'IS THIS HOW WE WANT TO TREAT SICK PEOPLE?'

GIBSONS -- One of the first Canadians granted a medical exemption to smoke
pot for medicinal purposes has been busted by police.

Jim Wakeford, 57, said RCMP in this Sunshine Coast community seized 28
marijuana plants, and a quantity of dried pot along with his home computer
and office files.

Police also seized 16 packages of marijuana he allegedly mailed earlier to
friends with medical exemptions in Ontario, said Wakeford.

Charges of trafficking are now pending against him.

The bust left Wakeford angry and upset.

"I'm horrified," he said. "Is this how we want to treat sick people in
Canada? It's just nasty brutishness."

Wakeford, a longtime social activist who diagnosed with AIDS ten years ago,
was one of the first two people granted a medical exemption to Canada's
drug laws in 1999.

Under regulations, medicinal users may only possess seven plants and 30
grams of pot.

Wakeford admits he had more marijuana than that when police searched the
house where he has been staying with friends for the past several months.

"I don't recognize the government regulations," he said.

Earlier in the week, he mailed marijuana to 16 friends.

Wakeford said he never tried to hide what he was doing.

"It was accepted in the mail," he said. "All had my return address. I'm
doing it openly."

Wakeford is continuing his medicinal pot crusade in courts, arguing it's
unfair to grant exemptions to use marijuana for medicine but not give sick
people any legal way to obtain it.

- - Canadian Press