GREEN WITH EMPATHY

Daniel Lametti steps behind the counter at Montreal's Compassion Club
- - a medical marijuana dispensary operating on the fringes of Canadian law

Every morning when Boris Saint-Maurice shows up for work he breaks
the law. Saint-Maurice is the owner of the Compassion Club on the
corner of Rachel and Coloniale - a store that sells marijuana
illegally to people who can demonstrate a medical need for the drug.
He has been arrested for drug trafficking numerous times.

Sitting with Saint-Maurice in a coffee shop drinking tea and pints of
beer, he tells me about one of his more memorable arrests. "The third
time I got arrested I had, like, 100 grams," he says. "They brought
me to the station and held me overnight. It sucked. I cried. I was,
like, freaked out!"

Saint-Maurice claims it was this 1991 arrest that convinced him to
become active in the fight for the legalization of marijuana. While
in jail, he stumbled upon a group of prisoners smoking hash in the
cell's bathroom.

"So I had two or three tokes," he says, "and I started to think,
'Fuck, I'm in jail for possession of pot, and the first thing I do is
smoke pot, and the only positive thing that has happened to me is
pot.' And the light bulb went on and that's pretty much when I
resolved to do everything that I could to change marijuana laws."

Shortly after this arrest, Saint-Maurice started organizing marijuana
marches and "smoke-ins" around Montreal. He pursued this form of
activism for almost six years until his lawyer suggested he might
simply try getting elected and changing the law himself. He took the
advice to heart and in 1997 founded the Bloc Pot, a Quebec provincial
party. The Bloc Pot's mandate is to have marijuana legalized.
According to the party's web site, one essential step in this process
is legalizing marijuana for medical use, a goal that also addresses
the party's commitment to individuals' "fundamental right to health."
With this in mind, in 1999 Saint-Maurice and two other Bloc Pot
members opened the Compassion Club, at the time directly across the
street from a police station.

Hazy laws

The Montreal Compassion Club - one of many similar organizations
across Canada - falls into a legal gray area, just outside of
Canada's medicinal marijuana law. The current status of medical weed
in Canada stems from the arrest of an epileptic man named Terrence
Parker. In 1996, Parker was busted for having more than 70 marijuana
plants and subsequently charged with possession and cultivation,
among other things. Parker was no stranger to the police; he had been
arrested and acquitted for possession several times before. For each
acquittal, his defense rested on his claim that he needed to smoke
marijuana to control his seizures.

After the 1996 charges were laid, Parker was determined to
permanently free himself from future prosecution. He told the judge
that, due to his condition, the drug charges violated his rights
under the Canadian Charter. The defense worked. In 1997, the Ontario
Court of Appeal ruled that, "forcing Parker to choose between his
health and imprisonment violates his right to liberty and security of person."

In response to the Parker ruling, the government passed legislation
in 2001 that made medicinal marijuana licenses available to some
chronically ill patients provided they prove that no other legal drug
could treat their symptoms. To discourage licensed patients from
purchasing black market weed, a $5-million contract was awarded to a
Saskatoon-based company to grow the plant in an abandoned mine shaft
in Manitoba. Patients who qualified for a license could receive
marijuana in the mail, direct from Health Canada.

Since 2001, court challenges have seen Canada's medical marijuana law
undergo several revisions. Licensed users can now buy marijuana seeds
from Health Canada and designate someone as a "primary care giver" to
grow the drug for them. Even so, most marijuana activists believe the
law to be flawed. In seven years, Health Canada has granted only
2,500 medicinal marijuana licenses. Some estimate the need is close
to a million. Compassion Clubs, like the one Saint-Maurice runs, are
willing to break the law to fulfill this need.

Not your average pothead

When I met Saint-Maurice for the first time, I must confess, I was
somewhat disappointed. I figured that, for someone who smokes a lot
of pot, he'd at least look the part: glazed eyes, hemp clothing,
maybe a marijuana leaf or two tattooed in some highly visible
location - a sort of French-Canadian Woody Harrelson. Alas, I got a
Woody Allen: not a single tattooed leaf to be had. Indeed, with
thinning brown hair, glasses, shirt, and jacket, Saint-Maurice looks
like the average 39-year-old Quebecker.

But talking to Saint-Maurice one quickly realizes that he's far from
normal, even by activist standards. He's something of a marijuana
crusader. Not content to limit his cause to a provincial political
party, he founded the federal Marijuana Party of Canada in 1999 and
proceeded to travel the country waging weed war in elections. As the
party's leader he ran against the likes of former Canadian Alliance
leader Stockwell Day, Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, and
former prime minister Paul Martin (he garnered 349 votes against
Martin, finishing sixth behind the Green Party, slightly ahead of the
Marxist-Leninists).

Doctor's orders?

When discussing the Montreal Compassion Club, Saint-Maurice is
surprisingly open. "The Compassion Club is illegal," he says. "I
mean, there are precedents in court, which make it pretty much
impossible to prosecute. But according to the letter of the law, it's
still illegal."

There are more than a dozen compassion clubs, cannabis clubs, and
marijuana buyers' clubs across Canada - Toronto alone has four - and
all of them break the law. As Saint-Maurice explains, it doesn't
matter if his customers have a Health Canada license - there are
still no legal provisions that allow for licensed medicinal marijuana
users to buy from compassion clubs.

At the Montreal Club, Saint-Maurice and his employees play the role
of Health Canada. Potential members present a doctor's letter that
diagnoses them with an illness, and the Club then decides if
marijuana can help treat the symptoms. A prescription for marijuana
is not required.

According to Saint-Maurice, when it comes to verifying a patient's
diagnosis letter the Compassion Club has higher standards than most
pharmacies. "We call the doctor's office and verify their license
number," he says. "We always ask for ID and we keep a record of
everything patients buy."

The Club's web site cites more than 195 chronic conditions that have
been treated with cannabis, and describes the symptoms the drug
alleviates. Among other benefits, marijuana is known to relieve pain
and nausea, reduce muscle spasticity, and decrease seizure frequency
in epileptic patients. Thus, the drug can treat conditions ranging
from AIDS and cancer to anxiety and writer's cramp - for which this
writer is now seriously considering soliciting a diagnosis.

The Club buys its marijuana from a variety of sources, including
patients that have a Health Canada license and grow the drugs
themselves. "They are not supposed to supply us," Saint-Maurice says,
"but they do." Sometimes the Club will even buy weed from people who
walk in off the street. "We have a certain expertise and we test it
out," he says. The Club owns a 60X microscope that they use to
determine the quality of street weed. "The one question I ask
[sellers] is that they are not involved with organized crime," he says.

Taxes present another legal gray area for the Club: how does a
business pay tax if the product it sells is illegal? They don't. A
few years ago a B.C. Compassion Club sued the government to make
marijuana taxable, but the case was thrown out. "If five years down
the road Revenue Canada comes after us," he says, "I'll say, 'where
the hell were you when this case wanted to be tried!'" Besides,
Saint-Maurice believes that marijuana shouldn't be taxed. "It's a
medicine," he says. "All the revenue that we generate goes to help
advance different legalization causes."

In 2000, police tried to shut down Montreal's Club; in a raid, they
confiscated 66 grams of weed and slapped Saint-Maurice with a
trafficking charge. Two years later, a Quebec judge decided that the
charge should be dropped. He ruled that it was unconstitutional to
let some people use medicinal marijuana, but then deny them an
opportunity to get the drug. Three weeks after the ruling, with legal
precedent on his side, Saint-Maurice reopened the Club.

"Everyone gets sick"

As we finish our drinks, Saint-Maurice arranges for Adam Greenblatt,
who refers to himself as the store's "horticultural consultant," to
show me around the Club. Upon entering, I'm immediately overwhelmed
by the sweet smell of marijuana. To the left and right of the
entrance, on the walls, hanging chalkboards quote the day's specials.
"Hammerhead" is selling for $10 a gram and, "M-39," for $8 a gram.
Fun names, for a serious business, but then again, they are selling pot.

The front of the store is separated from the back by a waist-high
display case that features the Club's products, which not only
include straight-up weed, but hash, marijuana pills, and marijuana
cookies. "We have a professional pastry chef that makes most of the
cookies," Greenblatt says, adding, "I make them sometimes."

As we talk, Greenblatt reaches into a display case and pulls out a
bottle containing a thick green liquid. "Tincture," he says. "I make
the tincture as well. It's, like, marijuana soaked in alcohol. You
just chop up a bunch of weed and soak it in alcohol for, like, three
weeks. You leave it in the fridge and shake it up everyday."

He unscrews the top of the bottle to reveal a medicine dropper hidden
inside. "It's in droplet form," he says. "So you can add it to your
coffee or your tea."

Greenblatt takes some marijuana from a plastic container and places
it into the middle of a metallic grinder that looks like a hockey
puck when closed. He rotates the two ends of the puck in opposite
directions, forcing the marijuana through steel forks within the puck
to break it apart.

"The clientele we track varies," he says. "You know, you have your
poor, drug-abusing clients that have contracted hepatitis or HIV. And
you've got your 50-year-old Westmount Jewish women," he says, adding,
"Everyone gets sick."

Greenblatt knocks the now ground-up weed out of the hockey puck and
starts to roll a joint, all the while explaining the differences
between the strains of weed that the Club sells.

"If you have some serious, like, physical pain, we'll probably
recommend something along the Indica lines, for its analgesic action.
Sativas, you'll forget about pain, but it's not taken away," he says,
throwing the now completed joint in his pocket.

Like Saint-Maurice, Greenblatt is quite open about the Club's
activities. "We're actually engaged in civil disobedience, like,
everyday working here," he says. "We're not following any law. We're
selling marijuana from a store. But we'll win in court ultimately."

Rolling with the punches

A week after our initial meeting I call Saint-Maurice; I had
forgotten to write down the exact number of times he's been arrested.

"Hold on," he says, "I always forget the number." I can hear him
counting on the other end of the phone, presumably recalling times and places.

"Either nine or ten times," he finally replies. "Yes, I think it's
nine times. But I've only been convicted five times."

I point out that he is running almost a 50 per cent acquittal rate.
"Yeah," he says, "I guess that's pretty good!"

These days, Saint-Maurice gets arrested less often, possibly because
he has slightly toned down his activism. In 2004, he left the
Marijuana Party and joined the federal Liberals. He's now the
president of the Liberal riding association for Laurier Sainte-Marie,
where his Club is located. "Without naming names," he says, "there
are a lot of people in the Liberal party that enjoy marijuana."

As for the future, Saint-Maurice believes that his fight with the
Montreal Compassion Club will one day lead to a Canada where
marijuana is legal. "Social change happens on the ground and then the
lawmakers catch up," he says. "Whether it's gay marriage, gun control
or abortion, society takes a position way before legislatures act on
it. And I think that's what's happening with marijuana."