NEW POT LAW CUTS ACCESS, ACTIVISTS SAY

Officials Should Make Getting Medical Marijuana Easier For Sufferers, Woman
Says

TORONTO -- Denise Beaudoin doesn't look like a pot-smoking activist. The
quiet 56-year-old from Hull is more comfortable sewing needlepoint than
protesting against drug policy.

But Ms. Beaudoin was bold enough to accept a marijuana joint passed among a
dozen patients with chronic diseases who demonstrated as she did on the
steps of a courthouse in downtown Toronto yesterday.

Ms. Beaudoin joined the protesters who say the new marijuana law makes it
more difficult than ever to get medical pot.

"It makes me angry," said Ms. Beaudoin, who has lived with constant pain
since a collision with a drunk driver in 1989 broke her legs, hip, pelvis
and back. She used marijuana instead of painkillers for three years, until
police raided her basement hydroponics lab last summer.

Since then, she has been trying to gain permission to use pot legally, but
the system is a bureaucratic morass, she said. In the meantime, she's been
forced to replace her marijuana regimen with 46 prescriptions for various
pills that make her intestines crack and bleed.

"The process is so difficult," said her husband, Ray Turmel, 49, hefting a
five-centimetre-thick sheaf of court documents and medical records
accumulated during their fight to use marijuana for medical reasons. "And
they're making the rules even harder."

Five of the protesters, including Ms. Beaudoin, are asking the courts to
compel Health Canada to grant them permission to smoke the drug legally.
Their cases were heard yesterday in federal court on University Avenue but
were deferred to an Ottawa court next week.

It was just another delay for sufferers such as Barry Burkholder, 36, of
Sudbury. He's been fighting for two years to smoke marijuana legally to
treat hepatitis C. "They make the process so hard that people are giving
up," Mr. Burkholder said.

These people scoff at suggestions the new laws will allow better access to
medical marijuana. The process is already too elaborate, they say,
requiring detailed submissions from their doctors. Now most applicants will
also need letters from medical specialists and more paperwork.

"What's being released to the media isn't what these applicants are
experiencing," Stuart Chamney, 41, said. His wife, Marylynne Chamney, 37,
who has epilepsy, is among the applicants taking the government to court.

But Health Canada spokeswoman Roslyn Tremblay said the expanded
requirements are needed to define medical necessity and ensure proper
safeguards. "The whole intention was to make sure the process was more
transparent."

It's only logical to include more medical specialists in the application
process, Ms. Tremblay said. "Would they not be interested in knowing that
their patient is using marijuana?" she asked.

Dianne Bruce, 37, is worried about the new laws for a different reason: She
grows marijuana in her back yard in Colborne, Ont. Her operation used to be
legal, she said, because her 40 customers had medical permission.

But now medical users are not allowed to obtain marijuana from growers with
criminal records, and Ms. Bruce has been convicted of drug offences.

"I'm not supposed to continue helping people," Ms. Bruce said. Despite the
difficulties, Ms. Beaudoin and the other patients say they'll keep fighting.

"I don't go anywhere any more," Ms. Beaudoin said, "except doctors,
hospitals, tests. . . ."

". . . and courthouses," her husband said.