MEDICINAL POT CRUSADER TO APPEAR IN CITY COURT

New Resident Grant Krieger Charged By Local Police

Airdrie resident Grant Krieger has been labelled a crusader in the fight
for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. He has spent
numerous hours in court fighting for this right and the right of others
like him who battle life-altering diseases.

It is the age-old argument of how much control the government should have
over the public versus how much control an individual should have over his
or her own destiny.

In Krieger's case he is not fighting for the right to die, he is fighting
for the right to live the best life possible under a life-altering medical
condition, multiple sclerosis (MS).

On Dec. 11, 2000, Krieger won a controversial court case in which Alberta
justice Darlene Acton granted him the right to possess, cultivate and
ingest marijuana as part of his medical regimen. Last month a jury
acquitted him on the charge of possession for the purpose of trafficking.
Krieger's defence focused on the argument that his efforts in supplying
other sick people with the drug improves the quality of life of the
individuals who seek his help. Krieger's latest run-in with the law
occurred July 19 after he was pulled over in Airdrie, his new hometown.
With him he had three-and-a-half ounces of marijuana, which was confiscated
by Airdrie RCMP, despite the fact Krieger presented the investigating
officers with his court papers which verify his legal right to possess an
undisclosed amount of marijuana. Krieger, who was subsequently charged with
possession for the purpose of trafficking, will appear in an Airdrie
provincial court Sept. 20 to enter a plea on the charge.

And he's ready to do battle.

"What I want to know is who runs this country - the police or the judges?"
Krieger said, adding that he has already answered to the same charges
before and won.

Krieger, 46, and a father of three, was first diagnosed with MS in 1978 and
again in 1993. For years he tried all of the conventional medicines
prescribed by his doctors, but found no relief for his intense pain and
suffering.

In December 1994, in a desperate attempt to end his suffering, Krieger
tried to end his life by overdosing on medication. When he recovered, a
friend suggested cannabis as a possible remedy to help ease his pain.
Almost instantly after trying it, Krieger began feeling better and within
weeks he was able to give up his wheelchair and began walking again.

His quest for a pot prescription took him all the way to Holland where he
found Dr. van Kanten, the first doctor who gave him a legal prescription
for marijuana to help his ailing health.

While he was away, RCMP in Regina, where Krieger was living at the time,
raided his home and seized a variety of paraphernalia and marijuana.
Krieger pled guilty to the charge in order to get his wife's charges
dropped but swore it would be the last time he would plead guilty for his
pot use. Krieger maintains a medical regimen which includes a strict diet,
regular body maintenance and the ingestion of marijuana - a combined
regimen which he said has increased his quality of life.

"It's not only my use of cannabis that provides this quality of life for me
- - it's only one-third of the answer - there are other things I have to do
to keep this up," Krieger said, adding that he ingests marijuana not only
through smoking, but also through a butter form, which is his preferred method.

In his years of research, Krieger has put together a recipe book using
cannabis butter. Cooking For Life is available through LARK publishing and
is intended for people with a debilitating illness. Krieger is also in the
final stages of setting up a research foundation in his name to begin
research and development of different ways of Cannabis ingestion. Through
the foundation and the assistance of a scientific research team, Krieger is
hoping that the extraction of DNA from more than 1,500 varieties of
marijuana plants will best determine which plants are suitable for
particular diseases or illnesses. He also hopes to form a communication
liaison with other research foundations with similar interests. Krieger
does believe that his numerous court cases and brushes with the system are
having some effect on laws, but said there is still a far way to go before
anything momentous happens. He also believes that it is no coincidence that
following the Dec. 11 court ruling, the federal government released new
standards on medicinal marijuana use which closely reflect those
recommendations in his court document.

In the same ruling, Justice Acton stated that the current section 56
exemption, which exempts Canadians from being charged with growing and
possession of marijuana for medicinal use or research, triggers absurdity
because the problem with the exemption is there is no legal means to
receive the plant.

In March, four months after Krieger's ruling, the federal government
awarded a contract to Prairie Plant Systems of Saskatchewan to begin the
first government subsidized pot-growing operation.

Krieger - who openly admits to distributing his home-grown cannabis to
others in need on a not-for-profit basis - said that he is not about to
stop even if he has to continually see the inside of a courtroom. His
defence for this argument is that it is unfair for the government to entrap
people who are ill and that medicinal marijuana is still legally
unavailable to many who may have few options.

"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees every Canadian
living in this country the best quality of life possible - I'm after
quality of life here, I know what it has provided back for me and my family
sees what it has provided back for me," Krieger said.

"They lived with me - laws need to change to provide this medicine to
people who need it."

And that, in a nutshell, is the fuel for Krieger's continued fight.
"(People who are ill) don't care if what they are taking is illegal, they
only care that they feel better," he said.