B.C. POT GROWERS FIRST TO BE CERTIFIED ORGANIC

DUNCAN -- Eric Nash and his wife, Wendy Little, grow the healthiest legal
pot in Canada.

Nash and Little are the first federally licensed medical marijuana growers
in Canada to have their crop officially certified 100-per-cent organic.

It's a healthy bonus for the thousands of Canadians who could use it to
ease suffering from a wide range of conditions, including multiple
sclerosis, cancer, arthritis and AIDS, Nash says in an interview at his
home in this Vancouver Island community about 70 kilometres north of Victoria.

The Certified Organic Associations of British Columbia, an organization
likely more accustomed to monitoring the production of carrots or spinach,
granted Nash and Little certified organic status this month.

In B.C., where the RCMP says black market marijuana worth billions is the
province's largest cash crop, Nash displays his organic certification like
a badge of honour.

Nash, 44, and Little, 41, do not fit the stereotype of typical marijuana
growers or pot smokers.

Both graduated from university with honours, Little in education and Nash
in visual arts. They have an eight-year-old daughter and live in an
attractive, art-filled home in an older Duncan neighbourhood.

Nash, a Web site designer and former professional horticulturist, says
organic certification is a step forward in the slow march toward getting
Ottawa to acknowledge that marijuana has wide-ranging medicinal qualities.

"It's raising the credibility of medicinal marijuana as a legitimate
medicine, as a safe medicine, as an alternative medicine to all the
pharmaceuticals and other things that people tried that don't work," Nash says.

People who are sick or in pain deserve access to medicine -- what Nash
calls his marijuana -- grown without the use of toxic pesticides and
fertilizers, he says.

"I want to ensure these people are getting certified organic marijuana for
their health problem," Nash says. "I want people to know it's been
inspected every step of the way, from the soils to the fertilizers."

He gladly admits telling an agricultural feed store employee recently that
he was growing organic marijuana for medicinal purposes, legally.

"Her jaw just about dropped on the floor," Nash says.

Nash and Little are two of the 36 Canadians licensed by Health Canada to
produce medical marijuana for ill people.

The federal Marijuana Medical Access Regulations, enacted in July 2001,
allow people to apply to legally grow their own marijuana or designate a
grower for their supply.