POT SMOKER PROTESTS SUSPENSION

A Port Moody man with multiple sclerosis is protesting a 24-hour road
suspension issued to him last weekend for smoking marijuana in a parked car.

Sepanta Salmassi, 23, was issued the suspension Saturday night and
his brother's BMW was towed from a parking lot in Coquitlam after an
RCMP officer found Salmassi in the car smoking a joint.

Salmassi, who was diagnosed with the degenerative disease three years
ago, has been granted a federal exemption from Health Canada to smoke
the drug for medicinal purposes.

Salmassi was sitting in the driver's seat of the car while two
friends waited outside to drive him home, he said. He was puffing
away when a Coquitlam RCMP officer showed up. "He asked me if I had
any needles. I said, 'Listen buddy, I'm not a crackhead,'" he said.

Salmassi said he tried to explain to the officer that he had no
intention of operating the vehicle.

"I wasn't going to drive home. I can't drive when I'm impaired,"
Salmassi said, adding he brought his friends along so they could
drive him home.