ONTARIO COURT STRIKES DOWN OTTAWA'S MEDICAL-MARIJUANA REGULATIONS

TORONTO (CP) - A group of seriously ill people has won the first battle in
an ongoing war with Ottawa over a scheme to permit the use of medical
marijuana the patients say violates their constitutional rights.

An Ontario judge agreed Thursday that the federal government's Medical
Marijuana Access Regulations are unconstitutional because they prevent more
deserving people from exemption than they permit. The ruling from Ontario's
Superior Court is binding on lower courts, subject to an appeal, and will
likely wreak further havoc on the laws in Canada that make possession of
marijuana illegal, said lawyer Alan Young.

"We sued the government, saying their regulatory regime for medical people
was unsound," said lawyer Alan Young. "The judge agreed, saying they have
six months to address it or they lose the law."

The regulations give eligible people an exemption from provisions of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the law which makes possession of pot
illegal for everyone else.

Unless Ottawa appeals the ruling or comes up with a new medical-marijuana
regime within six months, that law will fall, Young said.

"The law will be dead in Ontario," he said. "There will be no further
questions about that."

Young argued in court last year that the regulations demand medical
declarations that few doctors are willing to provide given the legal
consequences.

They also make it impossible for a doctor to recommend a dosage, since the
drug remains unregulated in Canada.

Even those who do win a legal exemption - more than 300 people in Canada
are currently permitted by Ottawa to smoke pot for medical reasons - are
forced to break the law, resorting to black-market weed because the
government is dragging its heels on efforts to cultivate a pure supply for
clinical trial.

There were seven marijuana consumers included in Young's group of
applicants, along with a caregiver, the Toronto Compassion Centre. Three
other applicants are also participating in the hearings.

There was no immediate word Thursday on whether the ruling forces the
government to make available the marijuana it grew in a Manitoba mineshaft
under a $5.7-million contract for clinical trials.

Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan had refused to allow the marijuana to
be distributed because she says it simply isn't pure enough.