LEGAL-POT CRUSADERS BOND FINANCIALLY

Just in time for RRSP season: $25 Cannabonds.

No, they're not tax-deductible, but they are redeemable for a quarter-ounce
of high-grade pot once -- or is that if? -- marijuana is made legal.

The Victoria-based International Hempology 101 Society began selling the
certificates Friday, hoping to raise $25,000 for its fight against Canada's
cannabis laws.

That is, if anybody can figure out what the laws are anymore.

Ottawa's approval of medical marijuana, a couple of recent court decisions,
and the federal justice minister's musings about decriminalization have
wrapped police, users, judges and politicians in a smoky cloud of
uncertainty as everyone waits for someone else to clarify matters.

The Hempology society is run out of the same Johnson Street storefront as
the Cannabis Buyers' Clubs of Canada, which sells pot to people who can
document an incurable illness. This week, a guy who was caught growing 80
plants for the club got a conditional discharge in a Victoria court, with
the judge labelling the medical-marijuana area a "legal lacuna" -- a blank,
missing page.

As for the police, they had to backtrack after busting another Victoria
grow-op run by an ailing man who, it turned out, had Health Canada's blessing.

Not that dope is being doled out with total impunity. The Hempology store
was raided four times last year. Society founder Ted Smith faces six
trafficking charges, which he is challenging on constitutional grounds.

Another man, Colby Budda, goes to court Monday. The group views the latter
case as a trial of the Cannabis Clubs' activities.

Still, the activists feel comfortable enough to conduct themselves in the
open. They recently applied for a business licence under the name Island
Holistic Learning and Resource Centre; last year city council was persuaded
to declare Nov. 15 International Medical Marijuana Day.

And every week, like clockwork, members of the Hempology clubs at Camosun
College and UVic gather to light up on campus. This past Wednesday, two
dozen students stood in a circle in the brilliant sunshine outside
Camosun's Young Building, puffing peacefully as Smith updated them on
current events. ("Don't forget the Cannabis Convention on St. Patrick's
Day!") The authorities regard these events with more blind eyes than the
Old Testament.

As for the Johnson Street cannabis club, it claims 1,200 members, all of
whom must show photo ID and a doctor's diagnosis of their illness before
they can buy. They can purchase as little as $2 worth, or as much as an
ounce, which sells for $155 to $215, depending on the potency. That's
market price for an in-the-know smoker, but less than the street dealers
charge in Centennial Square.

"Every member has a permanent medical condition," says Smith. "If the club
wasn't legitimate, then we would have been shut down a long time ago."

Yes, well, it will be up to the courts to sort that out. When it comes to
medical marijuana, judges seem reluctant to fill in the blanks of Ottawa's
new rulebook, and want some political decisions made. An Ontario court last
month gave Health Canada six months to come up with a way of providing safe
distribution of marijuana, though the feds are appealing that decision.

Meantime, so-called compassion clubs operate in the open, even when the
lines between medicinal and recreational use blur. The people campaigning
for easy access to medical marijuana are generally the same ones
campaigning for legal pot, period.

None of which has escaped our neighbours to the south. A couple of weeks
ago, the Los Angeles Times Magazine's cover story was all about sick
Californians, users of medical marijuana, fleeing to coastal B.C. and
applying for refugee status.

"U.S. marijuana expatriates -- much like their Vietnam-era brethren who
flocked to Canada -- are sinking roots into this cannabis-friendly land,
launching businesses, raising kids," read the six-page piece.

Nine U.S. states, including California, have approved the use of marijuana
for medical purposes. But federal law trumps state law, so pot possession
for any purpose is still illegal.

"As the U.S. has worked to crush the movement in California and the other
states that adopted medical marijuana laws, Canada has legalized medicinal
use," noted the Times. It mused about the possibility of decriminalization,
pointing out that Justice Minister Martin Cauchon is in favour. "Overnight,
the country that has treated recreational marijuana with a wink and a nod
might codify its casual stance."

Canada isn't as much of a Cheech and Chong movie as the Times might think.
Although it's been almost two years since Health Canada issued regulations
governing medical marijuana, there are only a few hundred people officially
permitted to use it.

They fall into three categories: people with less than a year to live;
patients enduring pain and certain other symptoms associated with a group
of specific conditions -- cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord
injuries, epilepsy and severe arthritis; people with other serious
illnesses where conventional treatments have failed to relieve symptoms of
the medical condition or its treatment.

Applications from people in the third category must be supported by at
least two specialists. In all categories, conventional treatment must at
least be considered before marijuana is prescribed.

Applicants can get permission to grow their own grass or have someone do it
for them, but there is not yet a legal way to buy it.

Which is something Smith would like to see change. "Our group would like to
see itself put out of business," he said Friday. Free or cheap
government-supplied dope would do that.

But he's not holding his breath (except when, you know). It could be years,
if ever, before the society has to redeem those Cannabonds.

They need not be traded in until three months after either the Supreme
Court or the federal government puts an end to Canada's cultivation,
possession and trafficking laws.