MARIJUANA PARTY CANDIDATE GETS THREE MONTHS FOR TRAFFICKING

Conviction Brings Three Months In Jail

Fourth Drug Conviction For Marc Boyer, Who Has Terminal Illness

VANCOUVER - Former Marijuana Party candidate Marc Boyer has been
sentenced to three months in jail after pleading guilty in Vancouver
Provincial Court to possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.

Judge Conni Bagnall ordered Boyer -- who suffers from a terminal
illness -- to be jailed, saying this was his fourth conviction for a
drug offence and the third in the last three years involving marijuana.

Boyer ran as the Marijuana Party candidate in the Vancouver Quadra
riding in the last federal election.

He was arrested by Vancouver police officers July 13 in Grandview
Park on Commercial Drive.

The officers had gone to the park on another matter but could smell
marijuana and found a small group of people sitting in the park smoking.

Boyer was seen trying to conceal something and police found 16
marijuana cigarettes under his leg. He was arrested and searched and
just over one pound of marijuana was found on him packaged, as if for
sale, along with $965 in cash.

The court was told that Boyer's cellphone rang and one of the
officers answered the call which was from a person asking for drugs
to be delivered.

Police found pamphlets on Boyer advertising home delivery of
marijuana and giving the number of his cellphone.

Bagnall rejected Boyer's submission that because his birth was never
registered in the usual fashion and he does not have a birth
certificate he does not "hold a person" under the Criminal Code
meaning he has "a void contract with society itself."

"He says that he instead 'holds a person' under the Elections Act. He
argues that this means that although Canadian laws apply to him he
can seek protection from prosecution for his beliefs in the fact of
his membership in the Marijuana Party. "Mr. Boyer's beliefs were the
subject of many of his comments. He believes that according to the
Bible, God gave all 'wind-pollinated herbs' as a gift to mankind.
This category includes marijuana," Bagnall wrote in her reasons for judgment.

However, the judge, who said Boyer was unrepentant, dismissed all
this and said while he is entitled to hold any view he wishes about
the legality of marijuana, his opinion was irrelevant to the issue of
whether he could be prosecuted.

Bagnall found mitigating factors in sentencing were that Boyer was
terminally ill and used marijuana to ease the symptoms of his disease
and that he sells marijuana "within the loose structure of a compassion club."