Put yourself in her heels…

You’ve probably been starving yourself all week, just to shave off those few extra half-pounds. You certainly haven’t eaten anything today, the day of the Miss Universe pageant!

For about an hour now, you’ve been paraded around a stage like a piece of veal, dressed up in ball gowns and down to revealing bikinis. You’ve been blinded by the spotlights and your brain is glitched out to the thousands of flashbulbs blinking all around you every second. You’ve probably got a contact-high from all the hairspray in the dressing room.

https://youtu.be/pSJNjQ3tX7s?t=180

And now here you are, center stage, standing next to comedian Steve Harvey, hoping he floats you an easy one: Are you for or against world peace? What do you think of cute puppies? Are the children our future?

But you’re Miss Universe Australia, Monika Radulovic, so you get asked this question: is legalizing marijuana a good idea?

Answer too quickly, and you raise eyebrows; a hidden cannabis advocate in the pageant? Not good for your odds.

Answer too slowly, and you appear to know nothing about one of the biggest stories of the year worldwide: cannabis!

But what you probably want to do, at the very least, is say something that makes sense.

Unfortunately, miss Radulovic’s answer was enough to make the Internet wince in embarrassment.

After prevaricating that cannabis legalization was a topic with “both positive and negatives” and is “quite debated,” Miss Universe Australia ultimately sided with the positives, and proclaimed that cannabis was “amazing at curing cancer,” and so ought to be legalized.

Now, we can forgive miss Radulovic’s gaff; it’s not totally false, but it is a bit misleading.

Although anecdotal, some medical marijuana patients have claimed cannabis helped their cancer go into remission.

And cannabis has been shown to improve recovery and ease the symptoms associated with painful cancer treatments like radiation and chemo-therapy. As a part of a comprehensive health care program, cannabis can definitely be an “amazing” medicine in the fight against cancer.

But as far as a cancer cure? While studies remain hopeful, that remains to be proven. And whether it’s “amazing” at curing cancer is another question.

But we can forgive Miss Universe Australia her gaff, especially because Steve Harvey announced the wrong winner at the end of the pageant, and had to un-crown runner-up Miss Universe Colombia!