LAWYERS ARGUE TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

TORONTO -- In a constitutional challenge to Parliament's right to legislate
marijuana, the Appeal Court of Ontario was asked yesterday to strike down
laws that make consumption of the drug criminal.

Lawyers for Christopher Clay, a store owner convicted in 1997 of selling a
small cannabis plant to an undercover officer in London, Ont., are asking
the court to strike down Canada's marijuana laws because there exists scant
scientific evidence of medical or sociological harm associated with the
drug. Parliament does not have the authority to criminalize a recreational
activity that has not been proven to be harmful, said lawyers for Mr. Clay,
who engaged in what they call the widest review of the scientific
literature concerning marijuana consumption since a Royal Commission tabled
a four-year report on the subject in 1972.

"Empirical data demonstrate that Parliament did not have a reasonable basis
to create this offense," Alan Young, professor at Osgoode Hall told the
court. Pulmonary irritation associated with ingesting smoke is the only
proven harmful effect of the drug, he said.

"They've created a law to prevent Canadians from becoming a nation of
wheezers and coughers. That can't be the intent of criminal law," he said.

Although the decision of Ontario's highest court is only binding in that
province, a victory would influence marijuana cases across the country.

Justice J.F. McCart, the lower court judge who convicted Mr. Clay, ruled
that "consumption of marijuana is relatively harmless compared to the
so-called hard drugs and including tobacco and alcohol." While scientists
hypothesize that marijuana use could lead to permanent brain damage,
psychosis, reduced immunity, and dangerous driving, Prof. Young said "the
state, not the citizen," should bear that burden of proof. Until the
harmful effects can be proven, he says marijuana laws deprive Canadians of
their rights to life, liberty and security of the person under the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He likened the ban on marijuana to the ban
on margarine, which the Supreme Court overturned 50 years ago.

Government lawyers maintain that it is up to the legislature to determine
what "evil it wishes to suppress, and what threatened interest it wishes to
safeguard."

The same three-judge panel will also hear an appeal from government lawyers
in the case of Terry Parker, a Toronto epileptic who in 1997 became the
first Canadian to win a court-ordered permit to use marijuana for the
medicinal purpose of controlling his seizures. The Crown is asking that
Parker be required to apply directly to Allan Rock, the Health Minister,
for permission to use the drug.