'I'M NOT AFRAID OF DYING'

Hepatitis C Victim Plans To Camp Out On Hill In A Shot To Get Pot

It has been a long year and Robert Brown has run out of patience.

Tomorrow, he will plant his frail, sick body on the frozen grounds of
Parliament Hill in a desperate push for permission to ease his own suffering.

Brown plans to stay there until he gets the answer he needs from Health Canada.

Or until he dies.

"These people have been playing games with my life for months now," said
Brown, 43. "I've been suffering in my house alone -- now it's time to
suffer in public."

Diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1990, Brown's body is seized with constant
nausea, throat spasms and lack of appetite.

He has tried every treatment, pill and injection to ease the symptoms, but
insists cannabis is the drug that keeps him alive.

Chronically fatigued by the disease, Brown is being forced through the
criminal justice system while Canada takes cautious steps toward
decriminalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes.

In December 1998, police came to Brown's farmhouse near Beachburg and
seized plants, literature and growing lamps. He and wife Linda -- who does
not use cannabis -- were charged with possession, cultivation and intent to
traffic. Their week-long trial is scheduled to begin in June.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the date Brown first applied for an
exemption to use the controlled narcotic.

His lawyer, Rick Reimer, has augmented the file with several documents,
including detailed reports from physicians describing the positive
psychological and physical benefits Brown derives from cannabis. One year
later, Brown is more thin and more sick. But he's still waiting.

"All I'm doing is fighting for my life," he said. "I'm not afraid of
winter, and I'm not afraid of dying because I'm dying already. I'm just
tired of this."

Brushes With The Law

Brown considers marijuana a "medical necessity" that helps him manage
enough food and pills to survive. With a former long-standing addiction to
drugs and alcohol and a couple of brushes with the law, his decision to use
marijuana was not made easily.

It took a suicidal crash in 1987 before Brown managed to give up the drugs
and booze to rebuild his family and life.

He was diagnosed with the fatal hep C three years later.

Last spring, when Health Canada promised to commission clinical trials for
marijuana, it was clear the process could take years.

In the interim, Health Canada said, patients who benefit from cannabis
could apply for exemptions from prosecution. But Brown's experience has
proven this process is bureaucratic: Complicated, confusing and slow.

As of yesterday, the federal health department had received 74 applications
and another 80 inquiries for exemption under the controlled substance act.

Jeff Pender, a spokesman for the health ministry, said 19 have been granted
and another 15 are under "extensive review."

The approvals process is slowed down by incomplete files, he explained.

Reimer, a partner in a Pembroke law firm who has also applied for an
exemption to ease his symptoms related to multiple sclerosis, says the
process is unnecessarily complex and unclear.

When it comes to allowing marijuana as medicine, he believes the ministry
isn't living up to its mandate of speedily ensuring proper health care. But
Reimer does not want his client to become a martyr for the cause.

"Robert Brown is a courageous man," he said. "But as important as the cause
may be, it's not as important as his life."

Brown does not have a permit for his protest and plans to set up a tent on
the Hill. Government rules prohibit camping on the property, which means
Brown may be expelled. Yesterday, he received a call from Health Canada
seeking further health information. But Brown has learned not to get his
hopes up -- he decided to go ahead with the demonstration.

He is sick.

And he is sick of waiting.