HEALER WEED

In the U.S. this month, a landmark report commissioned by the White
House concluded that marijuana might be the best medicine available
for millions of people with illnesses such as cancer, glaucoma and
multiple sclerosis. Canada's Health Minister Allan Rock has announced
the start of clinical trials -- the first major step toward
legalization. In the meantime, thousands of British Columbians,
suffering the pain and nausea of chronic illness, continue to break
the law on a daily basis.

It is Jackie's first smoke of the day. She's having a hard time
keeping it down.

"It always make me cough," the 61-year-old Surrey woman explains,
trying not to choke. "But I don't need a lot. Just a couple of puffs
and that's usually enough to smooth out my afternoons."

Jackie, dying of cancer, smooths out her afternoons with the contents
of several margarine tubs stored in her salad crisper. She's rather
proud of her stash. Last summer, with the help of a book on marijuana
cultivation, she grew three enormous plants next to her backyard
composter. It was enough, she says, to get her through the winter.

As a devout, non-drinking Christian, Jackie is about the last person
you'd expect to see lighting up a joint. Until her diagnosis, she
worked as a nurse at the Burnaby Correctional Centre for Women and
used to tell the girls: "What are you smoking that dirty dope for?"

Jackie is one of thousands of chronically ill British Columbians who,
often with their doctor's approval, have overcome deep moral
reservations and started using marijuana as a means of coping with
their symptoms.

In her case, the unlikely conversion came after being diagnosed with
breast cancer three years ago.

"I was already at stage five when they found it," she says. "The end
of the road.

"I had chemo and then radiation. Then the nightmares began. The
horrors. My life wasn't worth spit. I just cried all the time."

She decided to end it. "I had sold my car. I had turned my house over
to my son. Then I phoned a friend of mine who's a guard at the prison.
I told her that I was quite suicidal. She said, 'Jackie, I know you're
very straight-laced but would you try marijuana?' I said I'd try anything."

Her son made the first purchase. "It came in a little bag and it cost
almost $300! I almost fainted," she says. But it worked.

It dulled the pain. She overcame the mid-afternoon depressions. A
couple of puffs before bedtime and she'd sleep like a baby. She gained
50 pounds.

At first, Jackie wanted to speak openly about her marijuana use -- and
even posed for a picture. But like a lot of conservative users, she is
troubled by the legal and moral repercussions. She asked that we not
publish her last name for fear that it would embarrass her pastor,
that it might cost her husband his job, that potheads might break into
her house.

"I've often thought, what would I do if the police came and arrested
me?' " she says. "I mean, they would take me to my own jail. I've
mentioned this to my oncologist and he just laughs. He says, shame on
them if they arrest a woman with cancer."

It appears that most Canadians agree -- 83 per cent, according to the
last poll on legalizing medicinal marijuana.

Across B.C., doctors are giving the nod of approval to patients
desperate for relief. Hospital workers turn a blind eye as people
suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis or glaucoma, either
smoke on the balcony or consume marijuana through tea or cookies.

Police are also taking a hands-off approach. On the rare occasion that
users and growers are prosecuted, Canadian judges are now likely to be
lenient.

Most encouraging of all, two major developments this month have
convinced advocates that legalization is around the corner.

A study commissioned by the White House Office of National Drug
Control Policy, which has fought tooth and nail against moves by five
western states to legalize medicinal marijuana, surprised everybody by
giving the plant a resounding endorsement.

The Institute of Medicine concluded that for many people, marijuana
might be one of the most effective treatments available -- and said
there's no evidence that it can lead to harder drugs.

"We uncovered an explosion of new scientific knowledge about how the
active components in marijuana affect the body and . . . how they
might be used in a medical context," says research leader Dr. John
Benson.

The Canadian government, struggling to keep up with public opinion,
made its own bold move this month when Health Minister Allan Rock
announced the start of clinical trials.

But advocates say Rock is simply side-stepping the issue while he
waits to see what happens in the U.S. They say there is already enough
scientific data to support at least a limited form of legalization and
ask why Rock has refused to respond to applications for compassionate
exemptions.

"I'm glad that Allan Rock announced the trials, but I think he could
do something quite easily that would provide relief now," says
Vancouver East MP Libby Davies. "If they want to look at issues around
strength or purity or whatever that's fine, but the fact is they could
set up some protocols pretty quickly and allow prescription use based
on what we know now."

Abbotsford lawyer John Conroy is putting together a request for
exemptions on behalf of about 500 members of Vancouver's Compassion
Club, an organization that sells marijuana openly to people with a
legitimate medical need.

Conroy says that if he does not hear back from the minister within a
month, he'll force the issue in federal court. He's also encouraging
medical agencies to launch class-action suits on the grounds that the
chronically ill have a constitutional right to the exemptions while
the clinical trials take place.

His argument has some legal support. In a landmark ruling, a Toronto
judge said that it was unconstitutional for the law to interfere with
the right of Terry Parker, who suffers from epilepsy, to receive
medication prescribed by his doctor -- thereby acknowledging the
doctor's legal right to prescribe. The judge not only dismissed the
possession charge, but ordered police to give the man his pot plants
back.

The B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons, however, says it is still
illegal for doctors to prescribe marijuana.

At the Compassion Club, Hilary Black reveals a stack of paperwork from
B.C. doctors who apparently are ready to defy the College's
instructions.

She says 80 per cent of her members had no difficulty obtaining a
doctor's recommendation. Written on prescription pads, the
instructions are usually worded as vaguely as possible. "Any
assistance you can provide . . ." and "Treat as you see fit . . ." is
typical of how doctors dodge the legal complication.

Black is looking happy these days. "The Vancouver police are
wonderful," she says, noting that the only time they visit the club
now is to investigate break-ins.

More than 700 strong and by far the biggest of its kind in Canada, the
Compassion Club has recently expanded its Commercial Drive premises to
include a wellness centre. Members can choose from a menu of carefully
selected strains such as shishkaberry or green tara -- "a nice happy
X" -- and then take a session in Thai massage, lymphatic drainage
techniques or nutrition counselling.

She says the police turn a blind eye because they're satisfied there's
no "dealing out the back door."

The club is supplied by 12 growers who must sign a cultivation
contract. It governs price and growing conditions. It says the growers
cannot sell to anyone else and must agree to visits from Compassion
Club inspectors.

The main worry, says Black, is protecting members from moulds. They
don't want to repeat the experience of their San Francisco
counterparts who handed out a bad batch of pot and unwittingly gave
2,000 patients a nasty, though curable, lung infection.

Black recently teamed up with the CBC's David Suzuki to make a
documentary about the medicinal benefits of marijuana. At 23, she is
considered the champion of the movement in this country. She says
she's delighted at how the tide has turned in the legalization debate.

But if Hilary Black no longer has to worry about visits from the
police, the same cannot be said for her suppliers. Two of them are
facing charges of cultivation for the purpose of trafficking.

Bill Small, of Sechelt, was caught growing marijuana in a crawl space
at his home. He finds it ironic that he got busted while supplying the
Compassion Club with the cheapest pot it has ever had. He's on the
board of directors and says his aim was to use his low price -- "$5 a
gram and good medicine" -- as leverage to force a general price reduction.

While awaiting trial, Small will join other Canadian growers who,
along with users, have applied for exemptions from Allan Rock.

The growers are hoping that permits will eventually convert to
business licences if and when medicinal marijuana becomes legal. "As
soon as we get those pieces of paper, we'll be able to reduce our
prices even more," says Small. "We'll be able to grow it in
greenhouses, for instance."

Others say legalization will radically alter the way the plant's
active ingredients are consumed. The Institute of Medicine study last
week proposed the development of "a non-smoked, rapid-onset delivery
system."

Vancouver resident Liz Dunlop says she doesn't really care what form
it takes as long as it's effective -- and cheap. Like many medicinal
users, she relies on the generosity of friends to maintain her
one-joint-a-day approach to dealing with severe fibromyalgia.

Her father used marijuana in his last days before dying of cancer.
Now, she says, her mother has started to smoke dope to ease the
symptoms of Crohn's disease, a chronic intestinal condition.

"That's the only thing that really works for her," Dunlop says. "It
takes away the cramping and nausea at night."

She says there's just one serious side-effect for her mom -- the
stigma.

"It's really been very difficult for her because it adds extra
stress," says Dunlop. "She's having a hard time dealing with it.

"What bothers her the most is having to break the law."