FORFEITURE OF GROW-OP HOMES LANDS ON SUPREME COURT'S DOCKET

Conflicting Rulings Previously Issued By Lower Courts

Judy Ann Craig, a former realtor with a golden touch for gardening,
will try to convince the Supreme Court of Canada tomorrow that being
forced to forfeit her North Vancouver home for running a marijuana
grow-op is extreme punishment for her crime.

Ms. Craig is one of three Canadians -- two from British Columbia and
one from Quebec -- challenging the seizure of homes in which they grew
marijuana, a penalty that has been toughened since federal drug laws
were changed in 2002.

The 58-year-old horticulturalist contends that running a small-scale
operation, mainly in her basement, should not warrant the same harsh
penalties imposed for large, sophisticated businesses controlled by
organized crime.

"Forfeiture of a residence of someone at retirement age with no record
is severe and destroys hope of rehabilitation," Ms. Craig's lawyer,
Howard Rubin, argues in a Supreme Court brief that describes her as "a
minor cog in a broader sociological problem."

Ms. Craig, who says she started growing marijuana at the urging of an
HIV-infected friend a decade ago, pleaded guilty in 2003 after police
seized 186 marijuana plants.

She received a conditional sentence and a $115,000 fine, but, since
she had no other assets and owed $250,000 in unpaid taxes from her
ill-gotten earnings, the court ordered the forfeiture of her
two-storey home, valued at $460,000 at the time of her 2005 sentencing.

Mr. Rubin will argue that federal forfeiture laws for drug crimes
should not apply to Ms. Craig, whom he described in court testimony as
an "independent" entrepreneur.

The B.C. Court of Appeal, in ruling against Ms. Craig, said she was
the operator of "a successful commercial operation that grossed over
$100,000 a year."

Ms. Craig testified in court that she started growing marijuana in
1998 because she was depressed from a divorce several years earlier
and "I needed a challenge to kickstart me out of this state." She said
she used her earnings to beautify her clematis-enveloped garden, which
was featured in Gardens West magazine in 2002.

The Crown rejects Ms. Craig's assertion that forfeiture of her house
is too harsh.

"Although the substance was marijuana and not a more dangerous
substance like cocaine or heroin, the (courts) in British Columbia
have accepted that grow operations in residential neighbourhoods
present significant dangers to the community," says a court brief from
federal lawyers Francois Lacasse and Paul Riley.

Ms. Craig ran a commercial operation employing "hired hands" and sold
marijuana in ounce, half-pound and one-pound quantities, generating
hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal revenue over five years,
the federal brief says. She also substantially altered her property
for her illicit business.

The Crown says Parliament amended the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act in 2002 to mandate seizure of "offence-related property" to
reflect society's "abhorrence" for problems associated with the drug
trade.

The Supreme Court is expected to clarify the law for the lower courts,
which have handed down conflicting rulings in part because of a caveat
that gives judges leeway if they think forfeiture is disproportionate
to the crime.

The bench will also weigh in tomorrow in the appeal of Kien Tam
Nguyen, ordered to forfeit his home in Surrey, B.C., after being found
guilty of running a marijuana grow-op, and it will decide whether the
Quebec Court of Appeal was right to order partial forfeiture of Yves
Ouellette's home after he was convicted of growing marijuana.