CONTROVERSIAL HEALING HERB

Julie is a survivor. Although she's still rail-thin, the light in her brown
eyes and her confident voice prove that she's feeling much better than she
did eight months ago, when she weighed only 68 pounds and was wracked with
painful muscle spasms, the result of seven years of suffering with
fibromyalgia.

She credits her recovery to marijuana. "I would go so far as to say that it
saved my life, because I was not able to keep food down," says Julie, a
former child-protection worker in her early 30s. "It seemed to help with
the digestion process as well. And it kept me sane enough through a period
of incredible pain to wait it out and get through it."

Julie is one of the 117 clients of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society
(VICS), which distributes marijuana to medical patients out of a low-key
storefront in a residential district near the Royal Jubilee
Hospital. Phillipe Lucas, who founded VICS a year ago, says his clients
have to present a recommendation by a doctor or proof of a serious
condition such as AIDS, cancer, or multiple sclerosis to be able to buy one
of the five strains of marijuana on the menu in his office. Members aren't
allowed to resell the pot, and they aren't allowed to smoke it on the
premises. "As long as the members follow the rules, we don't feel there's
going to be a problem with the neighbourhood," says Lucas.

Lucas, a French teacher, says he started the society because he can testify
about the medicinal benefits of marijuana himself. Like tens of thousands
of Canadians (and many VICS members), he's afflicted with Hepatitis C - and
the cruel irony that he probably acquired the illness because of a federal
screwup in testing the blood supply has only been made worse by the
government's slow progress in legalizing medical pot.

"There was a sense of immediacy," he says about opening the shop. "People
needed to be helped, they didn't need to be helped next year or the year
after, whenever the government decided to get around to it."

As the law currently stands, a patient can only use marijuana legally if
she and her doctor apply for an exemption under the federal Controlled
Drugs and Substances Act. But getting such an exemption takes up to six
months - and even if it's granted, there still is no legal source for
marijuana in Canada. Federal health minister Allan Rock recently announced
that one will be identified within the year, but Lucas says many VICS
clients fear that all the official sources will end up being disreputable
pharmaceutical companies. So Lucas buys organic marijuana, free of
pesticides and any potentially infectious moulds, from local growers. He's
also signed contracts with several farmers, testifying that they're
cultivating marijuana for compassionate reasons should they ever get busted.

Lucas is also worried that he might get busted himself; technically, VICS
is engaged in drug trafficking. But Rock has advised police to use
discretion when taking action against compassion societies, and so far,
when it comes to VICS, the local cops have looked the other way. Ideally,
Lucas says, he'd like Rock to declare an amnesty against such societies
until a properly functioning federal system is in place: "I would like to
know that I could go to work and that our members could come in with a
margin of safety."

But it wouldn't be politically wise for the police to come down heavy on a
group of critically ill people. A May poll published in the National Post
showed that 92 percent of Canadians favour legalization of cannabis for
medical purposes - and VICS clients like Julie would raise hell if the
society ever got raided.

"I'd make a public spectacle of myself," she says, "along with a lot of
other people, I'm sure."