POLICE MUST RETURN MAN'S MARIJUANA

Jim Wakeford will get his pot back.

The 55-year-old Toronto man, the first Canadian granted legal permission to
smoke and grow marijuana for medicinal purposes, has won a court order
forcing Peel Region police to return a shipment of the drug they seized on
May 11 at Pearson International Airport.

Yesterday in Brampton, Madam Justice Kathy Hawke ordered police to take the
pot - originally sent from a British Columbia "compassion club" - to
Wakeford's home no later than tomorrow. Police had said without such an
order returning the marijuana would be illegal.

"In our view, that's just nonsense," Wakeford's lawyer Louis Sokolov said,
noting the crown did not oppose the order. "They should have simply
admitted their mistake . . . Instead they made him hire a lawyer, go to
court and have a court order issued."

Wakeford, who has full-blown AIDS, received an exemption from Health Canada
last year allowing him to smoke marijuana for medical relief. He agreed to
let health officials share that information with police "so this wouldn't
happen," Sokolov said.

"For some reason, either the government didn't provide the information or
the police ignored it."