OTTAWA'S POT GROWER WILL SUPPLY PATIENTS

Ottawa -- After years of delay, Ottawa will announce today a plan to
use its marijuana grower in Manitoba to supply patients who have been
given the right to use the drug for medical purposes, sources say.

Facing a court-imposed deadline, Health Minister Anne McLellan will
unveil in Edmonton the long-awaited strategy on how the government
plans to release the drug to individual patients who have received
medical exemptions from Canada's possession laws, sources told The
Globe and Mail.

They said Ottawa will use the government marijuana grower at Flin
Flon, Man., to supply patients. The government had previously told the
company, Prairie Plant Systems, that the drug content of its marijuana
was too inconsistent for consumption. It was not clear yesterday
whether the company has fixed the problem, although it had been
working to refine the active ingredient.

Prairie Plant Systems was asked three months ago to begin preparing
one individual supply of the drug for a person who had previously
qualified to take it, a source said.

Advocates for those trying to obtain cannabis warned that the victory
may be short-lived because the government has been dragged kicking and
screaming into the process. At the end of the month, Ottawa is
appealing the court order that forces it to take today's step.

The Ontario Superior Court ruled in January that Health Canada's
medical-marijuana access regulations are unconstitutional because the
government did not provide a way for the drug to be distributed. The
regulations were Ottawa's attempt to respond to an Ontario Court of
Appeal ruling in 2000 that the government's Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act was unconstitutional because it failed to provide an
exception for medical use of marijuana.

The Superior Court judgment gave Health Canada six months to rectify
the situation or the permits for medicinal marijuana users would
become invalid as of today.

Approximately 500 Canadians have received permission to use the
drug.

Currently, patients exempt from the law are allowed to grow the drug
themselves or designate someone to do it for them. However, lawyers
have said the system is imperfect because the act of obtaining seeds
to grow the cannabis is considered trafficking.

Many individuals also don't know where to get a supply, and need the
government to provide it.

Alan Young, the lawyer who brought the case forcing today's move, said
he believes the government will move slowly in releasing the cannabis
in the hope of winning the appeal.

Mr. Young said that, in his own discussions with the department,
officials have been extremely reluctant to release the drug out of
fear that Ottawa may become liable for any dangerous side effects.

"They're doing this with their fingers crossed behind their backs," he
said. "They've been boxed in."

Last night, sources said that medical doctors would have a role to
play in delivering the substance, although it was unclear what that
would be.

Philippe Lucas of Victoria, who has hepatitis C and has received an
exemption permit, said he needed the support of several doctors and
specialists before he got permission to consume the drug.

Medicinal marijuana users, along with several MPs and Senator Pierre
Claude Nolin, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal
Drugs, will protest today in Ottawa and Halifax to demand the
government change its regulations.

Debbie Stultz-Giffin, a 45-year-old mother of four who lives in
Halifax, said Ottawa was making criminals out of sick people by
refusing to change its policies until now.

Ms. Stultz-Giffin was given a medical exemption after her multiple
sclerosis was diagnosed. She says she does not want to go to jail for
buying marijuana, which makes her feel better.

"None of us is optimistic that the government is going to pull the
frying pan out of the fire on this," she said, calling for Ms.
McLellan to resign. "She's abused chronically ill Canadians."

Libby Davies, a Vancouver MP and member of the House of Commons
Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, said it's time to
make marijuana available to those who have the permits, or else the
government is creating a criminal Catch-22.

"They've completely botched up the program," she said. "They make it
impossible for people to get access, and people are suffering as a
result."

In January, Mr. Justice Sidney Lederman of Ontario Superior Court
ruled the existing access regulations unconstitutional.

"Granting an individual immunity from prosecution for possessing
marijuana, but not envisaging any legal means for that person to
obtain his or her drug, is highly problematic," he wrote in his
decision to strike down the regulations.

"Tacitly, the government is relying on a criminal, black-market supply
of marijuana to fill the individual's medical needs."