JAILED MAN 'IN SERIOUS PAIN' WITHOUT HIS POT, WIFE SAYS

Pot activist Michael Patriquen has lost 12 pounds since being jailed and
kept away from his medical marijuana, says his wife, who's hoping an appeal
court will send him home.

"I can tell in his voice that he's in serious pain. I'm extremely worried
about his health," Melanie Stephen told reporters Tuesday.

She said Patriquen can't keep food down because of the pain, and the
Tylenol he's been giving hasn't helped.

"If this situation is not rectified, my husband is going to come out of a
federal (institution) crippled, and I don't believe that's what the
Canadian government had in mind."

She's hoping to appeal Patriquen's six-year sentence, even though she can't
afford to hire a lawyer. She wants Patriquen to serve a conditional
sentence, allowing him to grow and smoke pot at home.

"It's quite ridiculous to think that the federal government will grant him
his medication (marijuana) in prison," said Stephen.

Two weeks ago, Patriquen, 49, was sentenced to six years in prison for
conspiring to traffic marijuana in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. He's been
at the federal prison in Springhill since Sept. 13.

Patriquen, who has a criminal record dating back to 1976, was part of a
marijuana ring that operated in the two provinces in 1998 and 1999.

He holds federal licences to grow and possess pot for medicinal use. He
smokes two grams daily to dull the pain caused by a damaged nerve in his
neck from a 1999 car accident.

The burly, mustachioed man had asked Nova Scotia Supreme Court to delay his
sentence until he could get the drug in jail, but was denied.

Corrections Canada says they know of no other inmate with a pot permit, and
can't give him marijuana in jail.

Debbie Stultz-Giffin, who has multiple sclerosis, smokes four grams of
marijuana daily to increase her appetite and quell the chronic muscle
spasms that come with the disease.

The Bridgetown, Annapolis Co., woman said she "stood in the kitchen and
cried" when she heard about Patriquen's sentence.

"(Medicinal marijuana users) shouldn't be ... consuming very valuable time
that specialists could be spending with other patients, when we've already
discovered what works for us," Stultz-Giffin said.