriting guidelines accordingly.  As a result, people who use marijuana are now assessed at non-smoker rates, unless they also use tobacco."
   In fact they do not keep up to date with medical studies, but just interpret them to their own advantage, much as the tobacco companies did before the evidence that they cause cancer was irrefutable.   It takes a long time to prove something even though commonsense points strongly in the direction.  Smoke from marijuana contains many of the same toxins and carcinogens as tobacco.
   Sun Life is obviously pandering to what it sees as a huge market, egged on by the philosophy and actions of our present government.  In addition to irresponsibly  encouraging a practice that both the American and British Lung Association regard as dangerous to lung health, Sun Life is deliberately ignoring the myriad other effects of marijuana, a mind altering drug.  It would seem that they have concluded that the huge increase in volume would more than compensate for the collateral damages resulting from automobile accidents and irresponsible acts while cognitively impaired.
   I hope the Medical and other Health Care Agencies will pursue this form of smoking with the same venom that they pursued cigarette and pipe smoking. Of course they won't, because now that the inmates are running the asylum, as the song says, 'Anything Goes'.
Hey, try speaking up some time and express an opinion, if you have one.