POT FOR PAIN CLUB LAUNCHED

Mark Russell knows the club he's starting Monday is against the law. He's
hoping he'll be a low priority for the Oceanside RCMP detachment, because
he believes there's a public health need for the club. But he knows an
arrest is a possibility.

For the last six years, Russell has run The Hemp Store in Coombs in
relative obscurity, attracting little attention with the sale of hemp
products and marijuana paraphernalia. That could change when he opens a new
branch of the Vancouver Island Cannabis Buyers Club.

Taking its lead from changes to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
scheduled to take effect July 30, the club will allow people with
demonstrable chronic pain or illness to purchase marijuana.

The changes to the act deal with the medical use of marijuana, providing
some regulatory protection for individuals using cannabis for a prescribed
number of medical conditions.

"We're going to follow Health Canada's mandate as best we can, but they're
way too restrictive," said Russell.

Health Canada has set out three categories of eligibility: Category 1 is
for terminal patients (expected to die within 12 months), who will have the
easiest access to the required licensing to use the drug. Category 2 covers
patients with cancer, AIDS, HIV, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury,
epilepsy or severe arthritis (among others) for the treatment of nausea,
weight loss, muscle spasms and pain.

Category 3 is more generalized, allowing for those patients not identified
in the other two categories to make application.

Patients will have to apply to Health Canada, providing doctor-supplied
documentation of the illness and confirmation that other options have been
considered. In category 3, a second opinion by another specialist is also
required.

"All we're going to require is proof of illness," said Russell. "You have
to be genuinely in chronic pain or chronic illness. We will be very strict
on that."

To prove illness, Russell will be looking for a doctor's note or other
corroborating evidence.

The club, said Russell, will provide a clean source of the drug for people
using the service, with the plants being inspected by Russell to make sure
they are free of mould and are of a consistent potency.

"We have to be very careful because people with AIDS, for example, can't
have moldy weed. Quality control will be in place."

Careful and strict or not, Russell's club still falls outside the law.

Health Canada's new regulations do not recognize buyers clubs, cooperatives
or compassion clubs, and is not prepared to licence such organizations to
produce or sell marijuana. But other than allowing the licenced patient or
a designated assistant to grow the plant for use, there is no other legal
source for patients. There's not even a current legal source for seeds.
Russell believes that's where clubs come in. And despite the fact he has
spent the last six years distancing himself from the sale of the drug -
although he has been an outspoken advocate of its use as a medicinal and
the need for broad spectrum decriminalization - he says he's willing to
take the risk.

"All of this time I've been afraid of doing it. Too much to lose. I'd lose
my property, my livelihood," said Russell, continuing to say with the new
legislation, now seems like the right time.

The provincial coordinator for the drug enforcement service, Staff Sgt.
Chuck Doucette, says that as far as the RCMP is concerned, compassion clubs
and buying clubs are still illegal unless they have successfully applied to
the Ministry of Health and received a licence.

"Nothing has been issued to us that we should ignore compassion clubs,"
said Doucette. "In our opinion, they should be going through that
[application] process."