POT POSSESSION ILLEGAL AGAIN

TORONTO - Possessing small amounts of pot is illegal again in Ontario after
an appeal court ruling yesterday struck down parts of Ottawa's medicinal
marijuana program.

In the process of striking provisions it deemed unconstitutional, the
Ontario Court of Appeal sealed a legal loophole opened in January that had
rendered Canada's pot-possession laws virtually unenforceable.

"That little gap that we had in Ontario where the law did not exist and
police could not arrest you for smoking (marijuana) is over,'' lawyer Alan
Young said outside court.

The court upheld an earlier Ontario Superior Court ruling that found
patients who qualified under the program were unfairly restricted in
obtaining a safe, legal supply of the drug.

But it stopped short of the remedy many marijuana advocates had been hoping
for: striking down the law in its entirety.

Instead, the three-judge panel nimbly singled out and struck down specific
provisions of the federal Marijuana Medical Access Regulations in order to
restore the plan's constitutionality.

Those provisions restricted licensed growers from receiving compensation for
their product, growing the drug for more than one qualified patient and
pooling resources with other licensed producers.

It also struck down a requirement that sick people get two doctors to
validate their need to use marijuana.

The appeal court agreed with a lower court ruling in January that deemed the
government's regulations unconstitutional because they forced participants
to either grow their own pot or buy it on the black market.

"The interests of justice are best served by removing any uncertainty as to
the constitutionality of the possession prohibition while at the same time
providing for a constitutionally acceptable medical exemption,'' the
three-judge panel said in a written decision.

"The law did not exist in the past several months because of problems with
the medical program,'' Young explained.

"(Yesterday), the court fixed the problems with the medical program, so if
the medical program is operating constitutionally then the criminal law also
operates constitutionally.''