Cancer, AIDS patients flock to Vancouver marijuana club

Compassion Club members break the law in an attempt to end their
suffering.

It's called the Compassion Club, and for months its members have been
quietly distributing marijuana for free or at reduced rates to sick
people throughout the Lower Mainland.

What they're doing is against the law, but provincial agencies serving
people with serious illnesses such as cancer, AIDS and multiple
sclerosis are in fact alerting them to the therapeutic properties of
marijuana. The club's members believe they are alleviating pain and
suffering.

The club is headed by a woman in her early 20s who asked that her name
be kept confidential not so much out of fear of criminal
prosecution, but because demand for the service has grown so quickly
she can't keep up.

"The response is overwhelming," she said in an interview.

"I get 10 phone calls a day from people who hear about me. We haven't
advertised I've got a few flyers around town. and just word of
mouth. It's flying. It's wonder ful."

The club, located on West Pender and listed with directory assistance,
currently supplies about 100 people, she said.

Another underground and unpublicized distribution organization
incorporates marijuana into cookies and other baked goods for people
with AIDS, and also supplies goods to Compassion Club members, the
club's founder said.

She stresses her organization is not a front for distributing the
illegal substance to people wanting to consume it for recreation
although she raises money for the club by selling marijuana to healthy
users. Some of her supply is also donated by people running illicit
marijuana growing operations, she said.

Trafficking in highgrade locally grown pot is estimated to be a
lucrative business by police authorities, who Friday announced the
seizure in Maple Ridge of more than 2,600 plants with a street value
of $1 million.

"There shouldn't be any money to be made buying cannabis on the black
market and selling it to people who are sick," the founder said.
Marijuana sells on the street for an average of $40 for 3.5 grams,
while the Compassion Club gives away what it can to people who are
very sick, and sells it to those who can afford to pay at the cost
charged by growers $30 to $35, she said. The club tries to ensure
the pot it provides is free of contaminants like pesticides and mold,
which could cause sickness in people suffering from immune
deficiencies, she said.

"The Compassion Club is more about compassion than it is about
cannabis. People are looking for an alternative medicine. People are
tired of being fed crappy drugs."

Those wishing to receive the drug from the club are asked to have
their doctor sign a form agreeing that their patients might benefit
from marijuana used for medicinal purposes, she said.

At the club premises Friday, 42yearold Joanne Tomilin dropped in for
the marijuana she finds helps control a host of medical conditions,
including silicone poisoning. Tomilin sits on the province's advisory
council of women exposed to silicone due to leaking breast implants,
and also suffers problems with swelling and digestion.

"I only require three puffs for my pain," she said, lighting up a
joint in front of a Vancouver Sun photographer. "My father's going to
kill me!" she said.

Tomilin uses other pharmaceutical drugs for her medical conditions,
but finds they exacerbate her stomach problems, while the marijuana
allows her to eat. "I'm not saying that it replaces all
pharmaceuticals, but it is a help for me," she said.

Karl Schmitt, 23, said he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in
1990 and marijuana helps calm his tremors.

Mark Graham, 36, has suffered from epilepsy all his life. He works as
a forester and the marijuana he's consumed for the past seven years
stopped his seizures, he said.

Graham was convicted last year of marijuana possession and was
sentenced to 21 days in jail or a $250 fine. As a protest, he chose
the jail time, and says he suffered two seizures while being cut off
his pot. While his epilepsy medication had such sideeffects as anemia
and convulsions, "the only bad side effect from the pot is the jail,"
he said.

Wayne Campbell, acting chair of the Vancouver People With AIDS
Society, said in an interview at the Pacific AIDS Resource Centre that
he and several society members benefit from marijuana, which helps
reduce the sickness and weakness caused by the multitudes of
prescription drugs they use to fight deficient immune systems. AIDS
patients have long felt pressured to resort to underground medical
treatments, since the medical community was considered slow to react
to the outbreak of the deadly epidemic, but even established health
organizations admit that their members use marijuana to fight their
symptoms.

"I think a lot of us are aware that a lot of cancer patients do use
marijuana, particularly as an appetite stimulator," said Libby Brown,
communications officer with the B.C. Cancer Agency. "I don't think any
of our physicians would say don't use it. We don't actually tell
people to use it. We just can't authorize it."

People who contact the Canadian Cancer Society or the B.C. Cancer
Agency enquiring about "medicinal marijuana" are issued a fact sheet
that advises "marijuana, its constituent drug . . . THC, and related
drugs have been useful in controlling nausea and vomiting due to
chemotherapy in some patients. Marijuana itself is not available
through legal channels."

The agencies note that a drug called nabilone, a synthetic THC, is
available through some hospital pharmacies and may be prescribed for
nausea control.

The Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada's B.C. division distributes a
factsheet that was developed by its U.S. counterpart after voters in
California and Arizona voted in November, 1996, to make marijuana
available with physician prescriptions for treatment of medical
conditions.

Some MS sufferers report fewer spasms and feeling "looser" after
ingesting the drug, but the society notes that sideeffects can
include "weakness, dry mouth, dizziness, relaxation, mental clouding,
shortterm memory impairment, spacetime distortion and
uncoordination," along with the lungdamage associated with tobacco
smoking. The MS society feels that not enough clinical trials have
been conducted to recommend marijuana as a treatment for the symptoms
of MS, but the Compassion Club says it includes several MS sufferers
among its clientele.

It is doubtful that people using marijuana as a medicine in the
privacy of their own home would be arrested for possession of an
illicit substance, said Bob Prior, the man in charge of federal
prosecutions for the justice department.

"It would strike me that most of those persons who are using it for
medicinal purposes probably aren't trotting around the street smoking
a joint, sitting on the beach. They're probably more discreet how they
use it," he said.

Brent Thompson, communications officer for Attorney General Ujjal
Dosanjh, said it would be up to police to investigate the possibility
of laying criminal charges against the club.