HIV-AIDS WARRIOR COMMITS LIFE TO EDUCATION =LIKE MYSELF!!

No one knows why Frisco resident Glenn Kopanski is still alive, including him.In the time the AIDS survivor has left, he is devoting his life to educating young people about the disease.While on active duty in the United States Navy Kopanski was wounded in a bombing in Beirut in 1983. While being treated for his injuries a doctor advised him to have a tonsillectomy because of the chronic upper respiratory infections he suffered.While performing the tonsillectomy the doctor nicked an artery, making a blood transfusion necessary. That was before anyone knew that donated blood could carry the HIV virus or hepatitis C microbes.The young serviceman contracted both diseases from that tainted blood transfusion.It took four months for symptoms much more serious than upper respiratory infections to appear. He was diagnosed with what later became known as AIDS, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.Kopanski is the 18th longest surviving AIDS patient in the United States. He said none of his doctors has ever offered an explanation for his longevity. He said he believes his sheer determination to live an active life and to help educate people about AIDS could be part of the reason.When cytomegalovirus (CMV) confined him to a wheelchair a few years ago, he eventually taught himself to walk again. He refused to take the doctors seriously who told him he would never be able to walk again.He spoke to students at Griffin Middle School earlier this month and will speak to students at Clark and Fowler middle schools in the near future.“There is such a spirit out there for wanting to know about AIDS,” Kopanski said. “These kids are going to be helpless out there. Let’s educate them and then maybe we’ll see the number of new cases go down.”He said students listen to him intently. He usually brings along many of the medications he has to take every day. Someone usually asks if he has encountered any prejudice because he has AIDS.He tells them about a neighbor he had in Lewisville who put up signs in the yard that said, “No AIDS on my lawn.”Shortly after he was diagnosed with the disease, his fiancee left him because she questioned how he contracted the disease. He said people have refused to go near him for fear of getting AIDS.He educates students that it is impossible to contract the disease from a blood transfusion now the way he did because blood is tested for those diseases. He also tells them that young people between the ages of 12 and 25 make up the highest number of new AIDS cases in Collin and Denton counties.Since being diagnosed with AIDS Kopanski has chosen to live a celibate life to avoid putting anyone else at risk. He tells young people to know the person they are dating very well.Kopanski is also on the board of directors of AIDS Services of North Texas as well as a patient advocate for the organization. He also writes a landscape column for a local electronic newsletter.“My key to survival is staying motivated,” he said. “I want to bring AIDS awareness to the city of Frisco by fighting this disease through education. I want to tell young kids what I’ve been through in my life. I also want to stop the hatred. AIDS education can beat a cure any day. It’s living life responsibly and knowing your partner. There’s consequences to everything you do in life.”Comments are

COURT STRIKES DOWN REG ON AMOUNT POT GROWERS CAN GROW!ABOOT TIME EH!!!

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COURT STRIKES DOWN REG. ON POT GROWERS=ABOOT TIME EH~~~!!!!VOTE NDP & LETS LEGALIZE WEED!!!


strikes down regulation limiting growers of medical marijuana
Last Updated: Friday, January 11, 2008 | 12:45 AM ET
CBC News
Canadians who are prescribed marijuana to treat their illnesses will no longer be forced to rely on the federal government as a supplier following a Federal Court ruling that struck down a key restriction in Ottawa's controversial medical marijuana program.


The decision by Judge Barry Strayer, released late Thursday, essentially grants medical marijuana users more freedom in picking their own grower and allows growers to supply the drug to more than one patient.


It's also another blow to the federal government, whose attempts to tightly control access to medical marijuana have prompted numerous court challenges.


Currently, medical users can grow their own pot but growers can't supply the drug to more than one user at a time.


Lawyers for medical users argued that restriction effectively established Health Canada as the country's sole legal provider of medical marijuana.


They also said the restriction was unfair, and that it prevented seriously ill Canadians from obtaining the drug they needed to treat their debilitating illnesses.


In his decision, Strayer called the provision unconstitutional and arbitrary, as it "caused individuals a major difficulty with access…"

Ottawa must also reconsider requests made by a group of medical users who brought the matter to court to have a single outside supplier as their designated producer, Strayer said in his 23-page decision.

While the government has argued that medical users who can't grow their own marijuana can obtain it from its contract manufacturer, fewer than 20 per cent of patients actually use the government's supply, Strayer wrote.


"In my view it is not tenable for the government, consistently with the right established in other courts for qualified medical users to have reasonable access to marijuana, to force them either to buy from the government contractor, grow their own or be limited to the unnecessarily restrictive system of designated producers," he wrote.

Ron Marzel, a Toronto lawyer representing the group of medical users who brought the matter before the Federal Court, called the decision a "great remedy" for his clients.


"All this means is that the limit — the one-to-one ratio — it's the last nail in the coffin for that ratio," he said in an interview.


"The court has said, 'Look, unequivocally, this is unconstitutional, it's arbitrary. All the reasons you've provided us with so far for this one-to-one ratio, they don't pass muster. We don't buy it, we don't accept it."'

The provision had been struck down by the courts before, but was reinstated by the government who contracted Prairie Plant Systems Inc. in Flin Flon, Man., to provide the drug to patients./As a PHA that has to use pot in order to eat- i face RED TAPE & beaurocratic BS. by Drs the refuse to help,politicians throw their hands in the air & do nothing!!! i think the CAS should mandate that 1)pot access for patients, & subsidizing $ spent on medical pot-or reimbursing us at tax time~~!!!Housing is another big issue that need attention.PEACE N LOVE NOT WARS N WALLS EH FOLKS!!!!