JUDGE GIVES POT ACTIVIST LIGHTER TERM

A medicinal pot activist convicted of drug trafficking acted "purely
out of compassion" and not for his own financial gain, a judge said yesterday.

Grant Krieger "felt that, but for him, his clients would be forced to
suffer without relief or to resort to obtaining the product on the
street," said Justice Shaun Greenberg.

Krieger, a 55-year-old Calgary man, was convicted in Winnipeg last
year of drug trafficking in connection with a 2004 incident in which
RCMP pulled him over in Headingley and seized about one pound of
marijuana and $3,925 cash from his vehicle.

He has multiple sclerosis and can legally possess marijuana. Krieger
did not dispute the charge but argued he did not sell pot for profit
and was supplying the marijuana to a distributor in Selkirk who
provided it to terminally ill and extremely sick clients who used it
as medicine.

Last March the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned a four-month jail
term Krieger received for a similar offence at almost the same time
as his Manitoba charges. The court instead imposed an 18-month
suspended sentence and probation.

Greenberg rejected a Crown recommendation Krieger receive a
conditional sentence and instead imposed a sentence of nine months
probation, to be served concurrent with the remainder of his Alberta sentence.

"A conditional sentence is a sentence of incarceration, albeit served
in the community, and carries with it a degree of punishment and
denunciation that is not warranted in this case," Greenberg said.

Krieger has similar convictions dating back to 1999. Following a 2000
court challenge, he was granted a constitutional exemption to allow
him to grow marijuana for his own use.