RCMP BUST RETIREE FOR MEDICAL POT

Man's Plants Exceeded His Permit. Is This What We Pay Police To Do

The resignation in Jayne Ball's voice seeped over the phone line from
Barkerville when I asked how she was doing: "We've been better."

Her husband Bert, a 65-year-old former gold miner, was soon
explaining, still shaking his head at the criminal charges.

The Mounties raided them a few days earlier, cutting down some 300
marijuana plants Bert was growing to supply his 49-year-old wife and
another retiree under licences from Health Canada.

The Mounties, Bert says, were impeccably polite and left his garden
looking as if it had been clipped by a professional.

"You'd swear the plants were just manicured," he chuckled.

This was no raid-'em-and-scare 'em gang-buster Green Team in
balaclavas with guns drawn.

Still, the question is why? Wasn't there a more appropriate, less
costly approach than frightening grandparents?

Bert retired in 1993, and they live on their pensions on an old

1874 land grant along the historic Gold Rush Trail in the Cariboo.
Barkerville was once a gold-mining town.

"We're sitting on some of the richest gold property and trying to get
someone interested in mining it," Bert nevertheless boasted like any
old, die-hard, stereotypical prospector. "But now there are just so
many problems it has beaten me down some."

He said he was operating under two permits to grow medical marijuana.

Jayne has severe back problems and finds her symptoms relieved by marijuana.

Bert used to buy her pot from the compassionate society, but then his
youngest son came down with medical problems, too. He also found
relief from smoking pot and Bert began to supply him as well.

That got to be expensive, he explained, so he applied for and
obtained in 2004 a federally issued licence to be a designated grower
of medical marijuana.

Soon, Bert was also supplying a retired railway worker who used
marijuana to relieve symptoms of multiple sclerosis, also under a
licence from Health Canada. Legally, Bert said he was allowed to grow
a total of 60 plants.

"I was finding it was eating me out of house and home, though," he
explained. You can image 25-foot high plants in your house, five by
five feet at least to grow.

"I figured that instead of big plants, which take up 30 square feet
each, I decided to substitute a small flat of 10- or 11-by-20 inches
each holding eight plants (of a marijuana strain) that was [much
smaller] and I'll put them in one room. And that will be that."

Unfortunately, a disgruntled ex-boarder went to police and told them
Bert was growing more plants than he should be. Hence, the raid.

Some plants were mature -- 45 to 50 centimetres high and ready to be harvested.

Others were still growing under lights, standing about 30 to 35
centimetres tall.

"And we had roughly a pound of dried product, maybe a little bit
less," Bert said.

The medical permits allowed Jayne to legally possess just over a
kilogram of pot and the other patient's a little less, Bert added:
"We were definitely under in terms of possession of dried product,
but over for the amount of plants."

He's charged with possession of a controlled substance and production
of a controlled substance.

I asked him how he was feeling.

"It's kind of shocking," Bert said. "I've been expecting something
like this for a long time. But it's really shocking when it happens.
I'm 65 years old. It shakes you up."

"We're going to try and fight it," Jayne said.

Bert will appear July 18 in provincial court.

I can't help thinking this is not the kind of case that should be
clogging up the justice system and draining precious police resources.