SUIT ASKS GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE MARIJUANA

TORONTO (CP) - Ottawa should not only legalize marijuana use for medical
purposes but actually supply the drug to patients, a Toronto AIDS sufferer
argues in a constitutional challenge launched yesterday.

The suit filed by Jim Wakeford aims to push the legal fight in favor of
therapeutic cannabis use a step forward while putting more pressure on the
federal government to voluntarily change criminal law.

Outlawing the use of pot to fight nausea caused by AIDS drugs violates the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms' guarantee of life, liberty and security of
the person, his lawsuit alleges.

Wakeford, 53, said he needs to smoke as many as two joints a day to help
alleviate the intense nausea caused by a cocktail of medication he uses to
keep the terminal disease at bay.

But he said he shouldn't have to break the law to get such relief.

"I hate feeling like a criminal," Wakeford told a news conference.

"So I've decided to do something about it ... to make it safe, to make it
legal, to make it available."

But the federal Health Department's top drug regulator said yesterday that
it's already possible to use marijuana for such purposes without breaking
the law.

Although no one has done it yet, doctors can seek permission from Ottawa to
provide such controlled substances to patients, said Dan Michols of the
therapeutic products directorate.

They have to show the marijuana has a legitimate medical use, he said. And
the supplier must be licensed by Ottawa to ensure it provides consistently
good-quality product and can prevent the pot being diverted into illegal
sales.

"It already is decriminalized," said Michols. "It depends on the desire of
medical practitioners or manufacturers or patients to access marijuana as a
drug."

Even so, other cases before the courts have already argued a constitutional
exemption from the marijuana possession law for certain types of disease.

Terry Parker, a Toronto epileptic who smokes pot to prevent seizures, won a
landmark ruling in December that said parts of the anti-marijuana law are
unconstitutional.

But Wakeford's case moves the legal yardstick ahead, arguing that the
charter also obliges the federal government to supply the drug so sick
people don't have to look for it on the streets.

That's not such an unusual demand, said York University law professor Alan
Young, who's representing Wakeford.

The federal government has in the past actually grown marijuana at its
experimental farm in Ottawa, and so did the U.S. government before its
program was stopped by former president George Bush, he said.

But Michols said there's no precedent for the federal government supplying
any drug to patients.

Wakeford's physician, Dr. John Goodhew, said drugs have managed to
strengthen his immune system and decrease the virus levels in his body.

But before Wakeford started smoking marijuana, he looked gaunt, lost weight
and was depressed because of the nausea, Goodhew said.

None of the legal anti-nausea drugs did much good, he said.