Canada

[palmspringsbum]

Canucks face tough regs

The Quesnel Cariboo Observer
May 24 2006



Canada was the first country to regulate medical marijuana use.

Health Canada established guidelines to allow Canadians access to marijuana for medicinal reasons in 2001, called Marijuana Medical Access Regulations. The regulations outline circumstances that permit people to use pot for medical reasons under two categories:

Category 1 - compassionate end-of-life care

Pain or muscle spasms stemming from multiple sclerosis, or spinal cord injury or disease.

Pain or other symptoms from cancer, HIV-related infections, severe arthritis or epilepsy.

Category 2 - debilitating symptoms from medical conditions not under Category 1.

As of April 2006, nearly 3,000 Canadians are authorized to produce, distribute or use pot for medical purposes.

 1,399 are authorized to possess marijuana for medical reasons;

 1,005 can grow marijuana for medical use. Of that:

 890 have a Personal-Use Production Licence;

 109 have a Designated-Person Production Licence;

 266 are authorized to buy marijuana;

 190 receive marijuana seeds;

 72 are receiving dried pot and seeds for medical purposes.

B.C. has the second highest number of authorizations for use in Canada; Ontario has nearly twice as many. More than 300 people are authorized to possess in B.C., and more than 200 physicians in the province support authorization. Country-wide, 829 physicians support authorization.

To become eligible for legal use, Health Canada issues a 35-page application document.

The document’s sections include application for licence to produce, and to obtain dried product and seeds.

Information provided by Health Canada Satistics, April 7, 2006.

[Midnight toker]

Medical marijuana still not widely available: report

Last Updated Wed, 14 Jun 2006 17:25:15 EDT
CBC News



The federal government's medical marijuana program doesn't work, the Canadian AIDS Society said in a report released Wednesday.

The group's report suggests few users of medical marijuana obtain the drug through official channels.

"Over 85 per cent of the people we consulted who used cannabis are currently relying on illegal sources for their supply of cannabis," said Lynne Bell-Isle, who worked on the 18-month project for the society.

"Only 1.7 per cent of respondents we spoke to obtained their cannabis from the government."

The federal government grows some marijuana through a private contractor, but fewer than 200 people are currently registered to receive marijuana through the program.

The report said there are several barriers to accessing the federal program, including:

Lack of awareness of the program's existence.
Difficulty finding doctors to support a patient's application for access.
The barriers provide an incentive to turn to the black market, the report's authors said.

Other patients are licensed to grow small amounts of marijuana for their own use.

The group noted Ottawa has invested nearly $6 million in the contract to grow medical marijauna. It calls on Canada's auditor general to investigate the program

[palmspringsbum]

Access to marijuana a right for PWAs

HEALTH / Report calls for overhaul in regulations

Jefferson Mendoza / Capital Xtra / Thursday, June 29, 2006



A new report released Jun 14 by the <a class=postlink href=http://www.cdnaids.ca/web/casmisc.nsf/cl/cas-gen-0002!OpenDocument&language=english title="http://www.cdnaids.ca/web/casmisc.nsf/cl/cas-gen-0002!OpenDocument&language=english" target=_blank>Canadian AIDS Society</a> (CAS) identifies barriers that hinder people living with HIV/AIDS from access to marijuana for medicinal use.

The 18-month project report is entitled Cannabis As Therapy For People Living With HIV/AIDS: Our Right, Our Choice. The report is divided in two parts: the first part, Our Right, outlines the political barriers that revolve around the medical use of marijuana. Barriers include lack of awareness of the existing government program for access to medical marijuana, the mistrust of the government, and the medical establishment's unwillingness to support the benefits of marijuana for people with HIV/AIDS.

The other part, Our Choice, proposes allowing authorized marijuana users to expand their options when choosing the type of marijuana they want to be treated with.

Today, those needing the weed can legally get it only from very limited sources: either buying cannabis grown by the government, buying seeds from the government and growing them on their own, or designating a person who can grown plants only for them.

Only 1.7 percent of authorized users choose the government's product because it only provides one strain of cannabis. The government has also expressed its intention to phase out those with licenses to produce -- putting users in a position where they may have to break the law for the sake of their health.

"Denying a seriously ill person access to healthcare services is not only unethical," the report notes, "it also violates the very essence of our universal healthcare system."

The report notes 58,000 Canadians live with HIV/AIDS. Between 14 percent and 37 percent of them use marijuana to help alleviate symptoms of appetite loss, wasting, nausea and vomiting, pain, anxiety, depression and stress. They either smoke the weed or, if they need a longer lasting effect, eat it.

The drug is useful for stimulating appetite and helping people keep down their food. It has minimal negative side effects on the user's health and is not physically addictive.

A groundbreaking study by Dr Tashkin at UCLA in 2005 found cannabis does not cause cancer of the lungs, upper airwaves or oesophagus. Another 2005 California study found patients with HIV/AIDS with moderate to severe nausea were more likely to take their medications on a regular basis than if they used cannabis.

But acquiring cannabis for medical purposes is difficult in Canada. Only 1399 persons are authorized to possess cannabis. Only 26 percent of those who were consulted for the CAS report have valid authorization. And a complex set of Health Canada regulations make it difficult to get authorization.

Doctors are reluctant to sign their patients' request to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. The Canadian Medical Protective Association -- the insurer for the medical profession -- in 2001 advised its doctors not to complete the government's program's documents unless they have "detailed knowledge" about cannabis.

Brent Lewandoski, a member of the national steering committee for the project and one of the four panelists at the press conference launching the report, says people have the right to choose the therapy best suited for them.

Speaking softly behind his glasses with an AIDS pin on his left navy blazer, Lewandoski outlined the difficulties faced by many of his friends with AIDS.

"It's very important that people be aware that people who use medicinal cannabis are there to improve their quality of life and to help them become better and productive people in society," says Lewandoski.

[budman]

Medical pot laws 'impossible', court told

The Ottawa Citizen
Daryl Slade, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, July 06, 2006


CALGARY -- The government provides a legal method for a person to grow and possess marijuana for personal medical reasons, but makes it "almost impossible" to do so, a lawyer argued on Wednesday.

John Hooker, counsel for longtime Calgary pot crusader Grant Krieger, told provincial court Judge William Pepler that it is similar to the abortion issue, in which the government permits women to legally have abortions, then puts so many hurdles in place.

"Very few doctors will sign certificates for persons to be allowed to possess and use marijuana," said Hooker. "So it is unfair to convict people in such a case as this."

Krieger, 52, is bidding to have the judge stay two counts of trafficking in marijuana. The charges stem from packages destined for ill fellow users in Manitoba but intercepted by courier companies on Dec. 23, 2003, and Jan. 8, 2004.

Krieger freely admitted he is supplying more than 400 people in at least three provinces, all of whom cannot get doctor-backed exemptions and have no legal source of the drug.

Crown prosecutor Scott Couper says having physicians participate in the application process is appropriate, given that marijuana is largely an unproven drug in medical use and is controlled.

"Doctors know the patient and the process," said Couper.

Both lawyers will submit detailed written arguments to the judge well in advance of oral arguments on Sept. 25.

Krieger, who has progressive multiple sclerosis, says he is only distributing marijuana to others in need of alleviating chronic pain and suffering from AIDS, HIV, cancer, MS and other crippling illnesses.

He has never applied for an exemption under the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations to grow and possess marijuana for his own use, but was given a one-year judicial exemption following a court case in 2000. It was subsequently made indefinite by the Alberta Court of Appeal.

Calgary Herald

© CanWest News Service 2006

[palmspringsbum]

Judge sends message with grow-op sentence

Betty Ann Adam
The StarPhoenix


Friday, July 07, 2006


Mark John Evanishen's claim that he grew 124 marijuana plants in a former rural schoolhouse to meet his medical need to smoke one ounce per day was "far-fetched and beyond belief," a provincial court judge found Thursday.

Judge Robert Jackson found Evanishen, 35, guilty of producing cannabis marijuana and cannabis resin and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

Jackson handed Evanishen a sentence of two years less one day in jail, saying he imposed a term at the longer end of the possible range to address the need for general deterrence.

The defence, which included expert opinion evidence from a man who has twice been convicted of growing cannabis in similar operations, did not raise a reasonable doubt about Evanishen's commercial intent, Jackson said.

The charges were laid after a Feb. 23, 2005, police raid at the former school near Mayfair, 110 kilometres northwest of Saskatoon.

Evanishen was living in one of the classrooms and tending to a "multi-stage growing scheme utilizing specialized equipment and methodology to effect a continuous cropping operation," Jackson found.

Jason Hiltz, the defence expert, said the setup was "low end." It lacked fans, reflective, light-enhancing material and adequate temperature and humidity controls, he said. He thought the operation would produce a maximum yield of one and a half ounces per plant.

The Crown's expert, RCMP Cpl. Christopher Thomas, testified the plants were more likely to produce a minimum of three ounces each. He said the plants would produce enough marijuana to provide a heavy user -- one who smoked one gram per day -- with a supply to last 22.8 years. The harvested plant has a shelf life of about six months, after which it loses half its potency, Thomas had testified.

Evanishen said he smoked an ounce of pot per day, about 28 times as much as Thomas considered heavy use, to treat ailments, such as epilepsy, back problems and migraines, resulting from five auto crashes.

If it took Evanishen five minutes each to roll and smoke a joint, he would spend about six hours per day rolling and smoking joints, Jackson found.

Crown prosecutor, Wade McBride, has said that if Evanishen needed the marijuana for medical purposes, he should have applied for a medical exemption.

Jackson said Hiltz's evidence didn't prove there was no commercial operation. The judge also noted that the defence evidence showed there were conventional medical treatments for the ailments and no evidence any doctor recommended Evanishen use marijuana.

Although police did not find Baggies, scoresheets, cash or cellphones, as are often associated with trafficking, they also did not find any cigarette papers, even though Evanishen claimed to smoke 40 to 50 joints per day, Jackson found.

Defence lawyer Mark Vanstone asked for a sentence of time served, saying Evanishen's head injuries may have affected his judgement.

Jackson said such clandestine grow operations continue to be a problem across Canada, where criminal convictions for the offence continue at a steady rate.

"The public has to know these grow operations won't be countenanced," Jackson said.

Evanishen will receive double credit for 10 months on remand, which leaves him with four months left to serve. The two years less one day sentence was attached to the trafficking conviction, while producing marijuana attracted a 12-month concurrent term and producing resin garnered a 90-day concurrent term.

He also pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited or restricted firearm related to a double-barrel, sawed-off shotgun police found in the schoolhouse, three counts of possessing marijuana on two other occasions and breaching an undertaking to the court. Sentences for those offences are to be served concurrently.

Evanishen will be prohibited from owning a firearm for 10 years after he gets out of jail and all of the grow operation-related property is forfeited to the Crown.

The owner of the school, David Holmes, also will be served notice that the property is to be forfeited as well, Jackson said.

Evanishen had said Holmes, who is his uncle, did not know Evanishen was growing the marijuana but thought he was simply living there and taking care of the building.

badam@sp.canwest.com

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006

[Midnight toker]

Publicity leads to pot theft

Erin Warner, The Leader-Post
Published: Wednesday, July 19, 2006

"Let me die in peace" is the message Tom Shapiro wants sent to two teenagers who broke into his Ottawa Street home early Monday morning and demanded he hand over his pot.

The Regina man, who has a licence to grow and use marijuana to ease symptoms of AIDS, is now worrying for the safety of himself and his wife due to his advocacy of medical marijuana use.

Around 1 a.m. Monday, Shapiro said he was with his wife in their living room when she noticed two teenage boys walking by, pulling up the hoods on their sweatshirts. The pair came up the walk and pulled open the home's locked screen door.

"He said, 'We just want the pot,' " Shapiro said.

Shapiro said he handed over about four ounces of dried marijuana and a $20 bill on the coffee table. One of the teens, he said, rifled through his array of AIDS medications and pocketed some pain killers. They then left the house, warning Shapiro not to call the police, he said.

But Shapiro did call the police, who responded to the home. A file of break, enter and commit robbery is being investigated by the Regina Police Service's street crimes section, said spokeswoman Elizabeth Popowich.

Shapiro became a public figure in support of medical marijuana use in February, after police confiscated his grow equipment and marijuana plants when a mix-up with Health Canada caused his licence to lapse. He eventually got his licence renewed and both his pot and equipment back from police.

The ordeal, which played out in the local media, made him vulnerable to criminals looking for marijuana, Shapiro said.

"That put me in the limelight; that made me a target," he said.

Now, Shapiro has installed security cameras and an alarm system, and is considering selling his home. Unlike illegal drug users, Shapiro said he won't hesitate to call the police if an incident like this happens again.

And in addition to some jittery nerves, Shapiro said the robbery has left him a little short on pot.

"I'm going to be out of commission for a while," he said.

© The Leader-Post (Regina) 2006

[palmspringsbum]

Why does activist risk his marriage, livelihood, liberty?

By Susan Clairmont
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jul 20, 2006)


You'd think a pot activist would be able to take a long, deep breath.

But oh no.

Once Chris Goodwin gets on his high horse, it's hard to bring him down.

You see, pot is his life. His reason for being on this earth. It is his passion. His calling. His religion. His career.

He talks about it endlessly. Breathlessly. Obsessively. Sometimes even articulately.

Chris is the 26-year-old owner of downtown's Up in Smoke cafe. I have called him to confirm that he is on trial today. This time he is facing one count of possession of cannabis resin. He is, of course, fighting it.

Chris has been in the media a lot since he opened Hamilton's first pot cafe in August 2004. There have been countless stories about what goes on at his establishment, about police going in and out of there, of his involvement in pro-pot rallies and decriminalization protests. I once wrote about the Children's Aid Society investigating Chris and his wife after a cop reported the couple smoked up every day while raising their infant son. The CAS concluded the child was being well cared for and no action was taken against the Goodwins.

So while readers may know who Chris is and what he stands for, there is nothing quite like the experience of actually talking to him.

To reach him yesterday, I started by phoning the cafe. That's where I've always found him before. But these days, he's under a court order not to go to his place of business on King Street East. It's a condition attached to one of the numerous outstanding marijuana-related charges he is facing. Today's trial is the first of many.

The old home phone number I have for Chris won't work either. He doesn't live there anymore. He and his weed-smoking wife have split up. She couldn't take it any more -- the activism, the arrests, the stress.

So I get him on his cellphone. As always, Chris is more than happy to chat. To debate. He is unfailingly polite and accommodating. Completely jazzed. The court case? You want to know about the court case?

And thus, the rant begins.

"It was roaches in the ashtray," he says at his usual lightning pace. From there, he backs up to give me a long, detailed play-by-play of the events leading to his arrest. Who said what. Who did what. Deep background on each and every person in the cafe at the time of the arrest. The names, ranks and career history of each cop involved.

Yes, it was his ashtray. His and the Hamilton Compassion Society, an organization he began to supply medical marijuana users with the necessary supplies. But it wasn't his marijuana remains in the ashtray. Therefore, the charge is completely bogus. He will prove in court that he knows the law better than his arresting officers.

He directs me to specific sections of the Criminal Code. To case law. He rhymes off web addresses for pro-pot sites (including his own Hamilton Hash Mob Forum) and tells me which ones have webcam images of his arrest. He recites statistics that range from the number of medicinal marijuana users in Canada to the number of oppressed cannabis farmers in small, downtrodden countries.

Chris launches into a monologue on what he does and doesn't do at the cafe. He does sell bongs and pipes and detox kits for people who need to clean up before giving their parole officer/doctor/CAS worker a urine sample. He doesn't sell marijuana. Though he can tell you who does and where to find them.

We're a long way into this rambling when I finally get a question in.

Why?

Why is pot so important to Chris that he is willing to risk his marriage, his livelihood, his freedom for the right to get high?

Because cannabis is "a noble plant." Because he wants freedom and justice for the medical marijuana users. Because of the impact pot laws have on the lives of all those who are arrested for smoking or selling or growing weed. Because he's a "freedom activist" who cares about global issues such as the economic impact on pot growers the world over. Because he can't, in good conscience, tolerate the "prohibitionist type atmosphere" and "cultural genocide" that has made the war on drugs the most expensive war in the history of the world. Because he doesn't believe in the gateway theory that says pot use will lead tokers to harder drugs.

"Being a cannabis activist is the most worthwhile thing anyone can do. It's the most worthwhile cause I could put all my soul and heart and energy into it."

An hour passes and he is still talking in circles that hang oddly in the air before fading away like the smoke he fights for.

Susan Clairmont's commentary appears regularly in The Spectator. sclairmont@thespec.com or 905-526-3539.

[Midnight toker]

Marijuana activist deserves credit for his efforts

By Alison Myrden, Burlington
The Hamilton Spectator
(Jul 26, 2006)
Re: 'Why does activist risk his marriage, livelihood, liberty?' (The Spectator, July 20)

Having just read her column, I am concerned that Susan Clairmont is not taking the issue of marijuana legalization as seriously as she could.

I am a legal, federal exemptee for the medical utility of marijuana in Canada due to battling an excruciating pain in my face 24 hours a day, a terrible side-effect of chronic progressive multiple sclerosis and I personally don't see Chris Goodwin's activism as a problem.

In this country, I am one of the most vocal activists for drug law reform, because of my health, and Chris is helping me immensely.

I am also a leading speaker for a U.S. group called Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP).

I applaud people in this country such as Chris Goodwin.

Without people like Chris, there would be no government intervention in this issue and I would not have the legal right to use this plant. More power to the people!

Please in the future when you report a story such as this, give credit where credit is due.

[Midnight toker]

<img src=bin/spacer.gif width=500 height=0>

Up in smoke
Surely the majority of Canadians think the sale and use of marijuana should be decriminalized

Philip Slayton
Literary Review of Canada
The National Post

Thursday, July 27, 2006


<img class=posttable align=right width=300 src=bin/up_in_smoke.jpg>'When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn't like it. I didn't inhale and never tried it again." Bill Clinton's famous obfuscation was reported by Gwen Ifill in The New York Times on March 30, 1992.

Clinton was in England from 1968 to 1970, studying at Oxford University. He and I overlapped as students at Oxford, although I never met him. Myself, I did not experiment with marijuana even "a time or two" when I was in England.

Things might have been different for Bill and me if we had been hanging out in downtown Toronto's Yorkville district. In Not This Time: Canadians, Public Policy and the Marijuana Question, 1961-1975 (printed, it proclaims without a hint of humour, on acid-free paper), Marcel Martel writes that Yorkville at that time "became the visible manifestation of the counterculture movement ..." Needless to say, in those days being a member of the counter-culture and clashing with the establishment meant smoking a lot of dope.

If Bill and I had wandered through Yorkville then, we might have bumped into that counterculture figure, Pierre Berton. Shortly before he died in 2004, Berton told the Toronto Star that he had been a recreational marijuana user since the 1960s. At around the same time as he gave that interview, Berton was introduced on Rick Mercer's satirical CBC television program Monday Report as a "marijuana connoisseur" and gave step-by-step advice on how to roll a joint. He stressed the importance of a "good rolling surface," and advised that a joint should be rolled "firm, but not too firm." Thus did one of Canada's most popular and respected authors, 84 years old, holder of 12 honourary degrees and a companion of the Order of Canada, appear on the government-owned television network to give instructions on the proper use of an illegal drug. Hooray for Canada!

Martel's book analyzes marijuana as a topic of social debate and conflict in the Canada of the 1960s. Baby boomers, he tells us, smoked marijuana to defy mainstream values. Meanwhile, opponents of marijuana use maintained that the drug undermined "the traditional understanding of the acceptable way to function in society. People on drugs ... constitute a threat to society but also to themselves by becoming emotionally unstable, by escaping daily reality, and by promoting unrealistic views about the meaning of life. Furthermore, drug users lack productivity." Lack of productivity was, no doubt, seen as the most dangerous threat of all to the Canadian way of life.

Martel reports that the marijuana debate of those days was dominated by two loose coalitions. One supported existing drug legislation, and was composed principally of government representatives and agencies of various kinds, including most addiction research foundations, the federal Department of Justice and police forces. The second coalition, which wanted legal penalties reduced, was an even looser array of individuals and organizations, and included the Canadian Medical Association and the Department of National Health and Welfare.

The debate culminated with the Commission of Inquiry into the Non-Medical Use of Drugs (1969-1973), chaired by the mercurial Gerald Le Dain, then dean of Osgoode Hall Law School and later a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada. The Le Dain Commission was appointed for the usual dubious reasons. "With the creation of the Commission," writes Martel, "the federal government had gained some time, and hoped that this would help to overcome its own internal divisions on marijuana, since major decisions would, of course, have to wait until the Commission submitted its conclusions."

The Le Dain Commission rejected the legalization of marijuana use, but suggested that penalties, particularly for simple possession, be substantially reduced.

But no one cared very much by the time these conclusions were offered up in the early 1970s. Members of the counterculture had now found other enjoyable ways to defy mainstream values -- sexual promiscuity, for example. The Department of National Health and Welfare had decided that alcohol abuse was the real worry. The federal government, in a precarious minority position, decided not to stir the pot and proposed no significant changes to drug legislation.

Not This Time is burdened by the usual ponderous apparatus that attends an academic study. Bud Inc., by journalist Ian Mulgrew (legal affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun and a self--confessed "long-time consumer" of marijuana), is quite a different matter. It skips along in a lively and prejudiced manner (Mulgrew strongly favours legalization of pot), jumping from one undocumented anecdote to another, nary a footnote or reference in sight. Mulgrew picks up where Martel leaves off, describing what has happened in Canada since the Le Dain Commission. According to Mulgrew, marijuana has become Canada's most valuable agricultural product, with its cultivation spurred on by the arrival of counterculture Americans in British Columbia in the 1970s. In his words, "Bud Inc. is a hardly invisible going concern worth billions of dollars."

Mulgrew's argument is that cannabis prohibition is a public policy disaster and a legal quagmire. He writes: "The damage prohibition causes is exacerbated by the violence endemic to the pernicious black market it spawns, eroding confidence in law enforcement and respect for the courts."

Why all the fuss? Surely the overwhelming majority of Canadians, and not just the chattering classes of Toronto and members of the British Columbia counterculture, regard it as self-evident that the sale and use of marijuana should, at the very least, be decriminalized.

Recent Liberal governments started to take a very small step in the right direction, introducing legislation that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, replacing criminal charges with a fine. (Regrettably, this proposed legislation also doubled sentences for growing and trafficking.) The bill died on the order paper when Paul Martin called an election for June 2004. It was reintroduced by the minority Liberal government in November 2004, but once again an election got in the way, and the Liberals were defeated in January 2006.

This extremely modest decriminalization proposal was strongly criticized right from the start by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. The Canadian correspondent for The New York Times reported that "American officials had warned that the proposed legislation would force the United States to increase inspections at the border and thereby risk creating more delays for trade and tourists." It was also viewed by American officials as a harmful symbol when the Canadian marijuana industry "is spreading across the country and exporting widely in the United States."

It came as little surprise on April 3 of this year when the new Conservative Prime Minister, fresh from his first meeting with President Bush (at the Mexico summit), announced that his government would not reintroduce this modest reform into the new Parliament. On the same day that the Stephen Harper made this announcement, the Toronto Star reported on its front page that "police forces across the GTA [Greater Toronto Area], taking their cue from the new federal Conservative government, are again cracking down on the simple possession of marijuana."

Will no one rid us of this tiresome issue? It would be easy to despair at the new government's apparently timid tack, and yet one can anticipate what might agitate those tortured souls sitting at the Cabinet table. If marijuana is decriminalized but not legalized, will that just make operations easier for what were previously criminal syndicates, while continuing to deprive law-abiding citizens of lucrative investment opportunities and the government of tax revenue? If marijuana is legalized, could this country become even more of a staging post for the export to the United States of drugs that are illegal in that country, making Canada nothing more than another Colombia in the steely blue eyes of our American neighbours? Just how much freedom does Canada have to diverge from the United States on important matters of public policy?

<hr class=postrule>
<ul><li>Philip Slayton has been a law professor, law dean and a partner in one of Canada's biggest law firms. Most recently, he has been Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His book Lawyers Gone Bad: Money, Sex and Madness in Canada's Legal Profession is forthcoming from Penguin Canada.</li>

<li>This is an edited excerpt from a larger essay that first appeared in the July/August 2006 issue of the Literary Review of Canada.; www.reviewcanada.ca</li>
</ul>
<center>© National Post 2006</center>

[budman]

First Medical Marijuana Exhibit at the XVI International AIDS Conference: Canada Leads the Way

The CNW Group, Ltd.

TORONTO, Aug. 11 /CNW/ - For the first time in the conference's history,
an exhibit on the therapeutic use of marijuana (cannabis) is being offered at
the XVI International AIDS Conference this week in Toronto. This initiative
acknowledges that for many people living with HIV/AIDS, cannabis is an
important part of their medical therapy.

The Cannabis and HIV/AIDS exhibit will be located in the Global Village.
The exhibit offers people living with HIV/AIDS, caregivers, front line workers
and clinicians with current clinical evidence, information on legal access,
and practical tips on the use of cannabis as a medicine.

The Canadian AIDS Society (CAS) and the Medical Marijuana Information
Resource Centre (MMIRC) are co-hosting the exhibit. The MMIRC is sponsored by
Cannasat Therapeutics Inc. The co-hosting organizations both believe that
people living with HIV/AIDS who use cannabis as a medicine should have legal
access and be educated on current scientific information that enables them to
make informed choices.

Canada is a world leader in progressive policy on access to medical
cannabis. People living with HIV/AIDS who use cannabis as a medicine must be
informed of their right to do so legally. This right is granted under the
federal Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR).

The Cannabis as Therapy for People Living with HIV/AIDS: "Our Right, Our
Choice" report, released by the Canadian AIDS Society in June 2006, identifies
barriers to legal access of medical cannabis and proposes recommendations to
address these barriers. Increasing awareness about the program and the need
for physician education are high on the recommendation list.

"Our consultation with people living with HIV/AIDS across Canada revealed
that only one quarter of those who use cannabis as part of their therapy had
obtained legal authorization to do so," says Lynne Belle-Isle, project
consultant with Canadian AIDS Society. "The vast majority of people living
with HIV/AIDS who use cannabis as therapy are still relying on illegal
sources, exposing them to the inherent risks of dealing with the black
market."

"We are providing people and their caregivers with a source of current
clinical evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis as we feel education of
the international HIV/AIDS community on this topic is critical," says Hilary
Black, spokesperson for MMIRC. "We are proud to show Canada's progress in
becoming a global leader in this important frontier of medicine."

The Cannabis and HIV/AIDS exhibit is part of the Global Village, North
Building Halls A & B at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, from August 13-18
and is open to the public.

<hr class=postrule>
About the Canadian AIDS Society

The Canadian AIDS Society is a national coalition of over 125
community-based AIDS organizations from across Canada. Dedicated to
strengthening the response to HIV/AIDS across all sectors of society, we also
work to enrich the lives of people and communities living with HIV/AIDS.

About the Medical Marijuana Information and Resource Centre (MMIRC)

The Medical Marijuana Information Resource Centre is established to
provide patients, caregivers, and clinicians with a source of scientific and
current information about the use of marijuana (cannabis) as a medicine.

The MMIRC is sponsored by Cannasat Therapeutics Inc.



For further information: please contact: Hilary Black, Director
Communications, Medical Marijuana Information Resource Centre, Tel: (416)
703-2449 ext 245, Cell: (647) 887-3760, hilary@medicalmarijunainformation.com;
Holly Wagg, Director of Marketing and Communications, Canadian AIDS Society,
Tel: (613) 230-3580 ext 125, Cell: (613) 875-3580, hollyw@cdnaids.ca

[palmspringsbum]

Cannabis pitched as pain killer at AIDS conference

14 Aug 2006 22:43:29 GMT
Source: Reuters

TORONTO, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The light scent of marijuana wafted among exhibits at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto on Monday, as activists took advantage of Canada's comparatively pot-friendly policies to make a pitch for the drug as a pain-killer.

"This is the first time that an exhibit of this kind has been at the AIDS conference," said Hilary Black, spokeswoman for the Medical Marijuana Information Resource Centre which along with the Canadian AIDS Society sponsored the display.

"It's possible that it may be the only time, until we see a global shift around the policies governing this plant."

Researchers say marijuana can ease some types of severe and chronic pain as well as symptoms like nausea better and with fewer side effects than many prescription remedies.

While marijuana use is not generally legal in Canada, the federal government runs a medical marijuana program, although only about a quarter of medical marijuana users infected with HIV get their cannabis through legal sources, Black said.

In the United States, the use of medical marijuana has long been contested on the state and federal level. Last June, the U.S. House of Representatives rejected a bill that would have allowed the medical use of the herb. But efforts are under way in several other states to legalize marijuana use.

The Canadian resource center is backed by Cannasat Therapeutics Inc., a Toronto-based research company trying to develop cannabis-based medicine that would eventually be available by prescription.

The group has been passing out information on legal access and tips on the use of cannabis as a medicine and dealing with reaction from participants who have come from around the world for the week-long conference.

"We had some people here from Uganda. One doctor said its like crack cocaine, it's bad, it trouble," said Sara Lee Irwin, a spokeswoman for the center and medical marijuana user, as she cut open a foil 250 gram (8.8 ounce) bag of government-issued cannabis.

"The next guy said, 'It's not like crack, it's everywhere, why aren't we using it?'," she said.

[palmspringsbum]

Even pot activist agrees city should have ground out cafe

By Susan Clairmont
The Hamilton Spectator
(Aug 17, 2006)

It has truly gone Up in Smoke. The two-year-old pot palace that caused so much controversy has butted out for good. With owner Chris Goodwin chilling for the past three weeks in the Barton Street jail on charges of possession of marijuana, possession for the purpose of trafficking and breaching conditions, the King Street East cafe has officially closed shop.

Yet opponents are still angry the cannabis cafe was ever allowed to open in the first place. While there's lots of finger-pointing over who should have done what, most of the blame sticks to the city's licensing department.

The police blame the city. So does the International Village BIA. So too does Councillor Sam Merulla, who chairs the city's licensing committee.

Even Chris Goodwin says the city could have shut him down.

And it's hard to argue with them. Not just once but several times over, the city had the opportunity to grind out Up in Smoke. But it didn't.

The city could have refused to grant the cafe its licence in the first place. When pothead activist Goodwin applied for a restaurant licence before his grand opening in August 2004, it was clear what activity would take place at the store. Goodwin laid it all out in meetings with city staff, local business owners and even the police vice and drugs unit. He proclaimed in media interviews that customers would be smoking pot in the cafe. And on the licence application itself, he described his business as "a cannabis cafe."

Well, that's illegal. Smoking pot anywhere -- unless you are one of the few Canadians granted a medical marijuana licence -- is still against the law in this country. So was the City of Hamilton clueless about Up in Smoke? Did anyone even take a moment to consider the name of the business? Or did it choose to ignore Goodwin's blatant bragging that he would allow criminal activity in his place of business?

Goodwin got his restaurant licence. The food consisted of coffee and hash brownies. He opened for business on Aug. 21, 2004 -- Canabian Day.

"The business was clearly breaking the law," he tells me from jail. "I knew that and wanted to take my case to the Supreme Court."

Ten days later, the first arrest was made.

Now, there's no way the city could have missed this. It was the top news story of the day. Jean Cooper, a 70-year-old great-grandmother, was arrested for pot possession. In November, she pleaded guilty and was given an absolute discharge. Her case was the first judicial confirmation that criminal activity was taking place at Up in Smoke. Still, the cafe continued to operate.

The city could have hauled Goodwin in front of the licensing committee, chaired by Merulla, to determine if Up in Smoke's licence should be revoked or suspended. The committee had the ability to close the place down. It should have been a no-brainer.

But it never happened. The cafe never went before the committee. And Goodwin easily renewed his business licence last winter.

"It obviously was a hot potato and nobody wanted to slice it up and have it for dinner," says Mary Pocius, executive director of the International Village BIA.

Merulla is even more blunt.

"It should never have been allowed to open in the first place," he says. "It was obvious there was criminal behaviour ... It made the city look weak and like we were condoning it. There are gross oversights within our licensing and enforcement department that are beyond comprehension."

The city dropped the ball. Big time. It took a mess it had every legal ability and moral responsibility to deal with and left it for the police to clean up instead.

For two days I called the licensing department about Up in Smoke, but nobody with answers called back.

Also unavailable for comment was Marvin Wasserman. He owns the Up in Smoke property. He leased it to Goodwin for a year and then monthly after that, despite mounting drug convictions related to the cafe and pressure from the BIA and police to evict the tokers.

Meanwhile, as Up in Smoke operated under a city business licence for two years, the police came under public fire for their perceived inaction. The public wanted to know why cops were going into the cafe every day -- sometimes three times a day -- and more often than not walking out again without making arrests.

Cops were watching. Undercover officers were checking in on Up in Smoke. Intelligence was gathered. Comings and goings were monitored by downtown surveillance cameras. Slowly and steadily police were building a case.

"The owner of Up in Smoke was here for the purpose of making a point and selling marijuana," says Staff Sergeant Ken Weatherill. "We're stepping on brand new ground here. Our approach would be one of patience, consistency and perseverance ... At no time did we ever say we would turn a blind eye to it."

Eventually, uniformed officers started making arrests for possession, and undercover officers for trafficking. There were a total of 72 arrests.

All but one person dealt with in court has pleaded guilty, according to federal drug prosecutor Jeffrey Levy. All were given fines, conditional or unconditional discharges. One youth was diverted into a drug program.

Levy praises the cautious approach taken by police. By taking time to build a solid case, they reduced the risk of having charges thrown out in court and setting a poor precedent.

So will Chris Goodwin reach his dream of taking his case all the way to the Supreme Court?

Sounding tired and more lucid than usual, he told me from jail he hasn't ruled out the idea of pleading guilty.

He talks of finishing his political science degree. Perhaps going to law school. Maybe even running for city council in the upcoming election.

"There is something to be said for retreating and living to fight another day."

Susan Clairmont's commentary appears regularly in The Spectator.

sclairmont@thespec.com

905-526-3539

[palmspringsbum]

Renee Boje Legal Battle Finally Resolved

August 24, 2006 - Los Angeles, CA, USA
NORML


Los Angeles, CA: A US federal court judge has sentenced American expatriate Renee Boje to one year's probation, during which time she will be allowed to reside in Canada with her family.

The ruling concludes a nearly decade-long legal battle for Boje, who filed for refugee status in Canada in 1998 after US federal agents raided a marijuana cultivation operation at the home of cancer survivor and medical cannabis patient Todd McCormick, with whom Boje had a working relationship. Boje faced a potential 10-year federal sentence for her alleged role in the McCormick case.

Under the terms of a plea agreement struck between Boje and federal prosecutors, Boje pled guilty to minor marijuana possession and was sentenced on August 14 to one-year probation. She was allowed to return to Canada the following day, where she resides with her husband and three-year-old child.

Earlier this week, Canadian immigration officials granted Boje a 6-month visitors permit to remain in the country while she attempts to secure Canadian citizenship.

Boje and US prosecutors had begun negotiations to end her legal fight after Boje was denied refugee status in Canada in 2005. Last June, Canadian Justice Minister Irving Colter ruled that Boje must turn herself over to federal authorities and face extradition to the United States. Lawyers for Boje had been appealing that decision, but were not optimistic that it would be overturned.

For more information, please visit: http://www.reneeboje.com/ or: http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/4803.html.

[Midnight toker]

In February, The Canadian Press reported that almost half of the 278 patients that then used Health Canada marijuana had bills more than 90 days in arrears. They owed the agency a total of $168,879.

At that time, 19 people had been refused more medical marijuana for failing to pay within 180 days.

This is an important story indeed!

I did not risk and lose everything for this movement to be treated like this. And this is exactly the position I find myself in: homeless, spending every cent I have on medicine & food.

This movement was supposed to be about the patients, but we are just cash cows for everybody else.

Health Canada cuts off sick man’s pot supply

By JOHN GILLIS Health Reporter
The Chronicle Herald
August 25, 2006


Tom McMullen ran out of the medication that gave him his life back about two weeks ago, and he can’t get more.

The Prospect Bay man is an authorized medical marijuana user and buys his drugs directly from Health Canada.

But the bill for the 90 grams he’s allowed each month is 80 per cent of his monthly Canada Pension, his only source of income.

Mr. McMullen, 42, owes the agency more than $1,000 and has been told he won’t be sent more marijuana until he clears the debt.

"If I had the money I’d pay my bill, but I live off $639 a month and Health Canada has no payment plan for anybody," he said Thursday. "Here I am going down the road to be sick again."

Mr. McMullen has had three spinal fusion surgeries and gets painful shingles in his legs.

He began using marijuana about two years ago to deal with pain, nausea and lack of appetite while under the care of Dr. Mary Lynch, head of Halifax’s pain clinic at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre.

"That was after six years of being with her and trying every medication," he said. "If I didn’t have to take this road, the marijuana road, I wouldn’t be spending $517. I would take a pill that would be covered by social services."

Mr. McMullen said marijuana has helped him eat, sleep and live like a normal person.

"I haven’t eaten for three days now," he said. "I’m starting to puke up my saliva. That’s just the way I was before I got on the medical marijuana."

Unable to work, he was on a provincial disability pension until being approved for a federal pension.

Mr. McMullen said he has owed Health Canada as much as $2,000 in the past but that the agency has never cut off his supply before.

Megan Leslie, a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid, said her client shouldn’t be forced into such a position.

"It breaks my heart that we have not been able to solve this problem for him when he’s been my client for two years now," she said. "We’re still in the same place."

Ms. Leslie said there are two parts to the problem.

First, Health Canada has refused to negotiate a payment plan. She said it’s been tremendously difficult just to get in touch with department officials.

She said the only real opportunity low-income medical marijuana users have to pay for the drug is when they’re reimbursed medical expenses after filing income tax returns, once a year.

Health Canada insists on full payment each month.

"That’s unacceptable," Ms. Leslie said. "Even collection agencies do payment plans."

A spokesperson for Health Canada said Thursday that all medical marijuana recipients are made aware of the payment policies.

"A patient who is in arrears after three orders will receive a letter advising them that they can order one more shipment, but payment of their account must be made in full in order to receive any future shipments," said Carole Saindon.

"There are two other options available to patients who choose not to access the Health Canada product. They may either cultivate the marijuana for themselves, or have someone grow it for them," she said.

A packet of 30 seeds costs $20 plus tax and the dried marijuana is $5 plus tax per gram, according to a Health Canada fact sheet.

The second part of the problem is that the provincial Department of Community Services’ pharmacare program won’t cover medical marijuana because it is not considered a pharmaceutical and isn’t distributed through pharmacies, Ms. Leslie said.

She has appealed unsuccessfully to have it considered a special need on par with orthotics, sunscreen and distilled water, all used by some clients and covered by the department.

Community Services is willing to pay the greater cost of the pharmaceutical treatments that have in the past made Mr. McMullen more ill, she said.

As for his other living expenses, he says he manages to get by on very little.

"I live with patient people," he said. "I do as much as I can and they do as much as they can for me. I borrow every now and then from my mom."

In February, The Canadian Press reported that almost half of the 278 patients that then used Health Canada marijuana had bills more than 90 days in arrears. They owed the agency a total of $168,879.

At that time, 19 people had been refused more medical marijuana for failing to pay within 180 days.

( jgillis@herald.ca)

[Midnight toker]

Man says pot grow was for his sick wife


By Angie Poss
The Pictorial
Sep 23 2006


A man who says he turned to growing pot in order to care for his ailing wife was given a $10,000 fine Tuesday for his illegal crop.

Guiseppe Nardi pled guilty in Duncan Provincial Court to one count of production of marijuana. One count of possessing more than three kilograms of marijuana for the possession of trafficking was stayed.

A joint submission by Crown lawyer Mike Coleman and defence lawyer Rory Morihan recommended Nardi face a fine and other conditions.

"He needed the extra money for his wife, who was quite ill," said Coleman, in explaining the terms of the joint submission to Judge Brian McKenzie.

Morihan told Judge McKenzie Nardi's decision to begin growing weed was the culmination of several stressful family events, including the death of his father and his wife being diagnosed with a serious medical condition that required her to have full-time care.

Unable to work while he cared for his wife and strapped for cash, 53-year-old Nardi first sought help with his bank but was declined a loan, said Morihan.

Police began investigating Nardi in August 2005 after receiving a tip that marijuana was being grown in a home Nardi owned on Courtenay Way in Shawnigan Lake. They conducted surveillance for several months and obtained the property's hydro records before searching the home in April 2006.

"There were two marijuana grow rooms discovered," said Coleman.

Police seized and destroyed more than 700 plants in various stages of production in a detached garage and one room of the meagerly furnished house, which was unoccupied. They also seized lights and other equipment used in production.

Crown alleges the grow op ran for four years but Morihan disputed that, saying it was closer to a year to 18 months.

Wearing a black coat and jeans, Nardi, who lives in the Capital region, said nothing during sentencing, except to acknowledge Judge McKenzie's decision.

Nardi must pay a $10,000 fine and forfeit all items seized by police when they raided the house. He also received a mandatory ten-year firearms prohibition.

He now works part-time while his daughter provides part-time care for his wife.

"It's a highly emotional time right now," said Morihan, explaining Nardi's wife's health continues to decline.

[Midnight toker]

September 23, 2006

Pot activist settles
By CP
The Edmonton Sun


VANCOUVER -- An American pot activist who launched an intense legal fight against extradition to the U.S., has quietly settled her legal and immigration issues.

After negotiating a plea agreement of simple possession of marijuana with U.S. prosecutors, Renee Boje dropped her extradition appeal in B.C. and returned to California from B.C. last month.

She had faced a prison term of 10 years to life in connection with a medical marijuana grow operation.

Her lawyer, John Conroy, said instead of that sentence a U.S. judge gave Boje one year's probation without supervision if she remains in Canada.

The judge ordered that if she goes back to the U.S. for more than 72 hours during that one-year probation period she would have to report to a supervisor.

"It's a good resolution," Conroy said. "She wanted to go through the immigration process (in Canada) and these appeals had to be abandoned."

The appeal of a decision ordering Boje back to California was officially dropped yesterday in the B.C. Court of Appeal.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical marijuana takes hit as Tories announce $2 billion in cuts

25, 2006 - 1:21 pm
News 1130 Radio

OTTAWA (CP) - Research on medical marijuana was among the casualties today as the Conservative government announced $2 billion in spending cuts and streamlining across all federal departments.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty also announced that the government recorded a $13.2-billion surplus in the last fiscal year and that all the cash will go toward paying down the national debt.

The so-called expenditure review focused on areas where Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government did not see value for money.

Treasury Board President John Baird said the $2 billion is savings over two years come through cuts to unnecessary programs, streamlining of services, and by coming in under budget in a number of areas.

The cuts include the elimination of the $4-million medical marijuana research program and administrative savings of $5 million from status of women agency.

After the surplus is applied, the national debt will stand at $481.5 billion.

[palmspringsbum]

Pot-smoking prof lights up a room
Given his own space in basement
Needs to smoke for health reasons

Sep. 26, 2006. 02:19 PM
PHINJO GOMBU
STAFF REPORTER
The Toronto Star

For years, University of Toronto Professor Doug Hutchinson smoked pot in his office.

Sometimes he'd hide behind garbage dumpsters or even climb trees to use the drug, which he said he needs to alleviate the pain from an undisclosed medical condition.

Now he's out of the closet and in the basement of the university's Trinity College, where he can finally smoke in peace and without recrimination — all with the blessing of U of T.

"It's a beautiful solution," Hutchinson said yesterday, at the end of a messy year-long battle with college officials.

It's also rekindled in him the fire to fight what he calls complicated and often-contradictory laws governing the use of marijuana in Canada by those who use it both medically and recreationally.

"I'm feeling lighter," said Hutchinson, 50, who teaches ancient Greek philosophy and specializes in the works of Plato. "It was burdensome being in the closet."

On any given day, between classes and students, he smoked up to 10 joints a day, or roughly an ounce of marijuana a week.

But Hutchinson got busted late last year after someone complained about the smell coming from his second-floor office, which overlooks the quadrangle of Trinity College.

"The first reaction (from college officials) was this has to stop, and I said, `No, this doesn't have to stop,'" he said.

"They tried to get me to admit to past offences and swear never to offend again," he said.

<hr class=postrule>
<center><b><i>`We have to accommodate people with disabilities and recognize medical needs'</i></b>

Margaret MacMillan, Trinity College</center>
<hr class=postrule>
That's when, Hutchinson said, the ugliness began with cease-and-desist orders — both in writing and orally — that carried insinuations about his criminal behaviour and moral judgments about the fact that he smoked in front of his two children.

Trinity College provost Margaret MacMillan described the situation to give him his own room as "a necessary decision."

"We have to accommodate people with disabilities and recognize medical needs," she said, adding that once it became clear Hutchinson had clearance from Health Canada, it was simply a question of finding a suitable space.

"There was clearly discussion about this," she said. "We had to understand what those needs were."

Hutchinson said part of the reason for hiding his pot smoking was that it was only early this year that Health Canada, which was operating under new guidelines to allow marijuana for medical use, finally gave him the green light.

He said a doctor had monitored his use until then, even though he wasn't "officially" allowed to use pot.

Hutchinson believes the college came down on him in part because, after years of turning a blind eye to pot smoking, a student was expelled last year.

The professor fought back, aided by a U of T procedure that allowed a neutral office to review special dispensation for medical conditions.

It took months, but with his new card from Health Canada that allows him to smoke, the only issue was where.

Officials tried to move him to a new office, but he wouldn't leave the room where he's worked for almost 20 years.

Ironically, the room where he now smokes, which has its own ventilation system, is beside another room where, in years past, officials allowed students to smoke marijuana, he said.

Hutchinson said the whole process has "rekindled his activism on the marijuana front" to mount legal challenges for the rights of others who want to use the drug.

[Midnight toker]

Qualified Canadians Still Able to Access Medical Marijuana from Health Canada

Only Unallocated Research Funds Affected

CNW Telbec

TORONTO, Sept. 26 /CNW/ - Yesterday the Conservative government announced spending cuts scheduled over the next two years. Funding for academic medical marijuana research - originally made available through the Medical Marijuana Research Program (MMRP), established in 2003 - was included in that list.

According to Prairie Plants Systems (PPS) - the Saskatoon-based company in which Cannasat Therapeutics is a shareholder - the spending cuts will not impact PPS, which has been growing and distributing medical marijuana for Health Canada since December 2000.

"Accordingly, medical marijuana will continue to be grown and distributed by PPS to qualified patients through the Health Canada's Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR), including patients with multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS, cancer, severe arthritis, epilepsy and spinal cord injury or disease," states David Hill, Cannasat's Chief Executive Officer.

Hill continues, "Furthermore, as a private sector company that is not receiving any funding under the MMRP, Cannasat's current or planned research activities are not impacted by this announcement. Cannasat is entirely funded by other sources and remains focused on the development of cannabis-based pharmaceutical products to be introduced to the market through the traditional regulatory drug approval process."

Academic medical marijuana researchers can still apply for CIHR ("Canadian Institutes of Health Research") funding, but will no longer have access to these, remaining undistributed funds that were available through the MMRP. Originally $7.5 million was allocated to this task, of which approximately $3.5 million has already been awarded to researchers such as Dr. Mark Ware, a pain physician at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) Pain Centre and principal investigator for the 3-year, 350-patient COMPASS trial ("Cannabis for the Management of Pain: Assessment of Safety Study").

CIHR is the Government of Canada's health research funding agency supporting the work of up to 10,000 researchers and trainees in universities, teaching hospitals, and research institutes across Canada.

ABOUT CANNASAT THERAPEUTICS INC.

Cannasat Therapeutics Inc. is researching the therapeutic benefits of cannabis and developing new cannabinoid pharmaceutical products. Cannasat is pursuing two complementary business strategies. The first consists of development of novel cannabinoid-based pharmaceutical products through application of drug delivery technologies to be introduced to the market through the traditional regulatory drug approval process. The second is to promote medicinal cannabis research and education with Cannasat's business partner, Prairie Plant Systems Inc., the only government licensed grower and distributor of medicinal cannabis in Canada.

<hr class=postrule>
<center><small>The TSX Venture Exchange Inc. has not reviewed and does not accept
responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information: Andrew Williams, Vice President, Operations,
Cannasat Therapeutics Inc, T: (416) 703-2449 ext. 253, F: (416) 703-8752,
awilliams@cannasat.com, www.cannasat.com, www.medicalmarijuanainformation.com</small></center>

[Midnight toker]

Attention News Editors:

Open Letter to Prime Minister Harper: Ontario's nurses condemn cuts to social programs

CNW Telbec


TORONTO, Sept. 28 /CNW/ - Ontario nurses feel compelled to respond to your government's decision to cut one billion dollars in spending. Given the overwhelming evidence that the health of Canadians is profoundly affected by social determinants of health, members of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario (RNAO) are asking you to reverse these planned cuts.

Prime Minister Harper, these cuts will affect people who rely on these very critical programs. For example, alarming rates of smoking in Aboriginal communities will go unchecked with the elimination of funding for the First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Strategy. We are also alarmed that sound health and social policy will be eroded by eliminating funding for such programs as the Medical Marijuana Research Program, the Canadian Policy Research Networks, and Health Canada's Policy Research Program.

Cuts to research programs on the health of visible minorities and support for voluntary programs will be detrimental to the health of vulnerable populations. Cuts to programs aimed at improving adult literacy and workplace skills will compromise opportunities for the working poor and youth to find better jobs and to build a brighter future.

As nurses, we know that health is more than health-care. Many of the proposed cuts will exacerbate social exclusion. For example, the Court Challenges Program has allowed minority groups such as Aboriginals, gays and lesbians, and people with disabilities to challenge federal laws which discriminate and lead to inequality. We are gravely concerned that Canada's tradition as a fair and just society is being damaged.

Prime Minister Harper, we understand there is a role for fiscal responsibility in the budget process. However, the government's attempt to promote itself as a model of "prudent fiscal management" leaves tens of thousands of Canadians behind at a time when the government is sitting on a $13 billion budget surplus. Ontario's nurses know that the long-term costs of these cuts will far exceed any immediate savings, and will undermine the progress being made to help disadvantaged and vulnerable people.

It is in the interest of all Canadians and our future as a nation that you reverse these cuts.

Respectfully,

<<
Mary Ferguson Paré, RN, PhD, CHE Doris Grinspun, RN, MSN, PhD(c) O.Ont
President Executive Director
Registered Nurses' Association Registered Nurses' Association
of Ontario of Ontario
>>



For further information: Marion Zych, Director of Communications, RNAO,
Phone: (416) 408-5605, 1-800-268-7199 ext. 209, Cell: (647) 406-5605, E-mail:
mzych@rnao.org

[budman]

Legion, branch clash over hemp oil

Last Updated: Friday, October 6, 2006 | 12:47 PM AT
CBC News

The Royal Canadian Legion has temporarily closed a branch in rural Nova Scotia because of its support of medicinal hemp oil, spurring complaints that it is muzzling free speech.

This week, the Nova Scotia-Nunavut Command of the Royal Canadian Legion temporarily pulled the charter of the branch in Maccan, in the province's northwest.

"They violated our rights of free speech to tell the truth," said Rick Dwyer, an ousted executive member.

Dwyer became an advocate for the oil after meeting a local producer, who claimed it helped a number of medical problems. Marijuana is a mixture of dried, shredded leaves, stems, seeds and flowers of the hemp plant.

'When we see a wrong in this country it is our duty to stand up and speak out. What honour is there in letting our loved ones suffer when there's no need for it?'
-Rick Dwyer, an ousted executive from the Maccan legionAfter researching those claims, Dwyer decided to give three capsules a day to his cancer-stricken father. He was astonished by the results.

"He's come along real well," said Dwyer.

Soon legion members started using the hemp oil. But when they wanted to hold meetings about it, Dwyer said they were told the legion doesn't advocate the use of marijuana.

The executive decided to push ahead.

"When we see a wrong in this country it is our duty to stand up and speak out," Dwyer said.

"What honour is there in letting our loved ones suffer when there's no need for it?"

Dwyer said the legion membership voted unanimously to support the local producer and hold another meeting, this time inviting local politicians and hospital officials.

But the day of the meeting, the doors of the legion were locked.

Branch accused of being 'soapbox' for product

Steve Wessel, the chair of the provincial command, said Dwyer and the executive were trying to use the Royal Canadian Legion to endorse a product.

"Right now the government says it's illegal for people to grow marijuana unless they're government-sponsored," Wessel said.

"These people are not and they're using the Royal Canadian Legion as a soapbox to put this forward."

Wessel said the charter has only been suspended temporarily, and a management committee will look into the matter.

[palmspringsbum]

Man says hemp oil cured his cancer

<span class=postbold>Legion trouble helping to get message out about ‘amazing’ oil</span>

By MARY ELLEN MacINTYRE Truro Bureau
The Chronicle Herald
October 11, 2006

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/simpson_rick.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Maccan resident Rick Simpson says he grows marijuana for medicinal purposes: ‘I cured my own cancer.’ </td></tr></table>MACCAN — Rick Dwyer says officials with the provincial command of the Royal Canadian Legion were wrong to revoke the local legion’s charter but he figures the action will nonetheless help all Canadians.

"The attention to this story is going across Canada and that means people will find out about this hemp oil and what it can do to save lives," Mr. Dwyer said Sunday.

He was referring to an essential oil a local man produces from the buds and leaves of the hemp plant.

Mr. Dwyer, a past president of the Maccan legion, and other executive members got into a spot of trouble with the Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of the Royal Canadian Legion because of the oil.

"I did research for over a year and a half, I spoke to at least 30 people with diseases like cancer and diabetes wounds who were cured by this oil, and I felt we had a duty to make sure people knew of this," he said.

When notice of a meeting went out to the general public, doctors, the RCMP and the legion’s command in Halifax, the legion was told the building couldn’t be used for the meeting.

"It cured my sister’s cancer and my wife’s arthritis — she was taking medicine and was still in horrible pain for 13 years — this oil is amazing," said Mr. Dwyer, 51.

"My father, who is 82 years old, was given 48 hours to live because of his cancer and that was in June — I took him off all his medicines and gave him this oil and he’s cured."

The provincial command suspended the legion’s charter and ousted its executive members last Wednesday when they continued to ignore orders forbidding meetings on the hemp oil at the legion.

"The legion will reopen as soon as possible and we’ll have a management committee put in place," said Steve Wessel, chairman of the provincial command.

"We’re not saying that we disagree, we’re not saying (the oil) does or does not work, but growing marijuana is not legal and we don’t want the Royal Canadian Legion associated with something illegal."

The man who makes the oil and gives it away for free said Sunday he believes the cure for cancer and many other illnesses lies in the thick, yellow grease he extracts from the plant.

"This whole community recognizes the good done by this oil and they’re really up in arms over this whole thing," Rick Simpson said.

He said he first discovered the healing components of the oil when he was diagnosed with skin cancer four years ago.

"I had one growth surgically removed and I was supposed to get the other two off as well," he said.

Eventually, he said, he could see the cancer returning in the area of the surgical removal.

"I started to apply the oil to the areas and I cured my own cancer," he said.

Mr. Simpson said despite documented evidence and videotaped testimonials, he has been unable to break through the medical, legal and government communities to get the word out.

"That’s why I’m so grateful the media is involved — we can get the message out."

Mr. Simpson was charged last year after the RCMP raided his property and seized more than 1,200 marijuana plants.

He pleaded not guilty to one count each of possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana, possession of less than three kilograms of cannabis resin for the purpose of trafficking, and growing marijuana. The case is still before the courts.

Mr. Simpson also ran as an Independent in the January federal election.

( mmacintyre@herald.ca)

’It cured my sister’s cancer and my wife’s arthritis.’

[palmspringsbum]

New deal for federal pot grower

Legal marijuana grow-op to continue but activists decry research cutbacks

ALEX DOBROTA
The Globe & Mail

OTTAWA -- Prime Minister Stephen Harper may have decided the study of medicinal marijuana is a waste of money, but his government is still interested in selling pot.

After gutting a $4-million fund destined to research the therapeutic properties of cannabis, the Conservatives recently extended the contract of Canada's only legal grow-op.

As part of the new deal, Prairie Plant Systems Inc. will keep growing marijuana inside an abandoned mine shaft and sell it to the government for at least one more year.

The Health Department did not disclose the terms of the contract. Spokesman Jason Bouzanis only confirmed that an extension of the contract was approved over the past few weeks.

But in an e-mail exchange obtained by The Globe and Mail, Michel Raincourt, a senior director with the Public Works Department, wrote that the program had been extended until September, 2007.

Officials with the company, based in Flin Flon, Man., did not return calls yesterday.

The secrecy shrouding the deal surprised health professionals, legal experts and marijuana advocates who say production with no research will ultimately yield a low-grade crop.

The government's decision also left them wondering why the Health Department is interested in subsidizing a product that seems to find little popularity with patients.

"People don't want the [government's] product," said Alan Young, a lawyer who represented several medicinal pot users in their bid to have the practice legalized.

Patients have grumbled that the pot produced in Manitoba is not strong enough and is hard to light.

"It's just a general distrust of government," Mr. Young said. "I mean how many governments are in the business of growing marijuana?"

In 2001, the Health Department changed the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to provide an exception for medical use of marijuana. That year, the Chrétien government awarded Prairie Plant Systems a $5.7-million contract to produce marijuana for research purposes.

In 2003, an Ontario Court of Appeal judge ruled that allowing the medicinal use of pot without giving patients access to a legal supply was a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And within months the Manitoba grow-op started marketing its products to the public.

About 300 customers have bought marijuana from the government since 2003, according to Health Department statistics. But only about 90 of them bought the actual buds that sell for $150 for a 30-gram bag.

The rest of the clients decided to purchase seeds and to grow their own plants.

Mr. Bouzanis yesterday defended the marijuana.

"The marijuana produced for the government of Canada . . . is thoroughly tested and is consistent from batch to batch," he said.

But one medicinal user remained skeptical.

Philippe Lucas, who runs a Vancouver underground distribution centre for about 600 medicinal users, said he tried the government product himself, but was disappointed.

"I've had problems with the strength of the product, with the smokability of the product," said Mr. Lucas, a hepatitis C sufferer who says he needs marijuana for appetite stimulation and pain relief.

He estimated that 10,000 medicinal users across Canada resort to underground networks to satisfy their needs. Different patients often prefer different strains of pot, which they claim can soothe their particular conditions.

But the government produces only one variety, which is not suitable for all patients, Mr. Lucas said.

This is where research money would come in handy, Dr. Mark Ware said. The McGill University researcher is the only Canadian recipient of the research grant established by the Chrétien government and gutted by the Conservative government.

The $4-million cutback was part of a $2-billion spending reduction package Mr. Harper defended in the House of Commons last month.

[palmspringsbum]

Judge calls ex-con an expert

Convicted drug producer testifies in local marijuana-growing case

DIANNE WOOD
The Record

KITCHENER (Oct 12, 2006)

Les Soloman has been before a few judges in his time.

A three-time convicted drug producer, he's no stranger to local courtrooms.

But yesterday, the 48-year-old Cambridge man was called to court, not to answer for another crime, but for his expertise -- in growing pot. Soloman knows a lot about it after more than 20 years in the field, so to speak. So when his lawyer, Hal Mattson, called on him to testify for the defence in a local marijuana-growing case, he accepted.

Justice Gary Hearn ruled Soloman could be considered an expert after hearing arguments from several lawyers earlier this year. Soloman stepped up to the stand in his new role -- and in a jacket and tie -- yesterday to tell the judge that much of the marijuana seized from four Kitchener homes in 2004 wasn't exactly high-quality stuff.

"About a 4,'' Soloman told Mattson when his lawyer asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how well the marijuana growers had cared for their crop, based on photos shown in court.

Federal prosecutor Mike O'Malley is arguing that five people who pleaded guilty to marijuana-growing charges at the four homes should have to forfeit the houses.

Several children still live in one of the houses. Each home had equity of about $70,000. One has since been sold and the money frozen.

The Crown alleges the grow was a sophisticated, commercial operation which would have earned a large profit. Police seized 593 marijuana plants from the basements of the homes. The Crown says they could have been worth $593,000 on the street. But lawyers representing the five accused hope to persuade the judge that much of the pot was poor quality and would never have produced a profitable yield.

Defence lawyers agree some forfeiture is reasonable. But they're hoping to reduce the number of houses and/or the ultimate sentences of their clients.

"When you embark on an operation of this nature, you're seeking profit,'' lawyer Brennan Smart, who represents Chien Khac Nguyen, said outside court. "You deserve to pay the price. But the issue is all four houses, or one or two.''

O'Malley argued the accused are all related and were operating the grow as a group. Four people are married couples, and the fifth is the mother of one of the accused. Therefore, the forfeiture should affect all of them as a group, the Crown said.

Presented with photographs of the plants seized, Soloman essentially said he could have done a much better job.

His main problem was with the water used by the accused. White scaling on pails found in several homes suggested the growers must have used hard tap water, he said.

Several plants were "falling over, so the roots are burned off,'' he said. "There's something in there that is poisoning the roots.''

Other plants which also looked unhealthy had all the lower leaves picked off, he said.

"They look like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree to me,'' Mattson commented.

Plants like that would produce little bud, Soloman said.

"You'd be lucky to get five grams a plant,'' he said.

Removing leaves from the bottom of a plant would retard growth, he said.

Kitchener water needs to be treated, he said. In one house, there was a water softener which he said would put too much salt in the water.

Soloman, who now grows marijuana legally, always uses a metre to adjust the pH and the nutrient value in his water. He's got a medical exemption to grow marijuana from Health Canada.

He grows 22 pot plants in a spare bedroom in his home to help with the pain of a foot condition called peripheral neuropathy.

Soloman used to be just a regular gardener who grew vegetables. Then he decided to throw some marijuana seeds around on the ground to see what would happen. They took off, and he liked what came up.

Marijuana works well for his foot pain.

"I knew it worked. When I smoked it, I could go around and kick the walls,'' he said outside court.

He said it's better than OxyContin tablets. He took those for three years and slept a lot. He could take methadone, "but that stuff is deadly,'' he said.

The first three government crops he grew were a bust. He's on his fourth now, and he thinks it will prosper.

He never expected to be invited to court to speak as an expert.

"But when your lawyer asks you to help . . .'' he said. "I didn't want to get the police or Crown mad at me,'' he added. "But I thought, just to help. You only get experience by doing it for years.''

Convicted are Cuong Khac Nguyen, his wife, Huyan Le Thi Vu, and Chien Khac Nguyen, and his wife, Que Kim Thi Nguyen, and Nam Thi Dinh. The houses are at 4 Wyandotte Crt., 2 Corfield Dr., 117 Oneida Pl. and 3121 Briarfield Crt.

dwood@therecord.com

[Midnight toker]

'Poor' pot from only legal grow-op

Activists blame fed Tories

By Brookes Merrit, Staff Writer
The Edmonton Sun
October 12, 2006

Pot activists are blaming the federal Tories for wasting potential research dollars by extending a contract with Canada’s only legal grow-op, just weeks after slashing funding for medicinal marijuana studies.

“It looks like the feds are gearing up to force all medicinal pot users to buy through Prairie Plant Systems, whose product is downright poor,” said Vancouver pot activist Phillipe Lucas.

Prairie Plant Systems is the Saskatoon-based company contracted by Health Canada to grow marijuana and other plants for medical research.

The company has been criticized by many medicinal users of providing weak pot that is hard to light and treats only a small spectrum of ailments.

Recently, the government extended its contract with the company. It has not disclosed the details, but activists claim it’s worth $2.1 million over 15 months, and was never tendered.

“The feds are phasing out private medicinal growing licenses in 2007, yet they’re giving money to Prairie Plant Systems to grow more pot. If you ask me it looks like they’re getting into bed together,” Lucas said.

“Unless that company demonstrates its ability to provide superior product and choice, people will continue to get their marijuana on the black market.”

Prairie Plant Systems CEO Brent Zettl said allegations his product is too weak are “completely unfounded.”

“They can’t show a shred of clinical evidence to support that,” he said, adding returns of his product have steadily declined since they first bid for the government job in 2001.

“Our patient list is increasing every month,” he said.

His company currently supplies only one type of marijuana, a “general treatment that helps most clients.”

Zettl admitted his weed won’t be suitable for everyone.

“We’re currently researching - with our own money - other strains, and we know it’s going to be important to have those available in the future.”

Activists, including at least one MP, a Conservative Senator, and the Canadian AIDS Society, continue to call for a performance audit on Health Canada’s contract with Prairie Plant Systems.

[palmspringsbum]

Prof asks university to take high road on prescription pot

Last Updated: Thursday, October 19, 2006 | 11:21 AM ET
CBC News

A Toronto professor wants to smoke his prescription pot at the university where he works and is refusing to step onto campus until he can.

York University professor Brian MacLean says he has clearance from Health Canada for medical marijuana use for an undisclosed illness, but there is no place at work where he can smoke it.

"I have to medicate a lot," he says. "There's no issue here, well, can I restrain my medication on campus? No, I can't."

Until his medical need is accommodated, MacLean is refusing to step onto campus and is holding all of his classes on policing elsewhere.

MacLean says he tries to be discreet by rolling the marijuana to make it look like regular filtered cigarettes and walking to the edges of campus to smoke.

But that's a problem, he says, because there is little privacy and he feels that passersby are passing moral judgment on him.

And he fears that it may be raising more than just a few eyebrows.

"Students come to class and smell it," he said. "They are not going to say anything to me but they are going to talk to other people about it.

"So there are damages to my reputation which I can't specify and I don't know how the university plans to deal with that, but they are going to have to."

MacLean says that the University of Toronto has created a ventilated room for a professor who smokes medical marijuana and wants York to do the same.

Several months ago, he says he quietly submitted the Health Canada paperwork to university administrators, but no action has been taken.

University spokesman Alex Bilyk said the issue had been brought up with the labour relations office and they are now working with the union to work out accommodation.

Bilyk couldn't say when it would be made available.

MacLean says he's already waited two months.

[palmspringsbum]

Biotech company ready to lead pack

Murray Lyons
The Star-Phoenix


Saturday, October 21, 2006

The head of one of Saskatoon's pioneering biotech companies, Prairie Plant Systems Inc. (PPS), says the company is ideally placed to be among the leaders in growing pharmaceutical drugs in plants.

Company president Brent Zettl says PPS's experience during the past six years growing medical marijuana for Health Canada in an underground growth chamber in part of an old Flin Flon copper mine has helped prepare his company for its next move into plant-based biopharmacy.

Zettl says the company has taken on a contract to grow a vaccine antibody against hepatitis C within plants. The deal was struck with the Saskatoon-based Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), which is developing the vaccine.

"We have embarked upon a program to look at ways to have the plants themselves manufacture this new hepatitis C vaccine," he said.

"If we enter the global stage with this one, it is going to take a lot of time and money.

"It signals the beginning of a new era where plants can be designed to produce protein-based medicines." It wasn't just Zettl touting a big future for PPS on Friday, as the company marked the opening of a new head offi ce and laboratory just east of Boychuk Drive on Highway 16.

The company has attracted an American expert to its board of directors in Brandon Price, the former CEO of Cognate Therapeutics Inc. and a vice-president with Cardinal Health, both companies that are big players in the biopharmaceutical industry.

Price says the cost of building huge bio-fermentation tanks to synthesize drugs on an industrial scale runs into the billions of dollars.

In just one growing class of molecules being tested by pharmaceutical companies -- monoclonal antibodies, which are drugs that will be the next weapon against diseases such as cancer and heart disease -- Price predicted 45 per cent of these drug therapies will instead be produced by genetically inserting the antibodies into plants.

"Plants offer a very economic alternative and they are very effi cient," Price said. "Surprisingly enough, plants such as tobacco plants or corn can make these very, very complex molecules as well as humans can." Price predicts pharmaceutical companies that develop the monoclonal antibody class of drug will contract out the production of those molecules to companies that know how to grow such plants under strictly controlled conditions. The value of such contracts in 10 years could grow to $1.26 billion US annually, he predicted.

Prairie Plants was founded by Zettl and two other partners 18 years ago. Originally, the company was set up to clone saskatoon berry plants to get a more consistent variety that could aid commercial orchards in berry production.

The company is still involved in that work, but it has also created an environmental division that serves companies such as Cameco Corp. doing remediation work of mined-out landscapes by carefully propagating northern plants.

The company has 38 employees in Saskatoon, Flin Flon and a small underground growth chamber in Michigan.

© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006

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Police descend on east-end head shop

Oct. 26, 2006. 12:32 AM
JOANNA SMITH
STAFF REPORTER
The Toronto Star


Toronto police raided a drug paraphernalia shop associated with a group advocating the use of medical marijuana Wednesday night, arresting more than 20 people and seizing pot, hash and cannabis plants.

The G13 Shop, a three-storey house on Queen St. E. near Woodbine Ave., became the subject of a police investigation about a month ago after Beach area residents and businesses began complaining about disorderly conduct.

Police charged about 10 people with trafficking drugs and the rest for possession, drug squad Det. Sgt. Larry Cowley said.

He said they also seized about five pounds of pot and hash as well as about 75 marijuana plants, adding more accurate numbers would be available soon.

Named after a strain of marijuana that, according to the shop’s website, is known for prolonged strong effects without inducing paranoia, the G13 Shop advocates for the medical use of cannabis, which the website says “has been misrepresented by the government through prohibition and propaganda.”

The website says the shop’s purpose is to educate people about “how organic growing methods can improve your health.”

According to the website and a sign on the front of the building, the G13 Shop is associated with the Toronto chapter of the Assembly of the Church of the Universe, which was voted the city’s “best house of worship” by an annual reader poll in the current issue of NOW Magazine.

The “church” is housed in the basement of Trinity St. Paul’s Church on Bloor St. W. north of Spadina Ave. and claims the Old Testament gives proof that cannabis was an ingredient in holy oil from the time of Exodus.

NOW says perspective parishioners shoudn't expect to be zoned out on special brownies at the church and quotes Rev. Brother Bruce as saying: “We want to be sure people are actually true of heart.”

[palmspringsbum]

Drug raid at church

Mayoral candidate faces trafficking charges

By ROB LAMBERTI, TORONTO SUN
October 26, 2006

Toronto's drug squad raided the Beach's Assembly of the Church of the Universe yesterday for allegedly illegally selling the marijuana its members consider a sacrament.

Among the more than two dozen people arrested at the Queen St. E. centre near Woodbine Ave. was its leader, Rev. Peter Styrsky, 48, a Toronto mayoral candidate.

He's been charged with trafficking and conspiracy to traffic. It's the second time police raided the church within a year for allegedly breaching the limits of its licence allowing it to possess marijuana.

Police allege the church was selling the drug to members, which the federal permit doesn't allow.

Police seized 200 grams of hashish, 151 marijuana plants, 4.5 kilos of dried marijuana and an operating marijuana oil lab, which is potentially dangerous due to the chemicals used to make the drug. Det. Scott Matthews said the drugs are worth about $203,000 and about $6,000 cash was also seized. All items associated with marijuana smoking will also be seized from the store in the church, he said.

"There's only a certain amount of plants that they're allowed to have, only for personal possession, and they can't sell it," Matthews said.

The church promotes the use of marijuana and uses it as a sacrament.

Project B-17 was launched Sept. 18, and undercover officers posing as a couple became members of the controversial church.

Members pay $25 for a laminated membership card bearing a picture which is required for entrance to the building, police said.

Last night, police arrested 17 people after they allegedly purchased packets of marijuana within a 70 minute period. Most were issued forms ordering to appear in court on a charge of possessing marijuana. Matthews said police have received complaints about the traffic in and out of the building.

"Thanks a lot," one woman said to an officer as she jogged past the building.

"I don't think it's a church," joked a neighbour who didn't want to be named. "I smell something. I think it's incense from a ceremony."

The man said Styrsky and his wife are a loving couple and good parents to their three children. The children's grandparents were called in last night to care for the kids.

"I have a medical licence to produce and use marijuana," church member Zenon Michael said as he was led towards a police cruiser. "They're arresting us. They're dragging us away in handcuffs."

[palmspringsbum]

High court overturns pot activist's conviction

October 26, 2006
Canadian Press

<table class=posttable align=right width=220><tr><td class=postcell><img src=bin/krieger_grant.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Grant Krieger, smokes marijuana in the bedroom of his Calgary house. Krieger, who has multiple sclerosis, is an advocate of medicinal marijuana use.</td></tr></table>Ottawa — The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned the conviction of a medical marijuana crusader on charges of possession of pot for purposes of trafficking.

In a 7-0 judgment, the court granted a new trial to Grant Krieger of Calgary, who says he should have the right to distribute marijuana to people who need it to ease the pain of serious illness.

Krieger himself suffers from multiple sclerosis and has legal permission to smoke pot for medical purposes.

He doesn't have permission from the federal government to supply it to others — but freely admits that he's done so anyway.

The judge at his trial in 2003 instructed the jury that they had no choice, under the law, except to find Krieger guilty.

Two jurors objected and said their consciences wouldn't permit them to convict. They asked to be excused from he case, but the judge refused the request.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical pot crusader vows to keep fighting

The Hamilton Spectator

<table class=posttable align=right width=286><tr><td class=postcell><img src=bin/krieger-grant.jpg></td></tr></table>CALGARY (Oct 27, 2006)
A medical marijuana activist is raring to be tried again after the Supreme Court overturned his 2003 conviction for pot trafficking.

"I'm very happy the Supreme Court had the good sense to give me a trial, because I do want a trial by my peers," Grant Krieger, left, said yesterday.

The top court ruled that the Alberta judge who ordered a jury to convict Krieger went too far and violated his rights.

In a 7-0 judgment yesterday, the court overturned the conviction, in effect sending the case back for a new trial -- if the Crown chooses to proceed.

Krieger, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, has legal permission from the federal government to smoke pot for medical purposes. He doesn't have permission to supply it to others -- but freely admits that he's done so anyway in an effort to ease the pain of serious illness.

"I want another trial here ... this has to come out," said Krieger.

"Let the collective conscience speak over this issue and not our laws."

Officials with Alberta Justice weren't immediately available to comment.

While he was awaiting the Supreme Court ruling, Krieger was convicted last month on another two trafficking charges in Alberta. He is scheduled to be sentenced in February.

"I'm looking at mandatory jail time now, but I don't care. I'm not going to stop," he said. "The only way I'm going to stop is if they give me life in jail."

[palmspringsbum]

<table class=posttable align=right width=360><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/maclean_brian.jpg width=360></td></tr></table>

Smoking pot on campus

Excalibur

Written by Frances Olimpo, Managing Editor
Wednesday, 01 November 2006


<br clear=right><span class=postbigbold>A York professor has been given a room on campus to smoke marijuana for medical purposes. Excalibur speaks to him about his right to light up</span>


A York professor will get his own room to smoke pot for his medical condition.

In the second known case in Canada, York University has provided accommodation for a criminology professor to smoke marijuana on campus grounds for medicinal purposes.

Brian MacLean, recently hired as an assistant professor in sociology in July, suffers from a severe form of degenerative arthritis that requires him to use the controversial substance once every four hours. As of Monday, Nov. 6, he will no longer be forced to find private areas to medicate himself out of fear he would be stigmatized by students or colleagues.

"Part of the problem was the delay of two months. I would be smoking, medicating, on campus and people would either see me or they would smell it on me," said MacLean, who also admits that he still feels uncomfortable being negatively associated with a drug that he uses for health reasons.

"It's not corrective medication; it's enabling, and I don't think people quite understand that. I think there's a lot of really negative and damaging stereotypes around the use of drugs, generally."

In an Oct. 28 report by The National Post, University of Toronto philosophy professor Doug Hutchinson was the first employee to request and be granted accommodation to smoke marijuana as a form of medical treatment. He now has privileged access to "a drab basement space with a single window and ventilation fan," located in downtown Toronto's Trinity College.

Hutchinson was also the first to gain media attention in his quest for an accommodation: there were reports of clashes with the head of Trinity College, Margaret MacMillan, who claimed that it was the novelty of the case that slowed down the university's process to confirm medical need as well as finding a space; there was also an upsetting editorial published by the University of Western Ontario's The Gazette, which argues for his right to smoke but also calls Hutchinson a "pothead."

"It looks on the outside to be successful," said Hutchinson, when Excalibur contacted him for a phone interview. "However, you will find that it's not.

MacLean said that, because of Hutchinson, his experience with York did not require an uphill battle and was seen as addressing a medical need from the beginning by all parties involved.

Louise Ripley, a representative from his union, the York University Faculty Association (YUFA), confirmed that their discussions with the university has led to a room that has already been set aside for MacLean.

"It took a little time in being able to find a room because York is now totally a smoke-free environment. So, part of the problem was being able to find a room where he can smoke anything that wouldn't disturb other people."

"This is a first time for us; it's the first time we looked at this procedure," said Alex Bilyk, director of media relations at York.

When MacLean was authorized by Health Canada to possess and produce marijuana, he said that he approached the head of his department to request accommodation. He had also requested, in the meantime, to refrain from going to campus and offered to hold classes off-campus for students.

After CBC News made an Oct. 19 report that exposed MacLean's illness and treatment, he felt that there was no longer any reason for him to hide, and came to campus only to smoke pot in the "peripheries" of university grounds. Two weeks later, after discussions between YUFA, the employer, labour relations and facilities, MacLean was notified by his union that a room was made available at his disposal.

MacLean, however, said that even when he is given accommodation, there are still myths that need to be dispelled when it comes to marijuana, or what he wants to distinguish as "marihuana," as it is called under Health Canada regulations and academic studies.

"It's a stigmatizing circumstance. And I would hope that my colleagues recognize it for what it is - a medical condition, however unusual.

"I don't want people assuming that because I have a medical condition that I can't perform my duties properly. It's completely wrong; it's completely unfair; it's completely contrary to the Human Rights Code of Ontario and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

MacLean, who has a sociology PhD, has been teaching for almost 25 years. He currently lists "recent developments in the decriminalization of cannabis for medical use" as one of his many areas of substantive research interests.

[palmspringsbum]

<span class=postbold>See:</span> Most Canadians OK with Medical Marijuana

[palmspringsbum]

Margaret Trudeau's triumph

Margaret Trudeau struggled for 30 years with bipolar depression

Nov. 3, 2006. 05:40 AM
REBECCA DIFILIPPO
SPECIAL TO THE STAR


HAMILTON—"It was just a few years ago that I was at the bottom of my life," the confident-sounding woman begins.

"I had no more hope, no more courage and no more strength. I stopped being able to feed myself, I hid in my home and, if not for the grace of God and the kindness of one friend who came and found me, I wouldn't be here today. She called my son and said, `Come, Margaret is in such trouble and I don't know what is wrong with her.'"

After that fateful call to her son, Margaret Trudeau, once the wife of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and desperately struggling with bipolar disorder, went to the hospital and began her journey to wellness.

Bipolar disorder II, characterized by mood swings from dark depressive lows to energized highs, is the illness with which Trudeau, now 57, has finally come to terms.

As a little girl and a teenager, Trudeau was vivacious, full of life. She had fun at school, was always surrounded by people. It wasn't until her late teens while visiting Morocco that she experienced her first bout of mania.

"I got into delusions, fantasy, and I disconnected from reality, but I thought it was just because I was a hippie, a revolutionary," she said.

Her depressive episodes, however, were very mild at that time, nothing like those she experienced later in life.

In 1971, the 22-year-old Margaret Sinclair married Pierre Trudeau, Canada's prime minister.

Life seemed perfect. But after the birth of her second child, Alexandre, on Christmas Day in 1973, she was struck with an overwhelming depression.

People, particularly her husband, kept telling her that she had "no reason on earth" to be unhappy. She had a gorgeous newborn and she was totally pampered. But she found herself crying all the time and unable to get out of bed. Unable to determine what the cause was, the couple sought help and Margaret Trudeau was hospitalized.

"A doctor told me that it was just the baby blues. `You'll get over it, it's just a little hormone thing,' he said.

"So I learned how to fake it, smiling and looking happy on the outside, particularly for my children," she said. "I wanted them to have a happy mother ..."

Not understanding that she was ill, she felt she had to leave Pierre, that she might be happier somehow in another life.

Like many others, there was a time when Trudeau looked to drugs to numb her sadness.

"I used to do drugs in order to self medicate, to lift myself out of depression, particularly marijuana which was my vice — my addiction. I didn't use it all the time, but I have to admit that I used it quite a bit because I found that I was lifted out of this very dark and sad place into a nice euphoric happy place not realizing that, in fact, this euphoric happy place was so unreal that I would crash hard every time. When the effects of the drug wore off I would just need to take more. It was a vicious circle."

Having always been free-spirited and a bit capricious, these feelings would become exaggerated as Trudeau went into hypomania, episodes with symptoms similar to mania but less severe.

When these bouts hit she just thought, "Whew, finally I'm feeling better. I would just go off and do whatever I felt like, never thinking about the consequences of my actions — never thinking about how much my actions were hurting those around me and how much I was distancing myself from those I loved."

Then Trudeau met a doctor in New York who said he thought she was suffering from manic depression. He prescribed her lithium.

She left her wild days in New York, London, Paris and Rome and went back to Ottawa to be with her little boys. Separated from her husband they worked out an arrangement in which they took care of the boys on alternating weeks.

But the lithium caused side effects. It slowed her down and she gained 40 pounds, or 18 kilograms. Embarrassed by her weight increase, Trudeau hid in her house. She had tremors so severe that she could not use a saucer with her tea.

Then she was offered a job on a television show. "I looked at the mirror and saw myself all bloated with such an uninteresting life and I thought they don't want me, they don't want this person, they want someone else."

So she went off the lithium, lost the weight and recalls having had three very happy years in television.

Eventually, she married Ottawa realtor Fried Kemper and settled down. Then suddenly, one of her puppies died and she experienced a debilitating grief so severe, she couldn't get out of bed.

This horrible bout of depression lasted quite a long time, but she didn't seek any help. Her second marriage started to fall apart from the strain. The only thing she managed to do, she said, "was to be a good mother." Then tragedy struck in 1998 when her youngest son, Michel, died in an avalanche accident in British Columbia. Trudeau was buried in a sorrow so deep, she could no longer function.

"I couldn't deal with it. I cut myself off completely. I never left my house. And then Pierre died (in September 2000) and by that time I had lost 30 pounds. I couldn't eat, I couldn't do anything and I ended up in serious trouble."

She was unable to escape the crippling effects of her mental disorder.

"I couldn't accept it because I also felt, `I'm Margaret Trudeau, I don't have a mental illness, I can't, I can't.' It wasn't until I had the courage to accept that I did have a mental disorder ... that I needed help, I needed medication and that I needed counselling that I started to get better," she said.

In 2001 she was admitted into The Royal Ottawa Hospital for treatment. Trudeau now knows it requires great commitment and maturity to recover. "You have to choose to stay on your medication. You have to take medication every day," she said.

It took several years for Trudeau to be able to feel like a whole person again.

And although she says she will never get over the death of her son, she has allowed herself to start feeling real joy and happiness again.

"I accepted his death, I accepted his resurrection and I became a whole person again," she declared.

Exercise and healthy eating habits are now a part of her every day life. Charitable work has also played a huge role in Trudeau's recovery, particularly her work with WaterCan, a Canadian NGO that helps the poor access safe, clean water.

She is quick to emphasize that medication will not work alone; one also needs compassion and support, someone to talk to. By sharing her struggles with bipolar disorder, Trudeau is hoping to help others by raising awareness of mental illness and by combating the stigma that too often prevents people from seeking help.

"If you feel there is no hope, and the pain is too much to endure, remember how much you have endured and what bravery that has taken to do so."


<hr class=postrule>
Copyright Moods magazine.

Rebecca DiFilippo is the founder and editor. This excerpt is from an interview in the magazine's current issue available in bookstores, hospitals, medical centres and universities.

For more information, visit http://www.moodsmag.com.

Email health@thestar.ca.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical marijuana is all some have

The Toronto Star
Nov. 7, 2006. 01:00 AM

<hr class=postrule>
<center><span class=postbold>York gives prof. place to toke up</span></center>
<hr class=postrule>
Nov. 3.

Shame on the Toronto Star for its attitude on the use of medicinal marijuana.

From the headline "...toke up" to the text of the article " a room to spark up," your paper treats this issue like a Saturday night frat house party rather than a medical issue. As a person who suffers from MS and one who also relies on marijuana to make it through the day, I am very disappointed with the attitude of the reporter and the editor who allowed the story.

Medical marijuana is all that some people have to keep them functioning on even the most basic levels, let alone teaching at York University. Good for York and good luck to the professor.


Rick Keep, Lac du Bonnet, Man.

[palmspringsbum]

<table class=posttable align=right width=300><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg width=300 src=bin/wilcox_jason.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>Jason Wilcox shows the difference between marijuana purchased through the Compassion Club, left, and medical marijuana bought from the government.</td></tr></table>Battle for bud


By Andrea Lavigne
Victoria News
alavigne@vicnews.com
Nov 08 2006


Legal marijuana users decry federally sanctioned product as weak and pricey

The cannabis menu at the Vancouver Island Compassion Society changes daily.

On this particular day, clients have a choice of Pochi, Hog, Shishberry, Imposter or Jack Herer.

Beneath each name, a brief description of the effects of the variety is provided: strong and heady, reads one; mellow and body buzz, reads another.

In addition to supplying medical cannabis buds to about 600 clients on Vancouver Island, the compassion society offers an arrange of cannabis by-products and alternatives to smoking, such as cookies, oral sprays and tinctures, says society director Philippe Lucas.

It's the society's variety of products and family atmosphere that brings clients in to his underground operation - that, and the fact that federally-approved legal marijuana is substandard, Lucas says.

So it was with great surprise when he heard the federal government awarded a 15-month contract extension worth $2.1 million to Canada's only legal grow-op, just two weeks after it gutted a $4-million fund for research into medical marijuana.

The government announced its decision to fund Prairie Plant Systems Inc. to grow cannabis inside an abandoned mine shaft mid-October.

"The frustration there is this is a company that really has not worked hard to meet the needs of the end users of this product," Lucas says in a recent interview.

While 1,400 Canadians are registered in the medical marijuana program, only 300 order marijuana through PPS.

According to Lucas, the government has spent more than $8 million on the PPS production facility.

"Now if we divide that over 300 people, we can see what we're growing in Flin Flon, Manitoba is the world's most expensive bud," he says.

But PPS president Brent Zettl says public outcry from medical marijuana advocates is a thin disguise for ulterior motives.

"It's a cleverly disguised marketing campaign aimed to discredit what we do so they can be the only suppliers."

Zettl stands by the PPS product and says the number of users is steadily growing and demand for the product has jumped 80 per cent this year.

"Ninety-nine per cent of our patients are repeat customers and the only time they stop receiving our product is, unfortunately, when they've had a medical condition that's gotten worse."

Jason Wilcox of James Bay is HIV positive and co-infected with hepatitis C. He recently purchased 300 grams of cannabis from PPS for $1,500 (plus $90 in PST and GST).

"I'm actually disappointed," Wilcox says. "It's quite a large amount of money for stuff that has stem in it."

He depends on cannabis to help him take his anti-viral medications.

"When you're sick and have a long-term illness that's terminal, sometimes you have to take medications just to take you medications. You have to smoke cannabis in order to take your medications to keep them down."

Zettl says PPS has worked hard to produce a safe and consistent product for end users like Wilcox.

But is it strong enough?

Adrian Cameron of Esquimalt recently finished a one-year study conducted by McGill University Health Centre on the medical use of marijuana for pain management. To standardize the test, COMPASS study participants like Cameron were supplied with the PPS product.

Cameron, who suffers from pancreatitis, has been self-medicating with cannabis for four years, and has been a federally approved user for two years. Prior to participating in the study he used marijuana from a reliable source in Vancouver.

He found he had to smoke more PPS cannabis than usual to get the same medical benefits.

"I averaged one to two grams in use of the Vancouver product I was getting," Cameron says. "The PPS product, in order to keep stability with my condition, I was using the full 3 grams a day."

And it comes down to cost.

The PPS cannabis costs $150 for 30 grams, which is comparable to the street value of marijuana and cannabis available from compassion clubs.

If Cameron is going to shell out $400 from his meagre $650 disability cheque, he wants the biggest bang for his buck.

"The product from VICS is certainly stronger and that translates into having to use less of it," Cameron says.

The PPS product has 12.5 per cent tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive ingredient in pot. That percentage is level Health Canada has deemed acceptable based on national averages of THC in marijuana seized by police.

Zettl says that's above the national average of nine to 10 per cent, and well above what you'll find on B.C. streets.

"I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but... the average grade in British Columbia is seven per cent," Zettl says.

But Ted Smith, founder of the Victoria-based Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada, says it's not an accurate comparison.

"He's comparing his average to the average THC content in stuff seized by police, not the average THC content in compassion clubs," Smith says.

But the problem here is his compassion club doesn't do its own testing.

"It's debatable right, how much THC is in the pot we sell because we don't test it, but I think it's probably 16-17 per cent THC. Well, that five per cent difference is quite substantial to people who are sick."

The big selling point for compassion clubs like Smith's are the variety of strains of pot and related products they sell. Currently the Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada sells 22 different skin and food products and supplies medical marijuana to about 1,900 clients, mostly on Vancouver Island.

While Zettl would like to expand the number of varieties his Prairie Plant Systems produces, he's only licensed by the federal government to produce the one strain. Nonetheless, the company points to a return rate of less than one per cent as proof of customer satisfaction.

Lucas attributes the dramatically reduced return rate to Health Canada's change in policy, which makes it impossible for clients to obtain a refund once the package has been opened.

"Literally it's the equivalent of sitting down for a meal, taking a bite of something rotten asking for another meal, and having the waiter say 'sorry I can't take this back because you've actually tasted it,'" Lucas says.

Health Canada first approved the medical use of cannabis in 2001 and in that same year the federal Liberal government under Jean Chretien awarded PPS a $5.7-million contract to grow marijuana for research purposes.

In 2003, an Ontario judge ruled that allowing the medicinal use of cannabis without providing access to a legal supply was a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Soon after, PPS started marketing its products to the public.

The PPS contract extension was particularly shocking to researchers in light of recent federal spending cuts to the medical marijuana research program.

According to information on the Department of Finance Canada website, the government cut research funding because it doesn't need to "tell profession researchers what to study" and listed medical marijuana research as a non-core program.

But medical cannabis advocates argue the research program was developed with advice from an expert advisory committee on new active substances - an external body of scientific and medical experts.

"It's a frustrating catch-22 because over and over we're going to be told by the government, certainly by this Harper government, that we don't know enough about medical marijuana to make it widely available or to make it available like any other medication," Lucas says.

About a million Canadians say they use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

[palmspringsbum]

Two Canadian professors win right to toke up at work

Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:37 AM EST
Reuters

By Natasha Elkington

TORONTO (Reuters) - The use of medical marijuana has given two Toronto professors the right to something that many students could only dream of -- access to specially ventilated rooms where they can indulge in peace.

The two, at the esteemed University of Toronto and at York University, suffer from chronic medical conditions that some doctors say can be eased by smoking marijuana. They are among nearly 1,500 Canadians who have won the right to use the drug for health reasons.

Using human rights legislation, the two petitioned their employers for the right to light up in the workplace. They faced a legal struggle, but the universities eventually agreed.

"Without the medication, I am disabled and I'm not able to carry out meaningful and valuable, productive work," said York University criminology professor Brian MacLean, who suffers from a severe form of degenerative arthritis.

"It helps me to maintain my mobility as a physical problem but it also helps me to keep the pain at a distance so I can focus on my work," MacLean told Reuters.

MacLean's three-month battle to persuade York University to provide a light-up room, finally obtained this month, is short in comparison to University of Toronto philosophy professor Doug Hutchinson's year-long struggle.

"It took Professor MacLean a season, three full months, to get a similar accommodation and I believe that in Canada now, we should hope that the next person who gets the accommodation should not take more than a month," Hutchinson told Reuters.

MacLean says the three-month response time from the university put him in a vulnerable position both medically and professionally, as he smoked joints on the edge of campus, and thus on the edge of the law.

He now uses a special vaporizer that he says allows him to absorb the medical components of marijuana without the residues that come from smoking a joint.

Health Canada figures show that 1,492 people are authorized to possess marijuana for medical purposes in Canada, although it's not clear how the law on using the drug tallies with Ontario provincial legislation that bans smoking in the workplace.

Canada, where laws on possession of marijuana are much less tough than those in the United States, has allowed the use of marijuana for medical purposes since 2001.

The government grows the drug in an abandoned salt mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba, and sells it to authorized users at C$5 a gram.

[palmspringsbum]

Medical marijuana community say they're being unfairly targeted

Carly Weeks
CanWest News Service

Wednesday, November 22, 2006


<table class=posttable align=right width=210><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/alberta_toker.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>CREDIT: Calgary Herald/Tim Fraser
<center>A medical marijuana crusader from Alberta.</center></td></tr></table>OTTAWA - Regular medical marijuana users are being unfairly targeted by the Conservative government’s new drug-driving legislation, which will increase penalties and make it easier for police to crack down on people who do drugs before getting behind the wheel, a national advocacy group warned today.

“This law, we feel, would unfairly target marijuana users,” said Russell Barth, a medical marijuana user and member of the National Capital Reformers. “Discriminating against us based on our medication ... is much like discriminating against us based on the colour of our skin.”

Justice Minister Vic Toews revived on Tuesday a Liberal-era bill designed to catch drug-impaired drivers through roadside checks and blood samples, an initiative that’s failed twice before and raised concerns about court challenges.

Under the proposed law, drivers suspected of being high would be required to perform physical tests at the side of the road, such as walking a straight line.

If they fail, they’d be sent to the police station for further testing and then be forced to surrender blood, saliva, or urine samples.

The federal government’s testing scheme for drugs would include penalties for people who refuse to co-operate, Toews said.

Ottawa also plans to provide about $2 million in police funding to carry out the testing.
Although the Conservative government said the bill will help keep roads safe, marijuana proponents say it will create a courtroom backlog and unfairly target people who use the drug for medicinal purposes.

Barth pointed out that some drivers take over the counter medication, eat, talk on the phone and engage in other behaviour that could affect their driving ability.

“This new law might exclude me (from driving after using marijuana) while failing to exclude me while using more harmful medication,” said Barth.

He added he would easily be able to pass a roadside sobriety test after using marijuana.

Toews introduced the legislation Tuesday accompanied by Mike Rider, whose 16-year-old son, Dave Rider, was one of five teens from the Ottawa area killed seven years ago by a young driver high on marijuana.

CanWest News Service

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Tenants health is a concern

<span class=postbigbold>Mould from grow-ops probed </span>

By ROB GRANATSTEIN, CITY HALL BUREAU
The Toronto Sun
November 25, 2006


<table class=posttable align=right width=200><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/toronto_jane-street-grow-op.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap>T. O. drug squad officers spent a second day removing plants and grow equipment from the Jane St. grow-op yesterday. (Dave Thomas/Sun) </td></tr></table>Police have already smoked out the marijuana grow ops and made some arrests, the problem now is what might be lurking in the walls for the tenants at 2600 Jane St.

While police speculated about potentially harmful spores floating through the air in the building and mould in the walls, Dr. Howard Shapiro, associate medical officer of health for Toronto Public Health, wasn't ready to sound the alarm bells.

"We've seen a bit of mould from the pictures on TV," Shapiro said. "It's certainly not the worst we've seen."

Inspectors from Toronto Public Health were expected to enter the building last night to assess the damage and risks to the remaining tenants.

VENTILATION SYSTEM

Shapiro said inspectors will check the ventilation systems and look to see if the mould has gone past the apartments housing the pot plants.

"Usually the mould is limited to the specific unit with the grow op," Shapiro said.

Symptoms of mould infestation include potential allergic reactions, a chronic cough, itchy, watery eyes, and a general tiredness. Nothing's been reported so far, he said.

Local councillor Giorgio Mammoliti is holding a meeting for tenants today at Domenico DiLuca Community Centre.

"We'll reassure them someone's going to be listening to them," Mammoliti said. "We'll let them know there is a place for them to ask some questions."

'GET SOME ANSWERS'

His concern is for those people who continue to make 2600 Jane St. their home.

"Do people have to be moved out?" he asked. "We need to get some answers."

Toronto Police, Municipal Licensing and Standards, Toronto Fire and Toronto Public Health will all be at the meeting to take questions from the residents.

Mammoliti said with the grow ops on just about every floor it's a building-wide issue that could have long-term effects on the tenants.

Mammoliti said there has been trouble at the building in the past.

"There were complaints by residents about the landlord," he said yesterday.

[palmspringsbum]

Trudeau candid about bipolar disorder

Nov 29, 2006
By David Blumenfeld
The Durham Daily News

<table class=posttable align=right width=246><tr><td class=postcell><img class=postimg src=bin/margaret_trudeau.jpg></td></tr><tr><td class=postcap><small>Walter Passarella / Metroland Durham Region Media Group WHITBY</small> - Margaret Trudeau was the keynote speaker and talked about her own experiences coping with depression as the Whitby Mental Health Centre opened it's doors to the community at large. The open house serves to begin a new chapter in the history of the institution. Nov. 29,2006</tr></td></table>WHITBY -- Margaret Trudeau says one of the reasons she didn't get help for bipolar disorder was because of the stigma that's often associated with mental illness.

"I'm Margaret Trudeau -- I'm not mentally ill," she would tell herself.

On Wednesday, the former wife of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was the keynote speaker at an open house hosted by Whitby Mental Health Centre (WMHC), where she discussed her battle with depression, the death of her 23-year-old son, Michel, and her quest for physical and spiritual treatment that has led her now to lead a balanced, happy life.

"I'm astonished that I'm here," Ms. Trudeau, 58, said. "Six years ago I was in a psychiatric hospital in Ottawa, very close to death, because I had been slowly starving myself. I was overwhelmed by the death of my husband, and previously to that of my child, Michel, and I couldn't stand on my own feet. I couldn't take of myself. I could hardly breathe."

That all changed when Ms. Trudeau got treatment and it was that message of hope and achieving balance that she conveyed to mental health professionals and the public at WMHC on Nov. 29.

But it was a long road to proper medical treatment and living life as a whole person again, said Ms. Trudeau, who went through a series of bouts of depression and mania typically experienced by a person with bipolar disorder. One of those, she said, came after the birth of her second child in which she went through a stage of postnatal depression.

"I just could not stop crying, yet couldn't understand what was wrong with me. I had everything... an extraordinary good marriage... a beautiful home and I had the support of the nation. I couldn't have been situated in a better place," she said. "Why couldn't I see all the joy and delight that my life was offering me?"

The depression continued, she said, until she was hospitalized. However, improper medicine and treatment didn't help, she said. The depression was followed by manic episodes, including making 2 a.m. phone calls to friends and functioning on as little as three hours of sleep a night.

"It's like a nuclear bomb has gone off," she said.

Without proper treatment for her bipolar condition, Ms. Trudeau said she started to self-medicate herself with drugs and alcohol, particularly marijuana.

"Now you do remember that I was a hippy and so for me it was marijuana. I thought marijuana was the answer to lift my spirits, to get me functioning again," said Ms. Trudeau, who married the then 51-year-old prime minister when she was 22. The two divorced in 1984.

Years later, Ms. Trudeau now says she's a happy, whole person who owes her life to the people who helped her regain her balance of mind, body and spirit. Her road to recovery has been about making hard choices, accepting the diagnosis of mental illness, maturity, and above all else, acceptance.

"It's very hard to stand up and say: Those were my short-comings. Those were my mistakes and from now on I'm going to endeavour to be a stronger, better person," she said. "Isn't that what life's all about? Learning from your mistakes?"

[palmspringsbum]

Pot grower tells court he's broke

Christina Toth
Abbotsford Times

Saturday, December 16, 2006


ABBOTSFORD

Marijuana advocate Tim Felger says he's broke after he pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court to three counts of cultivating pot for the purpose of trafficking.

He was sentenced to six months in jail, a 10-year ban on firearms and a $210,000 fine.

The charges related to police raids on his former farm on Jan. 3, 2002, May 2003, and Jan. 6, 2005.

In the last raid, Abbotsford police found 2,090 plants in various stages of maturity. Twenty-five of the plants, the equipment and dry marijuana found at the property were claimed by Brian Carlisle, a medical marijuana user who had an exemption through Health Canada to grow pot and was using Felger's barns for that purpose. Abbotsford police officers helped Carlisle through the storm to gain access to his medical marijuana.

But since he had breached bail orders handed down by judges from the two earlier busts, and because he could not pay a $150,000 bail, Felger was held in custody for 100 days at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge.

As Felger faced seizure of his eight-hectare farm by his mortgage holder, he was forced to sell in 2005. He claimed the land sold for $849,000, but a net profit of around $600,000 was ordered to be held in trust by a prosecutor's order.

Felger had purchased the property several years earlier, after selling a pizza chain business.

"I have nothing left," said Felger, who leases a building at 33772 Essendene Avenue in downtown Abbotsford, which he uses as a venue for his marijuana and anti-prohibition advocacy.

<center><small>© The Vancouver Sun 2006</small></center>

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Pot grower given conditional sentence

By KEITH LACY

Date Published | Dec. 18, 2006
Northern Life

A local man who ran a large-scale marijuana grow operation from his Nairn Centre residence won't be going to jail, but will have his freedom greatly restricted over the next two years.

Daniel Michael Gowan, 44, pleaded guilty Monday to producing marijuana as OPP found almost five pounds of pot inside seven different garbage bags when they raided his residence almost two years ago on Dec. 28, 2004.

Police also found 74 other small marijuana plants, $370 in cash and all kinds of equipment and materials used to grow marijuana.

Justice Ian Gordon of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice agreed a conditional sentence of two years less one day would be appropriate considering Gowan has only a minor criminal record and no previous drug-related convictions.

During the first seven months of his sentence, Gowan will be under strict house arrest, where he can only leave his residence to attend to medical emergencies and to purchase necessities of life once a week for three hours.

For the final 17 months, Gowan will have to abide by a daily curfew between 7 pm and 5 am each day and Gowan agreed police will be able to check his residence, home and person without a warrant at any time.

Gordon said because this case involved such a large amount of pot, the conditional sentence of one day under two years "was at the very low end of the range", but in all the circumstances, it was appropriate.

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Trial date set for pot grower

By TOM McCOAG Amherst Bureau
The Chronicle Herald
January 6, 2006

AMHERST — A trial date has finally been set for a Maccan man who claims he was growing marijuana to help himself and 300 others with medical conditions, but it will still be months before Rick Simpson faces a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge and jury.

In Supreme Court on Thursday, Mr. Simpson’s two-week trial was slated to begin Sept. 10, 25 months after police raided his property and allegedly seized more than 1,200 marijuana plants.

Mr. Simpson, 57, did not speak during the hearing, but lawyer Jim O’Neil indicated his former client would defend himself at trial. Mr. O’Neil did not say why he would no longer be involved in the case.

Mr. Simpson faces one count each of possessing less than 30 grams of marijuana, possessing less than three kilograms of the drug for trafficking and unlawfully producing marijuana.

The Crown is proceeding summarily on the simple possession charge and by indictment on the others.

As a result, the penalty is a maximum seven years on the production charge, five years less a day on the possession for trafficking charge and a $1,000 fine, six months in jail or both on the possession charge.

Since his arrest Mr. Simpson has been asking the RCMP to return the material and equipment he used to make what he calls hemp oil. He claims the yellowish, grease-like oil is safe and cures everything from cancer to arthritis and psoriasis.

After his arrest Mr. Simpson ran in the January 2006 federal election, promoting his belief that his homemade remedy is a lifesaver that is being ignored by the government and pharmaceutical companies.

He has garnered strong support from some in the community, including the Maccan branch of the Royal Canadian Legion. Last fall, the legion’s provincial command temporarily cancelled the branch’s charter, removed the executive and shut down the legion after its executive ignored orders to stop supporting Mr. Simpson.

The legion has since reopened under a new executive, but some of the former executive members continue to support Mr. Simpson.

Mr. Simpson also launched a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It was heard just before Christmas, but the court banned reporting both the evidence and its decision until the jury hearing Mr. Simpson’s case begins deliberating.

( tmccoag@herald.ca)

[palmspringsbum]

When cops inhale

Did narcs who busted pot church break the law by sparking up?

By MATT MERNAGH
NOW Magazine
JANUARY 11 - 17, 2007 | VOL. 26 NO. 19


Did the Toronto Police narcs who swooped down on the Church of the Universe congregation in the Beaches, arresting 22 and laying 205 pot charges, actually inhale?

That's a loaded question for those worried about lack of accountability when it comes to officers breaking the law during investigations.

And if some of the arrestees are right, coppers did toke on-scene in the course of their reconnoitering.

Not that cops – or anyone else – should take a hit for indulging in the pleasures of the bong. But did those narcs actually violate the terms of the Criminal Code governing their behaviour while they built their case against the reefer-worshipping Christians?

Undercover officers are granted extensive powers under the law enforcement justification provisions of the Criminal Code as well as the Controlled Drugs And Substances Act. These laws were passed after the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that cops may commit crimes, with exceptions, during undercover investigations.

But is there adequate oversight of these activities? Many say no. Under Ontario law, police must report every instance of an officer committing a crime in the line of duty to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, which is obliged to make the info public every year.

Oddly, that information has not been released for 2004 and 05.

"I don't know when they'll be ready for publication. All statute requirements are high-priority," an exasperated ministry spokesperson, Tony Brown, says of the two missing years.

But when these reports finally see the light of day, they won't reveal much, including which police force used the provisions and exactly how. "The reports are laughable," says the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's Alexi Wood, who argued before Parliament's Human Rights and Justice Committee that the law is overly broad, lacks oversight and, most importantly, public accountability.

The documents, she says, mostly reveal the number of times the "public officer designation," the code phrase allowing extra-legal action, was granted. A vague sentence about the crime committed, such as "conspiracy to commit an indictable offence" or "possession of an illegal firearm" serves as explanation.

Says Wood, "The reports are not what is required in a democratic society. We have no information whatsoever. What police force used the designation? We just don't know how this law is being used."

And unless someone is charged, she says, we may never know about the role of public officers.

That's what alarms Ontario NDP justice and attorney general critic Peter Kormos. Referring to the missing documents, he says the Criminal Code "seems to be undermined without the reporting. It says the police are not above the law.

The balance to this is the reporting. Without it, the law is corrupted.''

Kormos wrote to Corrections Minister Monte Kwinter on December 15 requesting all the reports be released but has received no response.

"An undercover officer could conceivably do some very serious things with these laws,'' he says. Specifically, they could deal in forged passports, fake art and falsely tax-stamped tobacco, possess illegal firearms and ingest drugs, including addictive ones. The law only stops short at allowing officers to violate someone's sexual integrity or cause bodily harm.

In the case of the 1905 Queen East bust, Rev. William Palmer of the church believes the narcs were the converted "brother and sister'' who hung around the cannabis-friendly enclave and partook in the sacrament. "They had to [smoke]," says Palmer, a legal medical pot user who was charged with trafficking, conspiracy to traffic and production for the purpose of trafficking. It was, he says, the only way they could maintain their cover.

At the Toronto Police Service, spokesperson Mark Pugash doesn't deny officers may have used these laws to infiltrate the church. "Undoubtedly, this is an issue that will come out in court," he says.

Pugash won't say if the two officers investigating the church were given permission to inhale cannabis by Chief William Blair prior to deployment or afterwards. "Our undercover operations focus on officer safety and the law. There are very clear policies, but I'm not going to discuss specifics."

The case involved 22 arrestees, including four Health Canada federal med pot exemptees, 151 marijuana plants and pounds of cannabis, hashish and olive oil. Police allege the Health Canada exemption holders were well over their legal limits for possessing and growing.

The police press release states, "They hid behind the issuance of a medicinal marijuana possession permit as a method of selling large quantities of marijuana for monetary gain."

The arrestees say they welcomed the two whom they now believe to be narcs, though the pair became heretics when they complained about the absence of Christian symbols of reverence in church proceedings. Interestingly, during the bust the cops grabbed all the grow books and left the Torah and Bible behind.

[palmspringsbum]

Epileptic seizure in public eye

<span class=postbold>Troubled by videos poking fun, couple posts 'real thing' on YouTube</span>

By JON WILLING, OTTAWA SUN
January 13, 2007

The first time Christine Lowe saw herself convulsing during an epileptic seizure, she pawed at the television screen, fixated on the image of herself losing complete control of her body.

Now she wants to share the video with a massive Internet audience.

<span class=postbold>Life, death situation </span>

Lowe's husband, Russell Barth, posted the video on YouTube yesterday morning, hoping to give people a real taste of what epilepsy patients go through.

The Ottawa couple, who are also vocal marijuana activists, were disturbed by other videos on YouTube poking fun at seizures.

"People need to understand it's a life-and-death situation," said Lowe, 37. "This is the real thing. This is what it looks like."

The video was shot Jan. 31, 2003, after Lowe asked Barth to tape her seizure.

For the first time in her life, Lowe could see what others had described to her so many times.

Barth's friend taped the seizure as Barth assisted Lowe.

The video shows Lowe with her head pressed up against a couch, shaking and grinding her teeth as Barth comforts her.

Throughout the short video, Barth uses captions to narrate what's happening. At one point he describes his efforts to control Lowe, the "meat puppet."

That's one issue Epilepsy Ontario executive director Dianne Findlay had with the video after watching it yesterday.

"While the seizure itself seems to be an accurate depiction of a tonic-clonic seizure, some of the written references that were flashed on the screen or the caregiver's responses are not," Findlay said, calling the meat puppet remark a "demeaning reference."

Findlay questioned the motivation for the video.

Barth, 37, said the couple is trying to clear the misconceptions of epilepsy and seizures. He plans to post similar videos on YouTube.

<span class=postbold>ADVOCATES POT USE</span>

For Lowe and Barth, the video serves a dual purpose in that it advocates marijuana use as a coping mechanism for illness. Lowe said her seizures have decreased each year since she stopped taking prescribed medication and switched to medicinal marijuana in 2002.

Lowe and Barth have federal medicinal marijuana licences.

"The main thing we want to do is educate the public about epilepsy and medical marijuana," Barth said.

Findlay said Epilepsy Ontario doesn't have an official stance on medicinal marijuana, but noted pot use has benefited some people and triggered seizures in others.

Lowe's video isn't the only first-person account of epileptic experiences on YouTube, but it's one of the few that actually documents a real seizure.

Lowe said she's not timid about YouTube viewers getting front-row seats to a vulnerable moment in her life.

"I want them to be open-minded about it," she said. "This needs to be done."

[palmspringsbum]

Beyer says he helped start the B.C. Marijuana Party after running for the NDP provincially nearly a decade ago.

“We had a rift with the NDP and so me and some friends started the Marijuana Party,” he says. “Now we’re all going back to the NDP because they stole the issue.”

Jurors have options in a compassion club trial

By NEIL HORNER News Reporter
The News
Jan 16 2007

If Central Island Compassion Club founder Mark Russell ends up going to court to face charges of trafficking in marijuana, Chuck Beyer says he should opt for a jury trial.

That’s because, says Beyer, one of the founders of the B.C. Marijuana Party, a jury can opt not to convict, regardless of what happens in court.

The Port Alberni realtor describes himself as a jury activist and longtime supporter of the medical marijuana movement. He learned about a concept he calls jury nullification, and he’s made it his mission to spread the word about the concept, particularly in cases of compassion club busts.

“The concept of jury nullification goes back hundreds of years in our law,” he says. “Jurors are able to judge the law, as opposed to blindly doing what the judge says.”

Wikipedia says jury nullification occurs where a jury, apparently ignoring the letter of the law and the instructions by the court, and taking into account all of the evidence presented, renders a verdict in contradiction to the law.

This concept, Beyer says, was strengthened in a court case in 2006, when the organizer of a compassion club in Alberta was charged with trafficking in marijuana.

“Two of the jurors asked the judge if they had to convict, and the judge said they did,” he says. “An appeal to the Supreme Court ended up with a landmark decision, ruling judges are not allowed to tell jurors how to rule. That strengthened the concept of jury nullification ... and not just about any law, but specifically about issues with compassion clubs.”

Beyer estimates some 60 per cent of B.C. residents are in favour of marijuana legalization, and that number jumps to 90 per cent in the case of medical marijuana. Because of this, he says, the raid on Mark Russell’s compassion club office in his Dashwood home was an attack on community standards.

“Our drug laws are more than ever written in the United States,” he says.

Beyer says he helped start the B.C. Marijuana Party after running for the NDP provincially nearly a decade ago.

“We had a rift with the NDP and so me and some friends started the Marijuana Party,” he says. “Now we’re all going back to the NDP because they stole the issue.”

Beyer has posted his information about jury nullification on his website, juror.ca.

[palmspringsbum]

No jail for medical marijuana grower

<span class=postbigbold>Man given house arrest, curfew </span>

By KEVIN MARTIN, CALGARY SUN
January 18, 2007

Growing pot for medical marijuana crusader Grant Krieger won’t mean jail for a former Calgary man, a judge ruled today.

Justice Beth Hughes agreed with defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli a period behind bars wasn’t necessary for Mark James Maki’s involvement with the Compassion Club.

“Mr. Maki’s motivation for these offences, while certainly against the law and misguided, were to assist the Compassion Club and it’s members,” Hughes said.

The Queen’s Bench judge said Maki’s motivation for growing two large marijuana crops wasn’t the usual greed driving most illicit cultivators.

“Financial gain and quick profit is one of the primary factors ... for deterrence and denunciation in these types of cases.”

Crown prosecutor Scott Couper had sought a jail term of just under two years because of the size of Maki’s operation and other aggravating factors.

The 577 plants seized in raids in October, 2001, and February, 2002, had a value of about $600,000 to $800,000, and a loaded sawed off shotgun was found in Maki’s home.

Couper also said at the time Maki was supplying drugs to Krieger’s foundation, there were legitimate means to get government approval to purchase and grow marijuana.

But the regulations in place at the time of Maki’s arrest forced those who needed medical marijuana to turn to illegal means to obtain it, Iovinelli said.

He noted while possessing it and growing it was permitted, the government didn’t provide a way to purchase either the drug, or seeds.

“Someone ... has to break the law — they have to get the seed and they had to purchased it from someone,” Iovinelli said of the law at the time.

Maki, 43, of Coquitlam, B.C., pleaded guilty to two charges of cultivating marijuana and one of careless storage of a firearm.

Hughes placed him in on house arrest for a year, followed by a curfew for another 12 months.

[palmspringsbum]

Justice takes a detour

Randy Burton
The StarPhoenix
The Times-Colonist

Saturday, January 20, 2007


No matter which side you come down on in the murder trial of Kim Walker, it's impossible to escape the air of tragedy hanging over the whole affair.

Anyone who has raised daughters can sympathize with the man's frustration. To stand idly by while your little girl is destroyed by a drug addict seems like no option at all.

At the same time, of course, no one stands above the law. In the final analysis, it doesn't matter what kind of man James Hayward was. Whether he was the devil incarnate or just a nice young lad gone astray, he had a right to his life.

The jury agreed with this and on Friday afternoon found Walker guilty of second-degree murder for killing Hayward. That defence lawyer Morris Bodnar will appeal this verdict is almost a foregone conclusion, given the confusion over what the jury's options were.

What happened was this. In laying out the facts of the case, Bodnar and prosecutor Daryl Bode agreed that on March 17, 2003, Walker took a 9-mm Luger pistol to Hayward's house and shot the young man to death.

The problem bedevilling the jury for three days was not in trying to determine what Walker did. The problem lay in deciding what to call it.

That proposition prompted Queen's Bench Justice Jennifer Pritchard to tell the jury that it must find Walker guilty of something. The only question was what offence it should choose, whether it be manslaughter, second-degree murder or first-degree murder.

Two days into jury deliberations, Bodnar protested Pritchard's charge to the jury and asked for the proceedings to be declared a mistrial, saying Pritchard had overlooked one other option -- not guilty.

This was a stunning turn of events, given that he had earlier suggested his client would be perfectly happy with a verdict of manslaughter, which carries a minimum sentence of four years.

However, that was before Bodnar reviewed what the Supreme Court of Canada said about the case of Grant Krieger, the medical marijuana crusader who went to the country's highest court to fight charges of possession of pot for purposes of trafficking.

The judge in his original trial in 2003 did something very similar to what Pritchard has done in the Walker case -- he told the jury that it had to find him guilty.

This is something a judge simply cannot do and the Supreme Court said as much in the judgment it brought down on Krieger last October. It's worth reviewing here because it very likely points the way to where the Walker case is headed.

The core of the decision in the Krieger case was that in a jury trial, it's up to the jury to decide whether the defendant is guilty, not the judge. When the judge in the Krieger case directed the jury to arrive at a guilty verdict, he was usurping the jury's function, thereby depriving Krieger of his constitutional right to a jury trial.

This is exactly what has happened in the Walker case. In spite of the obvious parallels though, Pritchard neither declared a mistrial, nor did she give Walker's jury new directions. While that was her inclination, neither the defence nor the prosecution wanted her to do that, although for different reasons.

In any event, to give the jury an entirely new set of instructions after two days of deliberations would have compromised the entire process.

The jury knew nothing of this whole debate and finally settled on its verdict, but the judge's charge to the jury is almost certain to lead to an appeal.

"The fact of the matter is, she's committed a serious error of law," says Sanjeev Anand, a University of Alberta law professor.

"In the Krieger case, essentially everyone agreed he was trafficking drugs. There was no dispute as to the facts in that case, either. But the reality is, the judge can't take the matter out of the hands of the jury," Anand said.

After looking at the Krieger case, how could Bodnar not appeal? A new trial is inevitable, which means both families must relive the whole affair.

What seems incredible here is that neither the judge, the prosecutor nor the defence lawyer knew about a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that so fundamentally affects the Walker case.

It's not as if there aren't a number of measures designed to keep legal practitioners up to date. Judges are alerted about important cases, including those before the Supreme Court, and have access to databases that provide weekly updates of new decisions.

There is also a judge's school for new judges, refresher courses for experienced ones and even case summaries provided to Queen's Bench judges from their colleagues.

Crown counsel is likewise given a monthly update on Supreme Court judgments, but the prosecutor in this case apparently didn't know about the Krieger decision either.

Bodnar himself only discovered it after reporters began asking questions about the novelty of a judge directing a jury in such a way, and turned up the Krieger case.

It was mentioned to him by a reporter, and when he heard that, he looked it up, resulting in his last-ditch challenge to Pritchard's charge and very likely a new trial.

It's not for nothing they say justice is blind.

<center><small>© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2007</small></center>

[palmspringsbum]

Krieger Wishes Walker Well

News Talk 650
posted January 22nd, 2007

Grant Krieger hopes Kim Walker gets justice -- the way he did, after a judge instructed a jury that members couldn't acquit.

Krieger is the former Reginan handed a life-time exemption to use and cultivate cannibas. The case involving the medical marijuana crusader is expected to form the basis of an appeal by Walker, who was found guilty of second-degree murder, last week.

Like Krieger's case, the one involving Walker had a judge instructing a jury that acquittal wasn't an option -- Justice Jennifer Pritchard ordered jurors to find him guilty of either, murder or manslaughter. This, even though Walker argued that he shot and killed his daughter's drug-dealing boyfriend, to save her life.

Walker was convicted of second-degree murder, Friday, and setenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for 10 years.

Brent Pushkarenko reporting

[palmspringsbum]

Pot bust concerns local user


By Rebecca Aldous
The LadySmith Chronicle
Jan 23 2007


A Ladysmith man is worried recent charges against a medical marijuana supplier will force chronically ill people to the streets for their herb.

James Breau, a member of the Central Island Compassion Club, holds a licence from Health Canada to use marijuana, unlike many of the other members of the compassion club. Breau is able to buy medical marijuana from the government. He said the charges laid against the club’s founder Mark Russell, forces those without to buy marijuana from unreliable street sources.

“You never know what you are getting when you buy off the streets,” Breau said.

He noted all members of the Parksville compassion club are faced with chronic and debilitating disease, from cancer to arthritis.

Breau is diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. He said by pressuring the club, police have now cut off an important source of pain medication for all members.

“Marijuana is not at all a cure,” Breau said. “It just eases some of the misery.”

Medical Marijuana Access Regulations, which came into force on July 30, 2001, define circumstances and the manner in which access to marijuana for medical purposes is permitted.

“Health Canada has an obligation to provide a consistent, high quality, legally available source of marijuana to people authorized under the Marijuana Medical Access regulations,” said Health Canada spokeswoman Renee-France Bergeron. “Health Canada is committed to providing compassionate access to marijuana for medical purposes to people who are suffering from serious illness, for whom therapies have not worked and who have support of their physician.”

She said the Canadian government believes clinical research regarding marijuana for therapeutic purposes and the development of use-based products is best undertaken and funded by the pharmaceutical industry.

Duncan-based Phytocan was the first company in Canada to develop a cannabis-based product. Phytocan president Eric Nash and operations manager Wendy Little are legally allowed to sell marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Russell, however, said he does not have necessary legal paperwork for his five-year-old compassion club. Yet, he said the club is legitimate and not a front for drug users. All members of his club provide proof of their medical condition.

He feels the charges of trafficking against him have scared medicinal users into hiding.

“This has installed fear into these people,” Russell said. “They already have enough stress and agony in their lives.”

Russell’s client list ranges from those suffering from Multiple Sclerosis to Lupus. Russell noted his compassion club is not a grand money maker, as he doesn’t sell huge quantities of marijuana.

“This is not about hippies and dope,” Russell said. “This is about people and medicine.”

Comox RCMP Const. Chad Gargus disagrees. He said Russell’s 85 member-customer list is a lot more than the average dealer would have.

“This so-called compassion club is selling at above premium prices for marijuana going on the street,” said Gargus.

He said there is no gray area surrounding the use of medicinal marijuana, one either has a licence or they don’t, the same as with other prescription drugs. Gargus noted when the case goes to trial more reasons will be revealed as to why police went after the club.

“Sometimes [members] may provide a doctors’ note saying they have something,” said Gargus. “Sometimes they just filled out a piece of paper saying they do indeed have some sort of pain that they feel requires medical marijuana.”

Russell faces six counts of trafficking a controlled substance. Approximately 390 grams of marijuana was seized by police in the raid. Russell’s trial is scheduled for March.

“This is not a visible club and that is why it was targeted,” Breau said.

Ladysmith’s James Breau has a Health Canada licence to possess medical marijuana. He said the recent search warrant on Parksville’s Mark Russell’s marijuana compassion club will force people with chronic illness to buy their medical marijuana off the streets.