B.C. MAN GETS LICENCE FOR RECORD NUMBER OF MARIJUANA PLANTS

A B.C. resident has received a Health Canada licence to possess 60
grams of marijuana for daily medical use, allowing him to legally grow
as many as 292 marijuana plants.

The licence provides for possibly the largest quantity ever to be
legalized in Canada, say lawyers in Vancouver and Toronto who have
been involved in high profile marijuana-related court cases.

"It's a large amount. Nobody, not even Sir Walter Raleigh, could smoke
60 marijuana cigarettes a day," Alan Young, an associate professor at
Osgoode Hall law school, said Monday in an interview.

However, Sam Mellace is not smoking joints. He has a liver disorder
and chronic pain from injuries he received in a car accident. He uses
the plant to make skin creams and butter for baked goods. "I do not
smoke it. I need that much marijuana to create the cream and butter
for myself," Mr. Mellace said in an interview.

He grows the plants for the cannabidiol (CBD) and other cannabinoids
that preliminary research shows are effective in controlling his pain,
Prof. Young said. "He has to grow a fair amount of plant product to
get a small amount of cannabinoid compound that he extracts. So he has
a very high licence," he said.

The federal government has issued licences to 4,029 medical marijuana
users, according to the most recent statistics provided on the Health
Canada website. A doctor's authorization is required before a licence
is issued. Health Canada sets the limit based on the medical advice.

The licence exempts medical-marijuana users from Criminal Code
provisions that make possession of the drug illegal. They can buy the
drug from a government supplier, grow their own supply or find someone
to grow marijuana for them. Health Canada limits growers to supplying
the pot to themselves and only two others.

Prof. Young said surveys have shown that most medical marijuana users
have not signed up for the federal program and most of those with
federal licences are not buying the product from the government.
Health Canada is spending a lot of money on a program that does not
work, he said. "It's dysfunctional. It causes enormous problems and
headaches across the country," he said.

Prof. Young has represented numerous medicinal marijuana users charged
with possessing the drug and has also successfully challenged federal
marijuana regulations in court, forcing the government to revise them.

He is working with Mr. Mellace on developing a proposed pilot project
for Health Canada that would allow Mr. Mellace to sell his creams and
butter to other medical marijuana users. Mr. Mellace said he could
provide products for most licensed medical marijuana users. He would
like his company, New Age Medical Solutions Inc., to become the first
legal private-sector source in Canada for medicinal marijuana.

No one at Health Canada was available Monday to comment on matters
related to medical marijuana or Mr. Mellace's licence, Health Canada
spokesman Stephane Shank said.

Mr. Mellace is currently growing marijuana in a rural location about
100 kilometres from downtown Vancouver. During a tour of his
custom-designed facility earlier this year, he had around 250 plants
in various stages of growth. He said he was growing the plants for
himself and others who held Health Canada licences.

He said at that time he had set up the grow-op as a prototype to
illustrate what could be done. He hopes to eventually win federal
approval for a chain of clinics that will dispense medicinal marijuana
products to licensed users. He would also like to distribute the
products in drug stores.

Prof. Young said Mr. Mellace in the past few years has been developing
expertise in production of marijuana and collecting numerous
testimonials from users who say they want his products. "We want to
set up a project where Mr. Mellace's companies would be able to
provide [the marijuana products to] patients directly, at a doctors
request."

Health Canada was approached with the idea of a new source of
marijuana in early December. "We had discussions on whether they would
keep an open mind and consider some of the options and alternatives we
are presenting. The good news is, they clearly expressed an interest
in our ideas and a willingness to keep an open mind. So now I am
preparing proposals for them to review to see if this is a direction
they might want to go in," Prof. Young said

Vancouver criminal defence lawyer Kirk Tousaw, who has represented
numerous medical marijuana users, said he was aware of others who have
applied for licences to possess as much or more than Mr. Mallace.
"Some people are in significant pain and have to take significant
quantity of cannabis to deal with that pain," he said, adding that the
method of ingestion has a lot to do with quantity consumed.

"It brings a lot of relief for a lot of people," he said. "You are
much better off to use cannabis to control pain than opiates, because
of the side effect, such as dependence, addiction, constipation and
liver damage. You do not have anything like that with cannabis," he
said.