SOINTULA'S MARIJUANA-LAW HUNGER STRIKER DIES

Sointula's Istvan Marton, who was on a hunger strike to protest
Canada's marijuana laws, has died of heart failure. He was 69.

His doctor, Jane Clelland, confirmed that Marton died Sunday in Port
McNeill Hospital. He had refused to eat for more than a month.

His hunger strike divided his home village on Malcolm Island off the
northeast coast of Vancouver Island, where he was known as Steve, the
local fair-deal marijuana seller.

Friends described him as a respected community supplier of medical and
recreational marijuana. But others dismissed him as a drug dealer on a
hunger strike to stay out of jail.

Marton was facing a charge of possession of a controlled substance and
breaching a conditional sentence from a conviction for the same offence.

"I am going to die," he told the Times Colonist for a story published Sunday.

"Even if the charges are dropped, I won't stop the hunger strike until
they put back all my marijuana exactly where it was and give me back
my $3,000 and change the law."

Clelland said Marton was already unwell with kidney problems and
vascular disease before he began subsisting on nothing but juice,
water and clear soup.

He was taken to Port McNeill Hospital last Tuesday after suffering a
major heart attack.