UPDATE DRUG LAWS, EX-LAWYER TELLS COURT

Accused Of Impaired Driving, He Quotes Bob Dylan In Defence

KILLALOE -- Shedding the odd tear and quoting Bob Dylan, a maverick
ex-lawyer told a judge yesterday that Canada's marijuana laws need to be
dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era.

Rick Reimer, once a prominent criminal lawyer in Pembroke, is defending
himself on one of the more unusual charges ever heard in a Renfrew County
courtroom.

On Feb. 11, 2002, Mr. Reimer was charged with impaired driving after
stepping out of his Jeep Cherokee with a marijuana joint dangling from his
mouth.

OPP Const. Brad Burton had followed the vehicle for about five kilometres
and noticed it narrowly crossed the centre line on the snow-covered county
road about five times.

This was no ordinary motorist. Mr. Reimer, 48, suffers from multiple
sclerosis and has a Health Canada exemption to use marijuana for medical
purposes.

Since retiring from his law firm in October 2000, Mr. Reimer has become a
passionate advocate for those needing marijuana for health reasons, and a
vocal critic of the barrage of regulations they face.

Two police officers have testified that Mr. Reimer, now a Wilno resident,
appeared to be impaired when he emerged from his vehicle just before noon
on a sunny morning after a big snowfall.

They observed his unsteady gait, heard his slurred speech and were
astonished that he wouldn't accept a suggestion that his girlfriend, a
passenger, take over the driving.

Mr. Reimer, who admits to smoking about 12 joints a day, strenuously denied
he was impaired by marijuana.

"With all due respect to Const. Burton, it's not his place to tell me you
can do this, but you can't do that," Mr. Reimer told Ontario Court Justice
Bruce MacPhee.

The constable had testified he also gave Mr. Reimer the choice of receiving
a ticket for an obscured licence plate, or a ticket for not wearing his
seat-belt.

"Instead he gave me this cheesy ultimatum," said Mr. Reimer, appearing
agitated. "I don't want him to give me a break. I don't want him to give
you a break. I want him to do his job."

He said Const. Burton and his ride-along that day, Jacqueline LaValley,
obviously aren't familiar with the typical manifestations of marijuana smoking.

While they urged Mr. Reimer to let his girlfriend take over the wheel, they
overlooked the fact that she had been smoking pot that morning too.

Mr. Reimer told the court that his disease, diagnosed in 1998, causes the
symptoms the police took as signs of drug impairment.

The colourful litigant was frank about his marijuana use. He said he began
smoking when he was 14 and has smoked daily for close to 30 years, with
short periods of abstention.

He said he was no more impaired by marijuana on Feb. 11 than he was
yesterday, representing himself in court and arguing points of law.
"Smoking marijuana does not, I hope, impair my ability to argue a fine
legal point with a cogency that meets the standard of the court," he
argued. "If it doesn't impair that ability, one should be careful deciding
that it impairs my ability to drive."

He said marijuana relieves the nausea he feels every morning, helps with
orbital headaches, back and leg pain and a crushed-chest sensation common
to MS victims. The effects of the drug are with him all day, he told the court.

"It doesn't preclude me from driving, from operating a radial arm saw, from
operating a radio show, where I have to keep track of two CD players, two
turntables, four microphones, play the guitar and read a poem at the same
time."

Unlike someone impaired by alcohol, the Crown has no blood or breath
analysis indicating how much THC, marijuana's active ingredient, was in Mr.
Reimer's system that day.

Instead, it called a toxicologist who testified about the general physical
effects of smoking marijuana. Dr. Robert Langille, from the Centre for
Forensic Sciences in Toronto, admitted yesterday he has not published any
original research on marijuana use and its impacts on driving. Instead, he
had reviewed some of the existing literature.

"To quote Bob Dylan," Mr. Reimer said later, "you don't need a weatherman
to know which way the wind is blowing."

The accused said the studies on marijuana and driving have conclusions all
over the spectrum. Many, he argued, found drivers were more cautious and
self-critical. The most damaging finding in the research, he argued, is
that large amounts of THC in the system are no worse than a driver at the
legal limit of .08 of alcohol.

The trial continues today in Pembroke.