MARIJUANA CHARGE DEFEATED

Lawyer Argued Law Doesn't Exist

VANCOUVER -- Phone calls are flooding the office of a B.C. lawyer who
successfully argued his client couldn't be prosecuted because the law
governing marijuana possession no longer exists.

"I've been photocopying madly my book of authorities, which I've filed
to pass around to other lawyers and they've been phoning me almost
non-stop since this judgment came down to get copies of it," Troy
Anderson, a lawyer in suburban New Westminster, said yesterday.

Before his client, Kurtis Lee Masse, entered a plea on pot possession
allegations stemming from earlier this year, Anderson brought forward
an application arguing there was no such offence, relying on an
Ontario Court of Appeal ruling from 2000.

"It was successful, so I would expect and -- from what I've been
hearing from other defence lawyers -- other people are bringing the
same sort of application," said Anderson.

Judge Patrick Chen wrote that, in his view, "Section 4 of the
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, as it applies to marijuana,
ceased to be valid legislation after July 31, 2001."

The date refers to the expiry of a one-year grace period set by the
Ontario court in making its ruling in the earlier case. Chen wrote
that the Ontario decision "severed the marijuana possession
prohibition from other parts of Section 4 of the Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act and declared it to be invalid, but suspended the
declaration of invalidity for a period of one year 'to provide
Parliament with the opportunity to fill the void."'

Government lawyers are looking at whether to appeal Chen's ruling,
said a spokeswoman for the federal Department of Justice's B.C. region.