MARIJUANA ADVOCATES GET DAY IN HIGH COURT

Supreme Court To Rule On Appeal By Three Over Possession Of Small
Amount Of Pot

TORONTO -- The recently restored prohibition against marijuana
possession could be thrown out again in a matter of weeks, depending
on the outcome of a widely anticipated case heard by the Supreme Court
of Canada last spring.

The court must rule by Jan. 31 on an appeal by two British Columbia
men and an Ontario resident, who argued potential criminal penalties
for possession of small amounts of marijuana are unconstitutional. The
three said the ban violates charter rights to life, liberty and
security of the person by criminalizing activity that does not cause
harm. "There is no free-standing right to get stoned," responded the
federal government in documents filed before it heard oral arguments
in the case in May.

The Supreme Court decision follow a series of rulings this year that
resulted in a nearly five-month period during which marijuana
possession was legal in Ontario and forced the government to amend its
medical marijuana policy. However, advocates of less restrictive
marijuana laws in Canada say that an easing of the rules is unlikely
now Paul Martin is prime minister. They also criticize the justice
department for its increasingly hard-line attitude in marijuana
prosecutions and Health Canada for failing to comply with court
rulings in medical marijuana cases.

"It is overly optimistic to think that the Martin government is going
to re-introduce Bill C-38," said Paul Burstein, a Toronto lawyer who
represented Christopher Clay, one of the appellants in the Supreme
Court case.

"It goes a long way to score points with the United States
government," if the bill is not re-introduced, said Burstein.

Bill C-38 would have provided for fines instead of criminal charges
for people possessing small amounts of marijuana. The bill died after
Parliament recessed last month.

The justice department is also in the process of staying nearly 4,000
marijuana possession charges laid between August 2001 and October
2003, to comply with a recent Ontario Court of Appeal ruling. But
defence lawyers in Ontario and B.C. say Ottawa is increasingly seeking
jail sentences for first offenders who are low-level participants in
marijuana growing operations.

The Ontario appeal court ruled in October there had been no valid ban
against marijuana possession in the province for the past two years,
because the federal government failed to comply with an earlier ruling
to introduce legislation with an exemption for authorized marijuana
users.