LAW PROFESSOR A TIRELESS CRUSADER

How many times have we found ourselves up against the "system," frustrated
and confused with seemingly no place to turn for help?

If the rights granted by the Canadian Constitution are being violated, then
law professor Alan Young of Osgoode Hall in Toronto has been the one to call.

It was Mr. Young and AIDS patient and activist Jim Wakeford who challenged
the Canadian government to finally champion the right to use and grow
cannabis for medicinal use.

I use cannabis as medicine to help with my hepatitis C and was fortunate to
acquire one of the first exemptions issued by Health Minister Allan Rock in
October 1999. But because of our existing drug laws and government
policies, it has left patients and police alike in a grey zone of confusion
in which many unfortunate incidents and mistakes have occurred.

As Mr. Wakeford said, "We've been given the right but no remedy." Medical
grow rooms have been raided and some exemptees have had their medicine
intercepted in the mail, too.

Mr. Young has twice intervened with the police on my behalf. We've been a
handful, I know. We are sick and poor people who have had a rough time and
are unable to afford the high-powered, influential law-yers some of us have
needed.

Mr. Young has not been paid what he deserves for a lot of his work. But
more important for us, he's been there regardless. He genuinely cares.

Thank you, Mr. Young, for always being there to advise and represent the
federal exemptees in our hours of need.

Steven Bacon,

Oshawa