POT ADVOCATE SOON TO GET OUT OF PRISON

Michael Patriquen, a sickly marijuana advocate simply "doing time" in
prison for conspiring to possess and traffic marijuana, will be released to
a Dartmouth halfway house within days. On Tuesday, the National Parole
Board granted Mr. Patriquen, founder of the Nova Scotia Marijuana Party,
day parole for six months. But Mr. Patriquen, an inmate at Westmorland
Institution in New Brunswick, has not yet returned to Nova Scotia because
he is awaiting bed space at the halfway house.

He was unavailable for an interview Wednesday. But his wife, Melanie
Stephen Patriquen, said she hopes to pick up her husband, who is "doing
horrible," next Tuesday morning.

"He's got pneumonia now, the third week in a row," Ms. Stephen Patriquen
said. "(Prison officials are) giving him absolutely nothing for it. He's
developed hepatitis C, he's got rheumatoid arthritis, his foot is
completely deformed.

"They put him on a liquid protein because he was just deteriorating so
bad." Ms. Patriquen claims her husband contracted hepatitis C in
Springhill while awaiting his transfer to Westmorland.

In an interview last year, Ms. Stephen Patriquen said her husband had lost
more than 50 pounds from his 202-pound frame. But on Wednesday she said
he's regained five or six pounds. "

Like, he looks to me like he's 60-some years old," Ms. Stephen Patriquen
said. "It's quite the sentence he got for a little bit of pot. It just
blows me away."

The 50-year-old father of two began serving a six-year sentence in
September 2002. Since then he has fought to use his legally prescribed
marijuana in jail for neck and back pain sustained in a 1999 car accident.

Police identified the Middle Sackville man as the person responsible for
organizing several large-scale marijuana-growing operations in Nova Scotia
and trafficking in Newfoundland.

But Mr. Patriquen, according to the parole board, disputes those
assertions, instead indicating that the primary reason for his involvement
was to maintain a supply for personal use. Dating back more than 25 years,
Mr. Patriquen has nine convictions, many of them drug-related.

In its decision, the board noted that Mr. Patriquen is not considered to be
violent and has not posed problems in supervision from previous sentences.
It also deemed him a low risk to reoffend. "The central feature of your
case is marijuana use," the board wrote. Despite having Health Canada's
permission to legally possess and consume marijuana, Mr. Patriquen is not
allowed to have any in jail.

The Correctional Service of Canada, which has the right to ban cannabis use
in federal prisons, also claimed it can't legally buy the drug. But that
changed last July 9 when Ottawa announced it would sell marijuana to those
with federal exemptions.

Mr. Patriquen had applied to the Federal Court to force the correctional
service to honour his Health Canada exemption and intends to go forward
with a hearing set for early April.

Because local police opposed Mr. Patriquen's release and predict his
reinvolvement in the drug trade, the board imposed a special condition that
he not associate with people involved in the drug trade or other
criminals. "By and large, you are simply 'doing time,'" the board wrote.
"It is likely that you have mellowed somewhat since first incarcerated but
whatever changes that have transpired have resulted in introspection and/or
the result of reflection on family matters. "The power of the latter cannot
be underestimated, as there is every indication that you have maintained an
active role."

The board believes that the impact Mr. Patriquen's absence had on his
family has been a strong influence and "one that should insulate you from
the temptations of the drug trade."

Mr. Patriquen is awaiting sentencing on proceeds of crime charges and has
pending tax evasion charges.