MENOPAUSE MEDICATION BRINGS CRIMINAL CHARGES

Marijuana is supposed to ease the nausea from a variety of conditions.
For Carrie Hooper - who pleaded guilty to possession in Port Hope
court May 25 - it was menopause.

Federal Crown attorney Marc Bebee described how, on January 18, the
Kawartha Combined Force Drug Unit executed a search warrant on Mrs.
Hooper's Colborne home in the early afternoon. The 47-year-old accused
answered the door, and the only other person present was a
home-renovation worker unaware of what all the fuss was about.

"The officers found marijuana soaking in isopropyl alcohol, which is
the process used to make resin," Mr. Bebee stated.

There was a five-gallon pail in a bedroom, with a filter on top that
contained a quantity of marijuana leaves. In a hot-tub room, there was
another five-gallon pail with 556 grams of marijuana leaves.

Two hydroponic grow lights were in an empty room, and nine were in
cardboard boxes in the garage. An electric frying pan in the kitchen
contained a substance suspected to be trace amounts of resin.

Defence counsel Bruce Olmstead said his client suffers from arthritis
and the nausea associated with menopause.

Besides, he said, it takes quite a quantity of leaves and stalks to
yield very little resin.

As a woman who supports herself on a part-time job, Mr. Olmstead
added, "she very simply can't afford to buy marijuana, and she gets
the leaves from friends."

"I am sorry for this situation," Mrs. Hooper told Justice Robert
Graydon. "I do find that it does help me."

"You should apply to your doctor for a medical exemption," Justice
Graydon suggested. Mrs. Hooper said she had since done so.

"She is at or near the poverty level, and I'd rather have her put
something back into the community," he said, handing down a suspended
sentence with a 60-hour community-service order as a condition of her
one-year probation.

All items seized will be forfeited, and Mrs. Hooper is also subject to
a 10-year weapons prohibition.