DOZENS DECRY COMPASSION CLUB RAID

About 50 medicinal marijuana supporters gathered outside the Douglas
Street office of a Crown prosecutor Thursday to protest a recent raid
and seizure of "medicine" they say that was their only safe supply of
pot.

"This has not only forced 400 seriously ill patients back onto an
unknown, potentially unsafe, black-market supply, it also has resulted
in the loss of the safest and most standardized source of organic
cannabis available in Canada," said Philippe Lucas, founder and
director of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society.

Carrying a white cane and speaking hoarsely, Ron Ranger cursed Health
Canada.

A diabetic, Ranger said he has been assaulted once by street people
while trying to buy marijuana on the black market.

"My vision in my left eye started to diminish. I'm totally blind in my
right eye. Without this safe source of marijuana My world is back to
black," he said.

"Health Canada I will never trust you again," Ranger said. "You are
jerks in the highest fashion."

The peaceful protesters carried placards reading: "We choose
cannameds" and "Free the medicine," and shouted slogans such as "Stop
the charge; compassion large."

On May 27 West Shore RCMP raided what they called "a sophisticated"
East Sooke grow op, which Lucas called the Vancouver Island
Therapeutic Cannabis Research Institute, seizing plants and equipment
and arresting two people on the property.

Lucas said the operation was clearly posted as growing medicinal
marijuana and some of the seeds used were even supplied by the
government. (Last fall, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down
regulations against sick people paying designated growers for
marijuana, designated growers supplying more than one sick person, and
growers banding together to cultivate pot.)

Lucas said he even managed to delay the destruction of some plants
while the police tried to clarify with Health Canada how many plants
were allowed to be grown there, but the plants were ultimately cut.

At Thursday's rally, Lucas presented Crown prosecutor Michael Mark
with documents attesting to three pending or in-place Health Canada
licences. These documents meant at least 41 plants and nearly 2,000
grams of cannabis were being legally grown in the lab, he said. Lucas
also requested return of all equipment and marijuana.

He asked for dismissal of all charges, based on legal precedents as
well as reference to a 2002 court case in which provincial court Judge
Robert Higinbotham threw out trafficking charges against him.

Lucas also handed over a petition from more than 100 VICS members,
suffering from conditions ranging from AIDS to chronic pain,
requesting the dropping of charges and the return of the equipment and
marijuana.

Mark said he is yet to receive a report from the RCMP on the case and
therefore could not comment.

"Unfortunately, I don't have a report to Crown counsel. I'm not in
possession of all of the facts. So what I hear today is a perspective
and I appreciated hearing it, but I don't have the full story. In fact
I have very little of it," Mark said.

He said he will review the documents Lucas gave him, "but I'll also
review them in the context of the rest of the case which I am yet to
see."