NO PROGRESS FOR MAN TRYING TO GET POT BACK

TRURO -- John Cook will have to wait another couple of months to get
his pot back from the authorities.

The medicinal marijuana activist from Halifax has been trying since
May 2005 to get a 500-gram package of marijuana -- valued at $7,500
- -- back from police. Officers seized it as he was trying to ship it
by bus last January to one of his clients in Springhill.

He's been arguing in the courts that Canadian marijuana laws no
longer apply, so he wants them to give back the weed which was held
as evidence against him for possession and trafficking charges filed last year.

"If there are no possession laws and they took my marijuana, then
they stole my stuff," he said.

Cook has been on a legal odyssey, filing an application for return of
the marijuana even before he appeared in court on the drug charges.
The drug charges were eventually stayed but no one seemed to know
what to do with the dope.

The case was referred to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, but a
judge sent it back to provincial court, claiming that the application
was held in the wrong court.

Truro provincial court Judge John MacDougall claimed jurisdiction
over the matter Friday. He will hear whether Cook is lawfully
entitled to the drugs or if the evidence should be destroyed when the
court case resumes on April 28..