YOU CAN SMOKE A SHIRT, COURT TOLD

Makes Sense To Treat Hemp Like Marijuana, Federal Lawyer Says

It's only right that Canada's drug possession laws make no distinction
between a marijuana joint and hemp clothing because both could theoretically
be smoked, a federal lawyer suggests.

"What if you decide to tear up the hemp shirt and put it in little portions
that could be consumed?" justice department lawyer Morris Pistyner said
yesterday.

Pistyner was responding to a question from Ontario Court of Appeal Justice
Louise Charron about whether criminal prohibitions on cannabis are too
broad. The court is the highest in Canada to consider whether the drug
should be decriminalized for medical and recreational use.

A three-judge panel was told on Wednesday that drug laws don't distinguish
between the intoxicating and non-intoxicating forms of cannabis. Some
experts put the dividing line at 0.3 per cent of the active ingredient THC.

Christopher Clay, 28, who is appealing 1997 convictions for drug possession
and drug trafficking, contends the federal government never proved plant
seedlings confiscated from his London, Ont., hemp store were the
intoxicating kind.

Clay and Torontonian Terry Parker, 44, an epileptic who says smoking the
drug helps control seizures, are at the centre of two appeals looking at
whether marijuana laws should be reformed. The federal government is
appealing a Scarborough judge's 1997 decision to stay marijuana possession
and cultivation charges against Parker. The Epilepsy Association of Toronto
is intervening on Parker's behalf.

Justice department lawyer Kevin Wilson argued yesterday that Parker's
constitutional rights aren't infringed by the ban because he can receive the
same benefits by taking a pill containing synthetic THC. In fact, Wilson
said, Parker suffered only one seizure when he was given synthetic THC as
part of a nine-week study in 1979.

But Alan Young, Clay's lawyer, said yesterday the blanket ban on marijuana
is unconstitutional because it has no rationale and it is arbitrary, since
there is no real proof the substance causes widespread harm.

Pistyner said while it would be wrong to send a young, first-time offender
to jail for having an ounce of marijuana, it might be necessary to lock up a
repeat offender who deals pounds of the drug in a playground.

"What's wrong with a jail sentence for someone like that?" he asked.

Pistyner also said that while attitudes toward marijuana might have been
``extreme'' around the time the ban was invoked in 1923, it can be justified
because of the drug's potential to cause harm such as lung damage.

Health Minister Allan Rock announced this week that 14 exemptions from
prosecution for marijuana use would be granted to seriously ill people,
which generated newspaper stories, but no further information in the
government's court brief, prompting the judges to press for details.

"Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, 14 were granted yesterday," asked
Justice Marvin Catzman. "Are we not to know that?"

The hearing continues at Osgoode Hall.