MEDICINAL POT GROWER SEES HUGE DEMAND

Trial in Island Compassion Club Case Told Ottawa Keeps Lid on Pot Suppliers

VICTORIA - A Vancouver Island grower of organic marijuana is being
inundated with pleas for pot from disease sufferers, but Health Canada
says he can supply only one person, a provincial court trial has been
told.

Eric Nash said he wrote to Canadian Health Minister Tony Clement with
a list of 121 people, all approved by Health Canada to use marijuana
as medicine and asking him to grow it for them. One of them was a
former RCMP officer diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

But Nash said regulations forbid him from growing for more than one
person at a time. So his company, Island Harvest, can supply only two
people, one each for him and his partner, although it could easily
supply more.

He was testifying at the trials of Michael Swallow, 41, and Mat Beren,
32, both charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of
trafficking and production of marijuana.

RCMP arrested Swallow and Beren in May 2004 during a raid on a house
in Sooke used by the Vancouver Island Compassion Society to grow
marijuana for its 600 members.

Compassion clubs supply marijuana as medicine to people suffering from
certain diseases and conditions related to treatment for some diseases.

Lawyers for Swallow and Beren are putting forward a constitutional
challenge to Canada's medical marijuana regulations, arguing the rules
force people into the black market to obtain their marijuana, and that
interferes with their right to security of person.

Under Canada's medical marijuana access regulations, a person can
obtain government permission to use marijuana for a medical condition.
That person can then buy the marijuana from the government, which is
supplied by a company that grows it in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin
Flon, Man.; or they can grow it for themselves; or they can designate
a person to grow it for them.

But court has already heard many people are leery of government
marijuana because it isn't organic and its quality is suspect.

And Nash explained regulations limit designated growers to 25 plants
which makes it hard to supply even one person. "It's very difficult to
provide a consistent supply for a patient," he said.

He said quality control and organic methods demand he clone a certain
number of plants, but that clone cuttings might be considered to be
plants, which would put him over his 25-plant limit. Nash said he has
written and asked for clarification of the issue for years but
received no response.