POT LEGALIZATION CRUSADER RELEASED FROM JAIL

A woman who spent months in jail fighting Canada's pot laws has been
released after being found guilty of growing and trafficking marijuana.

Edith Noreen Evers, founder of the North Island Compassion Club, was
sentenced to time served after spending a total of about five months
in pre-trial custody, some of it in hospital, as her case wound its
way through the court system.

Evers was arrested in the fall of 2006, after Comox Valley RCMP raided
her Black Creek farm and chopped down dozens of marijuana plants that
ranged in height from four to seven feet.

A few of the plants had been grown legally for Bruce Webb, a military
veteran who has a licence from Health Canada to consume marijuana to
deal with the pain associated with neurological damage he suffered in
1999.

But Webb's licence expired 18 hours before the raid. Evers did not
have a licence to grow the other pot plants, although she insists they
were for distribution to patients who require marijuana to deal with
medical issues.

Since then, Evers has been attempting to put arguments before the
court that she says prove that Canada's pot laws are invalid due to
prior court decisions that found them unconstitutional.

In fact, Evers could easily have been released from jail or given a
small fine had she pleaded guilty early in the case -- she admits that
she was producing and selling marijuana -- but she insisted on
attempting to force the courts to deal with her arguments.

She was so insistent that, at one point, she was declared unfit to
stand trial due to emotional outbursts in court. Supreme Court Justice
I. Josephson said that was a mistake.

"This is a sad case indeed," he said. "Ms. Evers is an intelligent
person but appears, to a non-expert such as myself, to have emotional
issues."

After some time in the health system, medical practitioners determined
that Evers was in fact fit for trial, as she has insisted all along.

Josephson did not, however, find her arguments that Canada's pot laws
were invalid compelling.

He said that the courts have determined that the federal government
has effectively addressed the constitutional deficiencies identified
through prior case law through changes to the medical marijuana
regulations.

Evers was clearly disappointed in the outcome, despite the fact that
she would immediately be released form jail.

Her son Wilhelm said his mother has endured significant mental and
physical hardship in jail but refused to back down from what she
considers a necessary fight.

"She's a firm believer that medical marijuana should be accessible to
those who are in need of it," said Wilhelm. "The current level of
government accessibility, it's really not accessible."

Webb said that not only is government-grown pot poor quality, but the
heavy bureaucracy and delays associated with getting permission to use
the substance send most users to street dealers.

"It was very low quality, I had to use twice as much as I did from the
compassion club," said Webb. "The last estimate I think was that over
400,000 Canadians use medical marijuana. Health Canada estimates over
400,000. Doctors know.

"And I think there are 2,000 licensed Canadians. Where are all these
people getting their medicine from?"

The provincial Crown also stayed several charges against
Evers.

Wilhelm said that he expects his mother to continue the fight against
Canada's pot laws, perhaps through civil litigation.