DRIVER HIGH ON POT JAILED FOR FATAL CRASH

Judge Rejects Medical Marijuana Excuse, Hands Down Four-Year
Term

EDMONTON - Despite his plea that he's too sick for jail, a thin and
frail James McIlwrick was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for
killing two people in a car crash while he was high on drugs.

The 36-year-old had a blank expression on his face when the judge
handed down the sentence, but his mother wept in the front row of the
courtroom.

His common-law wife hugged him.

On the other side of the courtroom, families of the victims wept,
embracing each other in a circle.

It was a relief that the judge ruled that driving while high on
marijuana is as serious as drunk driving, they said outside court.

"This has been a long time coming," said Shelleen Schultz, whose
sister Tammy Engelking, 27, died in the November 2003 crash. "I'm just
glad that he is finally going to be paying for what he did."

Court of Queen's Bench Judge June Ross said McIlwrick hasn't taken
full responsibility for his actions and instead has been focused on
deflecting blame by using a medical condition as an excuse to smoke
marijuana.

"There were tragic consequences for his chronic use and his decision
to drive while under the influence," she said.

He was sentenced to 48 months, which was reduced to 37 months to take
into account time already served while in custody.

The judge also handed down a 10-year driving ban and ordered
McIlwrick's DNA be entered into Canada's criminal database.

A sentence greater than four years is almost always reserved for
offenders with past impaired driving convictions, she said, and
McIlwrick has no such previous charges.

On Sept. 18, McIlwrick was found guilty of two counts of impaired
driving causing death and two counts of impaired driving causing
bodily harm in connection with a crash that killed Engelking and Henry
Yao, 40, and seriously injured two other passengers.

It was the second conviction on the same charges after his case was
retried this year following a successful appeal.

McIlwrick had borrowed a friend's truck around 7:30 a.m. when, while
high, he drifted into oncoming traffic on Highway 21 near Sherwood
Park.

He smashed head-on into a Jeep driven by Engelking.

The young wife and her three passengers had been carpooling to their
jobs at Shell Canada near Fort Saskatchewan.

During the trial, a medical expert testified that McIlwrick had a
"very high" level of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -- the psychoactive
ingredient in marijuana -- in his blood in a sample taken two hours
after the crash.

His lawyer had argued that McIlwrick's deteriorating medical condition
has left him "almost unrecognizable" by his own family.

The condition led to his regular use of marijuana, he
said.

But the judge found there was no evidence that he had a medical need
for the drug and suggested instead that there was evidence that he had
a drug dependency he has not sought treatment for.

She noted that he has drug convictions that predate his medical
condition, which required surgery in 2002.

"Even if he thought he was using pot for a medical use, that's no
excuse for driving after using it," she said.