Copyright: 2004 The Gazette, a division of Southam Inc.
Contact: letters@thegazette.canwest.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/274
Author: Marci Surkes, CanWest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

PATIENT LOSING PATIENCE OVER POT BY POST

Licensed Medical User Says Mail Service Is Refusing To Deliver His Marijuana

The pot's in the mail. Somewhere. And Michel Aube needs it.

Approved by Health Canada as a medicinal marijuana user, Aube has not
received a recent shipment from his federally licensed grower, and Canada
Post refuses to act as the courier.

The package, Aube's second dosage, was mailed by Brian Taylor in Grand
Forks, B.C., on April 22 but never arrived at his Brockville, Ont.,
mailbox. The first arrived so battered that its odour was easily detectable.

Aube, although frustrated by the condition of the first delivery, did not
file a complaint. But when the second package failed to arrive within 20
days, he contacted the Canada Post ombudsman.

"Nobody would tell me where my package was and I had to go back to 120 mL
of morphine a day," he said. "I had been down to 30."

Without pot, Aube must take morphine to ease his chronic severe back pain.

He wants desperately to wean himself off morphine, because the drug causes
a complete loss of appetite. It also puts him in a state of constant
lethargy, yet he is unable to sleep for longer than three hours a night.

"It's killing me," he said.

Taylor's packages were tightly wrapped with duct tape, in strict compliance
with Health Canada regulations. Both were nondescript, stamped only with
the three letters CRI, for the Cannabis Research Institute.

Taylor, the former mayor of Grand Forks, filed a lost-item complaint with
Canada Post. A PR representative warned Taylor not to ship medicinal pot
through them because, if detected, it would be confiscated.

John Caines, the postal service's media-relations manager, insisted,
"Purolator is the only registered carrier of the substance."

Health Canada spokesperson Catherine Saunders denied that, saying
regulations in effect as of December 2003 say licensed growers may ship
using any secure courier. But the crown corporation is sticking to its guns.

Taylor shipped a replacement dosage to Aube on Wednesday, using a private
courier that cost nearly three times what Canada Post does.