POT CRUSADER OPTIMISTIC THAT TIMES ARE A CHANGIN'

A Victoria resident is excited by the recent changes to federal
medical marijuana regulations, but cautions that governments still
have a way to go to make marijuana a practical medicine.

"This summer and fall are really exciting. We are witnessing Canadian
history unfolding here," says Ted Smith of the Vancouver Island
Cannabis Buyers Club.

Smith has been providing sick people on the Island with marijuana for
five years. He has seen the struggles faced by people who are legally
allowed to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. They are still
challenged by police, get kicked out of apartments and often have had
no legal way to acquire the drug, which they call their medicine.

On July 4, federal Health Minister Allan Rock announced that new
regulations for possessing and producing marijuana have been approved
and will come into place on July 30.

The new regulations are complex. Smith says he hasn't made it through
the numerous clauses, but he likes the direction the federal
government is going in. However, he cautions there are still flaws,
especially the problem of supply.

One of the more dramatic changes is that the government is going into
the cannabis growing business. Prairie Plant Systems Inc. (PPS) of
Saskatchewan will now grow a legal supply of medical marijuana.

According to the federal Ministry of Health, PPS will produce a wide
variety of quality marijuana, but Smith laughs at this idea.

"The marijuana the government is growing is so low grade," he says,
"We wouldn't even sell it...It doesn't have enough THC in it to be of
medicinal value."

Smith thinks that the government isn't interested in producing good
quality marijuana to smoke because they would rather produce more
pills containing THC sold by pharmaceutical companies.

Not that Smith thinks pills are such a bad idea.

"I am not against it," he says. "We need to explore all the different
pills and options the plant has."

However, he thinks that there is an unfounded paranoia in the
government about smoking pot that is driving the regulations.

The new regulations also boast that they've fixed the problems about
the amounts of marijuana people are allowed to grow for their personal
use. The new formulas in place are supposed to adjust for outdoor
yields, which produce less THC per plant than indoor growing.

However, Smith gives the impression that the people producing the
formulas are not as familiar with yield, growing conditions and the
amount a person can practically store for a year as he is.

"It's really quite silly," he says of the indoor-production rule,
where a person is allowed to store a 30-day supply. He points out that
marijuana grows in a three-month cycle indoors. "Under their rules you
can only grow a third of what you need." he says.

There is also the continuing problem of the police's treatment of
people who are authorized to use marijuana. There have been cases in
the past where police were unaware of the medicinal-use exemptions,
and have treated the sick people like criminals.

Smith is not sure that the new regulations will change these
attitudes. "The test will be when the police have to deal with it," he
says.

"Certainly the exemption process so far has not stopped police
hassling people, taking their kids, disrupting their medicine from
getting to them and stuff, so it's something that many of us are
skeptical of it being much better under this system."

Still, Smith commends Rock on his new regulations, saying Rock is
stuck between public support and the courts on one hand and pressure
from the American war on drugs on the other.