HOLY SMOKE HOUSE ARREST MORE LIKE A PRISON SENTENCE,
SKOGSTAD

House arrest can be more confining than a jail cell. Former Holy
Smoke owners and marijuana advocates Alan Middlemiss, Paul DeFelice
and employee Kelsey Stratas, recently saw their jail sentences
converted to house arrest by the BC Court of Appeals. But the
conditions of the house arrest currently remain undefined.

"Not being allowed out in the yard is not a condition you ever see
but since they were released without these details being known then
you have to assume that everything that's not permitted is
prohibited," said the men's defense attorney, Donald Skogstad. "Right
now, if you looked at it literally, they can't leave the house if
there's a fire in the house. Prisoners get more rights than they do at
present."

The appeal case, which Skogstad says will set precedence for house
arrest, is mired in an unusual delay by the Crown to apply terms to
the sentence. As it currently stands the trio have a medical release,
which allows them to go to the hospital should an emergency arise. "I
think if they want to stop you from seeing your dentist or other basic
things like that it's cruel and unusual as used in the Charter. I
understand it's a directive out of Vancouver and that directive may
come out of Ottawa," said Skogstad. "The court of appeal said they
should have the usual conditions. We know what the usual conditions
are and they're saying in this case, "Well this time they don't
include the usual things."

The issue most at risk for Skogstad's clients is whether or not they
will allowed to leave the house to go to work. "It's a big deal when
you don't have a lot of savings. You can't get welfare when you're in
jail, which is what this is considered to be, so what do you do to eat
if you don't have savings? If you can't work and you can't get
welfare what do you do? It's all got to be looked at."

It will be June 24 or July 5 before the final ruling is known. "It
will get resolved, there's no question, and the judge is hinting that
he's going to provide a number of reasons for them to be out. We just
can't agree. It's a question of how much freedom they're going to
get, not if."

The big question on Skogstad's mind is why the Department of Justice
is not agreeing to the usual conditions under house arrest. "It's
like pulling teeth to even get the medical out of them. It's sore
loser syndrome."