Early Pot Crusader Feared Losing His Family
by Mike Blanchfield

While a court battle to legalize marijuana enters its final phase today,
Jeff Shurie will be making his own quiet contribution to the cause by
tending a small shop several blocks away from the courtroom action.

Mr. Shurie has fought his own war with authorities to legalize pot in
Canada. And failed spectacularly. "It cost me my career," says the
former school teacher, standing behind the cash register of Hemp
Nation.

The store's owner, 26yearold Chris Clay, is on trial for cultivation
and possession of a narcotic. Mr. Clay's defence lawyers are trying
to decriminalize marijuana by having a section of the Narcotics
Control Act struck down as unconstitutional.

As the trial enters its fourth week today, Mr. Clay's counsel,
Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young and Toronto criminal
lawyer Paul Burstein, will present their closing arguments. They are
trying to persuade a judge that marijuana is no more harmful than
alcohol or tobacco, and that he ought to strike down the law.

It is expected Mr. Justice John McCart will take several weeks
before making a ruling.

Mr. Clay and a store employee, Jordan Prentice, are jointly charged.
And while they've been sitting in the prisoner's dock of a London
courtroom the past three weeks, Mr. Shurie has ensured Hemp
Nation has stayed open by volunteering his time at the store.

Mr. Shurie, 40, has had enough of courtrooms. He was the subject
of another highprofile marijuana case in this Southwestern Ontario
city.

In 1992, Mr. Shurie was a respected Grade 6 teacher at London's
Hillcrest Public School when police raided his home and seized the
hydroponic supplies he used to grow the marijuana he smoked daily.
They had received a Crime Stoppers tip and paid out a $1,000
reward for the bust.

Mr. Shurie said he never told his students about his pot smoking. "I
was a role model," he says. "I wanted to keep that part of my life
separate."

He says he grew his own marijuana rather than risk inadvertently
buying from a student on the street.

He eventually plea bargained, and was convicted of cultivating a
narcotic and fined $2,000.

But before the court case was resolved, he lost the teaching job he'd
held for three years. It was a job he loved and seemed to be good
at. On one job performance review, an supervisor wrote "Jeff's lively
and outgoing personality motivates his students."

None of that seemed to matter to school officials, once the police
charged him. He had to go.

"I have been drastically underemployed ever since," says Mr. Shurie.
He's found odd jobs doing carpentry, renovating basements for
friends.

It's a far cry from the career path he was on before his arrest. He'd
studied history and psychology at university before heading off to
teacher's college in North Bay. He worked with troubled teens in a
special education program in Niagara Falls before funding for the
program ran out.

He moved to London, where he sold insurance and ran a small
lawncare business. His wife still works as a translator for London
Life; she is the main wageearner for the family, which includes two
sons, 14 and 11.

Mr. Shurie testified about the impact of his runin with the law over
marijuana as part of Mr. Clay's case. His lawyers were trying to
show that the negative impact of a marijuana arrest is far too great.

A senior researcher with the Ontario Addiction Research Foundation
agrees.

While she doesn't advocate legalizing cannabis, Patricia Erickson told
Mr. Clay's trial it should be decriminalized that the penalties for
simple possession or use should be eliminated.

Despite a lenient attitude by the courts to simple possession,
someone with a criminal conviction can face hardship in the job
market especially in these tough economic times, said Ms. Erickson,
a sociologist and criminologist with the foundation.

Within a year of his court conviction, Mr. Shurie founded a group
called HEMP Canada, a movement to legalize private, personal pot
smoking. He toured the country, picketed Parliament Hill.

Mr. Shurie takes some pride in Mr. Clay's current legal battle. He
believes his activism laid some of the groundwork for this current
case. But he had too much to lose if he took his fight any further.

Mr. Shurie says his first reaction was to plead not guilty. But he says
prosecutors told him if he went to trial and was convicted they would
push for a fine of $9,000 and jail time in the six to ninemonth range.

They hinted that social services might take his children.

"I couldn't risk that kind of devastation on my family."