COURT DECISIONS ON POT WON'T AFFECT POLICE TACTICS

Medical marijuana advocates in Victoria are enthusiastic that a pair of
rulings brought down in Ontario last week will pave the way for a relaxing
of possession enforcement here.

But the Victoria police department isn't about to change its approach
simply because judges in that province not only threw out a simple
possession charge against a Windsor teen- ager on a technicality, they for
all intents gave the government six months to re-write the law.

"The bottom line is, it's a case which has occurred in Ontario and while it
may be persuasive to B.C. courts, I wouldn't say they have to follow suit,"
says Victoria police Deputy Chief Geoff Varley. He adds that since the laws
on the books have not changed, the department is under no obligation to
change the way it does things.

"Unless we hear something different from the B.C. courts or the Crown,
it'll be business as usual."

In ruling on a class action suit last week, Ontario Superior Court Justice
Sidney Lederman said that Canada's medical marijuana access regulations
were unconstitutional because they, in effect, force people with Health
Canada exemptions to use marijuana to get their pot from "drug dealers". He
gave the federal government six months to fix the regulations to make it
easier for patients to secure medical marijuana.

In the case in Windsor, Ontario, Provincial Court Justice Douglas Phillips
accepted a defence argument that the federal government failed to comply
with the stipulations set out in a 2000 Ontario Court of Appeal ruling --
which went in favour of epileptic marijuana user Terry Parker -- that
called for it to re-write its possession law within a year to allow for
medical exemptions.

Rather than pass a new law through parliament, however, the government
chose to institute the Medical Marijuana Access Regulations. While Health
Canada continues to issue exemptions for medical marijuana use, the
regulations have been the subject of much controversy, given the fact no
amount of the substance has been made legally available through government
sources.

In recent months, federal politicians -- including Justice Minister Martin
Cauchon -- have voiced interest in legalizing simple possession. But with
the government backpedalling on its plans to supply medical marijuana and
Prime Minister Jean Chretien encouraging a cautious approach to the whole
matter, the federal government's position on the matter remains unclear.

While the police are virtually ignoring the decisions, people such as
Phillipe Lucas figure there is cause to celebrate.

"There are so many court cases leading toward the same decision," says
Lucas, spokesperson for the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, which
supplies marijuana for patients from a shop in downtown Victoria. "I think
this is just the Canadian courts saying `you've had your chance and you
haven't acted'."

Lucas says if the personal possession laws were struck down, it would make
the hundreds of members of his society feel a little more comfortable when
they come to purchase marijuana products or use them at home.

Varley admits the Victoria police don't process a lot of simple possession
charges in general and aren't about to engage in a campaign to determine
which compassion club members have legal exemptions to use marijuana and
which don't.

"Our focus remains people who are trafficking and supplying people, mainly
because of their links to organized crime," he says. Varley adds that while
many people might think simple possession is "no big deal", it's a
simplistic argument to say that it stops there.

"Simple possession means that somebody has to provide it and somebody has
to grow it and the people who are mainly involved in growing right now are
organized crime."

Ted Smith, co-founder of the Victoria-based Cannabis Buyers' Club of Canada
- -- the downtown shop that has been raided by police and trafficking charges
sought on several occasions over the past couple of years -- says he can
see compassion clubs being licensed by the government to provide cannabis.

It would mean the government would be in charge of regulating the
distribution, he says, but even that would be better than living in fear of
arrest by the police.

"We've almost been worried about how tightly regulated they might make
things," he says, "but we hope they would use our experience in setting
their policies."

Smith says he wouldn't have expected police to change their tactics when it
comes to simple possession.

He doesn't disagree with Varley's claim that police don't often arrest
people on charges of simple possession, given the amount of police and
court time it takes to process charges.

Smith says for members of his club, that philosophy doesn't necessarily
mean they'll be left alone, since police sometimes use the threat of
possession or trafficking charges as leverage to gain information about the
source of the pot.