COURTS

Scientist defends industrial growth of cannabis

An Agriculture Canada plant taxonomist who has spent much of his career
researching the drug was testifying at the trial of a hemp store
proprietor.

By Eric Bender
Free Press Reporter

There is no reason cannabis should not be grown in Canada for
industrial purposes with appropriate controls, a top Agriculture
Canada scientist said in court Tuesday.

"There's a societal or political problem over the cultivation (in
Canada and the U.S.)," Ernest Small, a plant taxonomist, told the
judge in the trial of Chris Clay, proprietor of Hemp Nation store at
343 Richmond St., who is charged with several counts of possessing and
trafficking marijuana. Taxology is the theory and practice of the
classification of living things.

Clay and employee Jordan Prentice were charged two years ago during a
raid on Clay's hemp products retail outlet. Clay sold a cannabis
seedling from a flat of plants in his store to an undercover drug
officer.

NOTGUILTY PLEA: Clay and Prentice have pleaded not guilty to all
charges.

Small, one of the elite scientists at Agriculture Canada in Ottawa,
has spent much of his career researching cannabis, particularly in the
1970s when he presented a report to the LeDain Commission and wrote
dozens of articles and a book that suggested a threshold level of 0.3
per cent toxicity in discriminating between toxic and nontoxic
cannabis plants.

Small told Mr. Justice John McCart of the Ontario Court that he is
"flattered and proud" that his "arbitrary" level of 0.3 per cent
deduced after his studies, has been adopted as a standard in countries
around the world, by the European Common Market and by the United
Nations.

He said he identified two sub species of cannabis in his research and
they fell into two categories plants that tended to be suited to
hemp or fibre commercial purposes and those suited to oil from seeds,
food from seeds and therapeutics and narcotics from flowers and
leaves.

LOWER TOXICITY: He said the hemp plants tend to have low toxicity or
psychoactive properties (known as THC) while the more leafy variety
tend to have higher THC. He also said cannabis grown north of the 30th
parallel tends to have lower toxicity.

Small said he is aware Agriculture Canada has been issuing licences
for experimental hemp plots on the condition the plants contain no
more than 0.3 per cent THC. Plants exceeding the limit are to be
destroyed.

Defence counsel Alan Young, an Osgoode Hall law professor, told the
judge he would be attempting to persuade the court that Canada has, in
effect, if not officially, adopted the 0.3 per cent standard.

He will then argue that the Narcotics Control Act does not or should
not include nontoxic substances.

CANNABIS EXPERT: Young is expected to call a cannabis expert to
testify today, the third day of the trial.

The Crown closed its case except for a witness or two who are
scheduled to appear in the third week of the trial.

The second and third weeks of the trial were set aside for a
constitutional argument on the use and decriminalization of marijuana.