GOVERNMENT LOSES CHALLENGE TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA RULES

The federal government lost another court challenge to its
controversial medical marijuana program, and now has 30 days to
decide whether to appeal the ruling that declared one of its key
policies unconstitutional.

Under the current set of regulations, licensed producers are only
allowed to grow the drug for one patient at a time. Federal Court
Judge Barry Strayer said that one-to-one ratio violates the Charter
of Rights and Freedoms.

The decision, the latest in a string of court cases, will essentially
mean more choice for approved medical marijuana users and should
provide them with easier access to the drug.

"What the federal court effectively did was assert that the
government of Canada does not have a monopoly over the production and
distribution of medical marijuana," said Alan Young, one of the
lawyers who launched the court battle on behalf of 30 patients.

Authorized users who cannot grow their own marijuana must rely on a
sole source provider -- either a licensed private producer, if they
can find one willing to produce only for them, or the government,
which buys the plants from a Saskatchewan-based company.

"In my view it is not tenable for the government, consistently with
the right established in other courts for qualified medical users to
have reasonable access to marijuana, to force them either to buy from
the government contractor, grow their own or be limited to the
unnecessarily restrictive system of designated producers," Judge
Strayer wrote in his decision, which was released late Thursday.

The one-to-one ratio was first struck down by an Ontario appeal court
in 2003, but the government reinstated the policy several months
later, prompting the current challenge.

"We're reviewing the decision," said Paul Duchesne, a spokesman for
Health Canada, which regulates the program. He would not comment
further and did not indicate how quickly the government would decide
about appealing the ruling.

Mr. Young and his co-counsel, Ron Marzel, described the court's
ruling as a "nail in the coffin" of the one-to-one ratio restriction.

"In theory, patients now have a choice whether to buy from the
government or whether to create the small collectives of patients
that go to an experienced and knowledgeable grower," said Mr. Young.

About 2,000 people are legally allowed to use marijuana for medical
purposes, but fewer than 20 per cent buy it from the government's
supplier. Some say the quality is poor and others say only one strain
of the plant is offered -- different strains having unique therapeutic effects.

Mr. Marzel does expect that the government will appeal the decision.
If it does, or if it introduces a policy that only slightly changes
the ratio, the lawyers say they will head back into court. Mr. Young
said they will fight for a measure called supervisory jurisdiction,
which would require Health Canada to submit progress reports to the
court on the program's operation.

Judge Strayer has already denied that request, but Mr. Young said he
will try again and has not ruled out lawsuits against Health Canada.

"I'm just trying to clean up the law and to ensure that sick people
have proper, lawful access to a medicine of their choice," said Mr.
Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.