COMPASSION CLUB TAKES HIGH ROAD

Mark Russell doesn't think sick people should have to hang out in bars or
back alleys in order to get their medication.

He doesn't think they should have to deal with the criminal element in
order to do so, either.

Russell is the driving force behind the Mid-Island Compassion Club, an
organization created to allow cancer patients, AIDS patients and others
facing chronic pain and illness to purchase quality cannabis to help their
condition.

And help, he says, it does.

"It's wonderful as a medicinal herb," he says. "The stories I hear of the
relief people get from it in terms of nausea, pain, stiffness and the
depression people who are sick all the time tend to get are remarkable.
It's not a cure-all. It doesn't cure anything, actually, but it helps."

Russell purchases high quality marijuana from approved producers and then
sells it for a small markup to the 150 people in the area people who find
it gives them relief from their suffering.

"We supply or obtain high-grade, high potency, clean cannabis for people
with injuries or illnesses who have trouble getting it on their own," he
says. "We make it so they don't have to go down to the street corner."

Russell doesn't like the hippie stereotype that inevitably seems to go
along with anything to do with marijuana.

He sees it as medicine - effective medicine - plain and simple.

"I'm trying to get as far away from the whole dope thing as I possibly
can," he says.

"It's a continual battle to let people know that a person with cancer
trying to smoke cannabis is not the same as the picture everyone has about
marijuana."

Russell has been supplying the high-quality cannabis to people in the area
for almost four years now, and he has made a point of letting everyone know
exactly what he's doing, and why.

"From the very beginning I made a point of being up-front about this," he
says. "Shortly after I issued our first news release about opening four
years ago I spoke to the editor of The News and then went to the police
station and spoke to an officer and handed him a copy of the press release.

"Since then I've made at least four other visits. Every time we have
another staff sergeant move in I make a point of introducing myself and
letting them know I'm not some downtown drug dealer, and that I don't get
my supply from bikers or other gangs.

"I try to make it clear there is no criminal intent here, and so far, so good."

Russell says he is strict in his requirement that people prove they have a
need for the herb, demanding paperwork or other clear evidence. "People
have to bring the paperwork in," he says. "They have to show me something.

"People who just want to buy pot don't need to come to me. They can get it
anywhere and probably for a less expensive price than we charge. It's so
abundant. This is Vancouver Island, after all."

Basically, he says, he looks at himself rather like a pharmacy.

"We offer something that the black market can't supply," he says. "We offer
consistency in supply, quality and potency and we take out the criminal
element and the fear."

For more information about the Mid-Island Compassion Club, call Russell at
954-0363.