POT GROWER FIGHTS TO SAVE HER HOME

Former North Vancouver Realtor Insists Forfeiture Rules Should Only
Apply To Members Of Organized Crime

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

Craig is one of three Canadians -- two from B.C. and one from Quebec
- -- challenging the seizure of homes in which they grew pot, a penalty
that is increasingly levied following changes six years ago to federal
drug laws.

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," Craig's lawyer, Howard
Rubin, argues in a Supreme Court brief that describes her as "a minor
cog in a broader sociological problem."

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 small
two-storey home. It was valued at $460,000 at the time of her 2005
sentencing.

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

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

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

The Crown rejects 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.

Craig ran a commercial operation in which she employed "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, says the brief.

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

The bench will also weigh in Thursday in the appeal of Kien Tam
Nguyen, who was ordered to forfeit his Surrey home after he was found
guilty of running a marijuana grow-operation. In another case on the
same day, the court will decide if the Quebec Court of Appeal was
right to order the partial forfeiture of Yves Ouellette's home after
he was convicted of growing pot.