OTTAWA ENDANGERING LIVES OF THE SERIOUSLY ILL: LAWYER

The federal government is endangering the lives of seriously ill
Canadians by forcing them into the black market to obtain marijuana
for medicinal use, Ontario's highest court was told yesterday.

Lawyer Alan Young told the Ontario Court of Appeal that Ottawa is
violating the constitutional right of Canadians to choose their own
medical treatment by not making the illegal narcotic available. He
represents seven seriously ill Canadians and the operator of a Toronto
compassion club that supplied weed to the sick.

"If you can't access the drug of choice there is no choice," said Mr.
Young, who represents seven seriously ill Canadians and the operator
of a Toronto compassion club which supplied the weed to the sick.

Yesterday's hearing before the appeal court marked the latest legal
battle over whether the federal government should provide marijuana to
those who are prescribed it to ease their pain when other treatment
has failed.

The three appellate judges were asked by lawyer Croft Michaelson,
acting for the Department of Justice, to overturn a lower-court ruling.

The January decision by Mr. Justice Sidney Lederman of the Ontario
Superior Court concluded that the patients' rights to life, liberty
and security of the person under section 7 of the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms were violated because they were forced to buy their
medication on the streets.

Judge Lederman gave the federal government six months in which to pass
regulations to ensure a legal supply of pot to medical users or see
its entire marijuan-possession law struck down.

Mr. Michaelson asked the court to overturn Judge Lederman's ruling
because the constitution does not oblige the federal government to
distribute pot.

"Section 7 does not require the government to establish a legal source
of unproved drugs because individuals choose to use them," he said,
adding that Judge Lederman erred in requiring the government to
establish a safe, legal supply.

"This case is not about deprivation," he said.

The act that Judge Lederman found invalid, the Medical Marijuana
Access Regulations, was passed in 2000 to replace the Controlled Drugs
and Substances Act which the Ontario Court of Appeal had ruled
unconstitutional because it failed to provide exceptions for the
medical use of marijuana.

Terry Parker, who won in that case, was one of the parties in
yesterday's hearing.

Outside court, Mr. Young said the outcome of this case, and likely an
appeal by the losing party to the Supreme Court of Canada is important
because "we may be on the cusp of discovering the 21st Century panacea."

Marijuana, he added, is a product that "will have more universal applications
than aspirin."