POT GROWER CAN'T MEET NEED

Court Hears Federal Rules Force Medical Marijuana Users On To Black Market

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, court heard yesterday.

Eric Nash said he even wrote a letter 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 he 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.

Mounties 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 now putting forward a
Constitutional challenge to Canada's medical marijuana regulations,
arguing the rules force people on to 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., 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 the 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 as
plants which would put him over his 25-plant limit. Nash said he has
written and asked for clarification on the clone/plant issue for
years but has received no response. The trial continues.