Source: Calgary Herald (Canada)
Copyright: 1999 Calgary Herald
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POLICE RAID PUTS POT CLUB OUT OF BUSINESS

The universal for seriously ill and disabled people who smoke
marijuana for pain relief has been put on hold after Calgary police
arrested Grant Krieger, his lawyer said Thursday.

'It kills it, at least temporarily,' lawyer Adriano Lovinelli said outside
provincial
court following Krieger's first appearance on four criminal charges. 'If
his pot growing operation is shot down, the people in line don't get
it. He still wants to continue .... but it's suspended for now.'

Krieger, 45, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a medicinal
marijuana activist, spent the past two nights in the Calgary remand
centre after being arrested Wednesday evening and charged with
cultivation of a narcotic and possession with the purpose of
trafficking.

Officers had found two marijuana plants in the backyard of the house
at 4611 Bowness Road N.W.when they had gone to charge Krieger with two
counts of breaching probation relating to prior convictions.

They executed a search warrant on the residence later in the evening
and seized 29 more plants -- a half-dozen of which were mature - and
drug paraphernalia.

`I think it's going to wipe us out,' Compassion Club member Gilbert
Brenton said Thursday. He added, however, that Krieger told him by
telephone that he intends to rebuild the club.

Member Brenda Fischer, 37, of Calgary, who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos
syndrome - a rare, incurable connective tissue disorder - said she
will have to look elsewhere for her supply. Her doctor wrote her a
letter that said he had no other drugs to ease her pain.

`They should have better things to do than hurt sick people,' Fischer
said of the raid. `They really are hurting us sick people by doing
that. There are people that need this. And they come in and take it.'

Krieger is to be back in court this morning for a bail hearing and
Lovinelli said, 'it's going to be an uphill battle.' During Krieger's
brief hearing before provincial court Judge Gary Cioni, Crown
prosecutor Dan Mitsuka said he will ask the court to keep the man in
custody