WHERE THERE'S SMOKE

Has the Federal Government Just Done a Complete About-Face on Weed
Liberalization?

Following two major setbacks in the fight for access to medicinal
marijuana, some fear the federal government has swung from offering to
supply cannabis and rethinking possession laws to declaring a war on the drug.

Health minister Anne McLellan backed off of the government's medicinal
marijuana program in a speech to the Canadian Medical Association on Aug.
19, just days after police stormed the Toronto Compassion Centre (TCC). The
confluence of those events has raised suspicions that the feds ordered the
raid.

"Something stinks in Canada," says Alan Young, the lawyer representing the
four people arrested at the centre Aug. 13. "We want to find out who gave
the marching orders. We can't have politics interfering in police decisions."

Young suspects the federal government is bowing to anti-marijuana pressures
from south of the border and is not only stalling its own pot project, but
is now cracking down on those helping sick people get the drug. "I know
when the police arrived, to deflect criticism, they said not to get mad at
them and that the orders came from high above," he says. "I want to find
out how high that is."

The Bathurst and St. Clair-area centre distributed medicinal marijuana to
more than 1,300 sick people regularly for more than three years, making it
one of the largest centres of its kind in this part of the world, Young says.

McLellan told the Canadian Medical Association she had "a certain degree of
discomfort" with distributing the pot grown for the experimental government
program in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba.

She said she wants to wait until scientific trials prove pot is safe before
giving the green light to the project, something pot advocates say could
take years.

McLellan's position stands in contrast to previous positions taken by her
cabinet colleagues, justice minister Martin Cauchon and Allan Rock, who as
a former health minister, enacted regulations in 2001 to allow qualified
patients, -- known as federal exemptees -- to use marijuana. Those
regulations were required by a landmark 2000 court ruling recognizing the
right to access medicinal marijuana, but Rock insists he intended to supply
the drug even while clinical trials were taking place.

It was just over a month ago, on July 15, that Cauchon said Canada may
follow Britain's lead and decriminalize marijuana by making simple
possession of small amounts of the drug punishable by tickets and fines,
rather than jail time and a criminal record. Cauchon also told the press
that he "of course" smoked the drug in his youth.

Cauchon repeated those indications as recently as Aug. 12, when he told an
annual meeting of the Canadian Bar Association that the country needs to
rethink crime and punishment, particularly with respect to prosecuting
minor crimes like marijuana possession: "For example, as a society we must
question our motivation when we devote so many of our precious legal
resources to the prosecution of cannabis offences," he said.

However, pot advocates have also been aware of U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) unhappiness with marijuana-liberalization talk in
Canada. In June, U.S. drug czar John Walters warned that it's time to step
up the war on marijuana, not to decriminalize it or move further along the
road to facilitating its use for medicinal purposes.

"[McLellan is] being intimidated by American authorities," says Young. "The
message has been very clear: 'Do not go down this path.' If Canada begins
distributing this marijuana they will implement very stringent controls at
the border, which could be devastating for our trucking industry."

Det. Courtland Booth, of the Toronto Police Service's major drugs unit,
says the police act independently of government and that he's not aware of
any direction coming from outside the police department on the TCC bust.
"We continue to do what we do, nothing really has changed for us," he says.
"The marijuana issue has pretty much been the same since the CDSA
(Controlled Drugs and Substances Act) and the Ministry of Health issued the
exemptions [for some medicinal marijuana users]."

Only people with exemptions are legally allowed to possess, grow and
distribute marijuana, he says. Booth says he's also not aware of any
Toronto police projects aimed at cracking down on medicinal marijuana
clinics. "We're not doing anything more than we normally do."

Patrick Charette, spokesperson for the justice department, says that while
the department's federal prosecutors do work closely with police on drug
cases, he's "not aware" of a special mandate coming down in this case.

"There's a big debate going on right now and there are two parliamentary
committees looking into [marijuana]," he says. "The minister is undertaking
to wait and see the results of these reports."

But Charette could not rule out the possibility that federal prosecutors
were consulted on the TCC bust before it occurred. "They could have been
involved, but the police are the ones enforcing the legislation, we're the
ones doing the prosecution," he says. "I'm not aware of any communication
between the two. It's always their decision to bust."

Warren Hitzig, founder of the TCC and one of the four charged, says his
former clients have been suffering since the bust.

"Now, instead of these people being able to have a clean, reliable source,
they are having to go back to the street," he says.

While Hitzig says the health minister has some "very, very good points"
about smoking not being healthy, he says she has to remember many of those
asking for access are AIDS and cancer patients. "They're extremely
frustrated and frantic," he says. "This impacts on the quality of their lives."

Young says the minister's concerns about smoking are an insult to
terminally ill patients, and notes that while scientists in England are in
the third stage of trials with a marijuana aerosol spray, Health Canada has
shown no interest in exploring the product.

Suffering the many side effects of full-blown AIDS, including nausea and
severe weight loss, Jim Bridges says he doesn't know what he's going to do
without the TCC.

"I am a federal exemptee, and now the government is not supporting this,"
says the 38-year-old. "And now they are also stopping me from having the
access I had at the Toronto Compassion Centre." Bridges said another AIDS
victim he knows lost 15 pounds in the days following the bust at the
centre. "This may be one of the last fights I've got," he says. "It just
makes me want to cry."

Venturing out to the streets at night in hopes of scoring some pot,
meanwhile, has Bridges terrified. "I'm an obviously homosexual man and I'm
scared," he says.

Bridges says, given his situation, he's offended by the health minister's
comments. "Being in a terminal situation [as I am], she would have little
knowledge of the sense of despair," he says. "I understand her concern
because of the carcinogens; however, there must be a way around this."

He says he'd be willing to sign a legal document absolving the government
of any guilt if the pot smoking caused him further health problems.

Bridges is also suspicious about the timing of the health minister's
comments and the Compassion Centre bust. "It's an interesting coincidence,"
he says. "I think there's been pressure from the DEA.... We're so close to
Buffalo and on a Great Lake."

Meanwhile, a second Toronto centre, called CALM (Cannabis as a Living
Medicine), continues to help the people they can, Hitzig says. "I hope they
won't be shut down too," he says.

Philippe Lucas, director of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, says
he was dismayed to hear about the Toronto raid. But he says he's not
worried about his society being the next target. "We were busted 20 months
ago," he says. "We were charged with three counts of trafficking and the
judge gave us an absolute discharge. He said what we were doing was helpful
to society and urged Health Canada to act in good speed to make marijuana
available to those that need it."

Lucas hopes these kinds of forward-thinking verdicts in the courts will
help medicinal marijuana supporters in their fight against the government.
As for the Toronto bust being a result of decisions made at the federal
level, Lucas says he doubts it. "I think it's more linked to an
overreaction to the whole cannabis issue in Ontario," he says.

But he too was offended by McLellan's comments. "It irks me to hear her
talk about her 'discomfort' when I see the discomfort of patients with AIDS
and cancer and other things. I don't think her discomfort measures up."

Ottawa's current regulations spelling out the conditions under which the
use of medicinal marijuana is allowed are impossible to fulfill, says
Young, because doctors have been warned by their insurers not to sign
required medical forms for people wanting the drug.

Young says he will be in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Sept. 19
representing a group of seven people who are suing the federal government
over its medicinal marijuana regulatory regime.

"We're seeking to compel the government to distribute what they've
cultivated," Young says.