POT FARMER CLAIMS CROP MEANT FOR USE BY TERMINALLY ILL

Activist Says Police Should 'Leave Sick Alone'

Seven hundred pot plants seized by the RCMP were meant to help
terminally ill patients, claims the man charged in connection with
the operation.

Randy Newsham, 35, was charged with cultivation of a controlled
substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking after
Mounties found the plants in his home near Rumsey, about 130
kilometres northeast of Calgary.

The RCMP estimated the crop's value at $500,000, but Newsham said the
pot was never going to be sold on the street and was worth far less.

"They've blown it way out of proportion," Newsham said from the
Calgary Remand Centre, where he's been held on $10,000 bail since his
May 2 arrest.

Newsham doesn't deny growing the pot, but said it was intended for a
non-profit foundation run by Calgary medicinal marijuana activist
Grant Krieger.

Krieger, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and won a five-year
legal battle to smoke marijuana, said he supplies more than 100
people across Canada with the drug.

Regulations passed by Health Canada last year allow applicants to
possess or grow their own marijuana if they can prove their pain
can't be treated with other drugs.

The problem, Krieger said, is many sufferers like him are too sick to
grow their own supply and the regulations drive people into the risky
business of buying "crap" from street-level dealers.

Krieger said he is trying to assure a safe supply exists for
terminally ill patients, but the police shut down every person he's
hired to grow pot for him.

"Let me help people," he said.

"I wish they'd just stop and leave the sick alone."

Krieger said most of the plants seized by police were still seedlings
and worth about $10,000 -- a fraction of the value the RCMP placed on
them.

Still, there were three kilograms of dried marijuana ready for
distribution and the police confiscated about $20,000 worth of
growing equipment, Krieger said.

"It hurts," he said of the bust.

"It takes a lot of time to set (grow operations) up and a lot of money."

Health Canada had contracted a private company to grow 600 kilograms
of marijuana to be used in clinical trials, but federal officials
announced last week the supply is riddled with impurities.

"The government doesn't know what it's doing," Krieger said.

"They've hung us all out to dry."

Meanwhile, Newsham remains in custody while Krieger and supporters
are trying to raise bail money.

Police also charged Newsham's roommate, John Daniel MacVicar, in
connection with the bust. He is free on $750 bail.