POT CRUSADER BEATS DRUG CHARGE

Campaign Has Led To Altered Laws

Grant Krieger's longtime crusade to supply medicinal marijuana for
himself and others who suffer from debilitating illnesses may be over.

He says he's tired of fighting.

But the Calgary man's legacy from 13 bumpy years of constitutional
sparring has paved a path of change, a Manitoba judge said this week
in suspending his sentence for possession for the purpose of trafficking.

Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg outlined in
her written decision a chronology of changes in the law that have
resulted since Krieger's fight began to use marijuana to alleviate
pain caused by multiple sclerosis.

The changes include the federal government granting exemptions to
possess and use the illicit drug -- and eventually permitting
patients to grow it for personal use.

She emphasized that Krieger, who had no success with conventional
pharmaceuticals and once attempted suicide before trying marijuana,
never sold the drug for the money.

He did it, she said, to help himself and other seriously, or
terminally, ill people. He educated them about the medical use of
marijuana through his now-defunct compassion club, the Grant Krieger
Cannabis Research Foundation.

"Indeed, he had no real victims," Greenberg wrote in a lengthy
decision. "It is of note that those changes in the law were not the
result of political lobbying, but of court challenges brought by
people like Mr. Krieger."

"The fact that Mr. Krieger's acts of civil disobedience have
effectively been vindicated make it all the more difficult to
determine an appropriate sentence.

"It is difficult to chastise Mr. Krieger for not using legal methods
to effect change when it has been constitutional challenges in the
context of criminal prosecutions that have been the stimulant for the
changes in the law that he had been advocating."

Krieger, 55, was charged on Jan. 7, 2004, when he was stopped by
police as he was driving from his Calgary home to deliver marijuana
to clients in Manitoba.

Police seized 454 grams of marijuana and $4,000 in cash and charged
him criminally. He was convicted by a jury in Winnipeg but avoided jail time.

Greenberg placed him on probation for nine months, to mirror
probation remaining from similar Calgary charges.

Calgary defence lawyer John Hooker said the judgment "is a
vindication that Krieger has done a very good thing here, not a bad thing."

"It's a great decision from a humanitarian point of view," said Hooker.

Krieger, who at one time was supplying marijuana to 400 people in
Canada through his compassion club, nevertheless spent much of his
time and energy fighting in the courts.

He took one Calgary conviction right to the Supreme Court of Canada
and won a new trial, but now he says he has lost his will to fight.

He no longer supplies the drug to anyone else and cannot even take
advantage of his judicial exemption to grow pot for his own use,
because he fears eviction from his landlord.

"What she said is a pretty scathing decision on the government," said
Krieger. "You can't get a doctor to sign a form for a medical
marijuana exemption, because insurance companies say anyone who does
will lose their coverage."

Krieger said he will not buy marijuana from a registered government
supplier because of the "poor quality" of the product.

However, he added, the last time he bought from the black market, he
spent $800 on a quarter pound of pot that was chock full of fertilizer.

So, now the man who helped open many doors for medicinal marijuana
users in Canada rarely leaves his rented home, except to pick up his
disability pension cheque, buy groceries and walk his dog.

"I don't even like walking out of my house, because I'm afraid I'll
get harassed by cops," said Krieger. "I can't handle harassment
anymore. I'm at my wit's end. I've become a hermit and my family is
mad at me for that."

The judge said Krieger always made sure the people to whom he sold
marijuana were suffering from a major illness.

"While he might be considered reckless by effectively 'playing
doctor,' there is no evidence that he caused anyone any harm," she wrote.