HOLY SMOKE STOREFRONT CAUSES REEFER MADNESS

The Holy Smoke Healing Centre Society has found a home here in Chilliwack,
but not everyone is happy about it.

Holy Smoke founder Brian Carlisle said there is a real need for healing in
the community and the fact that medicinal marijuana users have to drive to
Vancouver to buy their medication.

Holy Smoke is designed as a marijuana resource centre and subsidized legal
assistance centre. Carlisle, who is a paralegal and an ordained minister
with several tattoos and piercings, including a marijuana leaf on his right
arm, said he has the entire history of marijuana law in Canada available
for anyone who wants to read it and he will have lawyers coming into the
storefront at Young and Princess to consult on marijuana law.

"The courthouse is right there. It couldn't be a more perfect location,"
Carlisle said.

Holy Smoke is right on the corner, on street level, in an office that used
to be a distribution centre. The windows are painted with green marijuana
leaves and information is taped to the inside, so passersby can read about
marijuana news if the office is not open.

Carlisle hopes to also include a compassion club-an organization that would
sell organic medicinal marijuana to people who legally qualify for it and
who have had their doctors fill out the appropriate paperwork. However, he
said he needs to find a qualified grower before that can happen.

However, the news that Holy Smoke had settled in Chilliwack was a surprise
to some neighbours. Most nearby merchants said they weren't aware of it.

"It's my first day back from holidays," said Joy Kelly, the receptionist at
Terry D. Mitchell CGA, Inc. Mitchell also said he had never heard of it.

Only one business owner, Heather Young of T.L.C. Esthetics, said she knew
about it.

"I'm not happy with it," she said. "We put up with enough down here," she
added, pointing across the street to a nearby pub.

The RCMP were aware of Holy Smoke's presence, but so far had not officially
visited. Spokesperson David Aucoin said they will be continuing with drug
education, including the DARE program in the schools and with enforcement.

If there are any infractions at Holy Smoke, the RCMP would enforce the law,
Aucoin said.

Medicinal marijuana law is in transition. Last summer, the federal
government enacted legalized medicinal marijuana laws for people with
medical issues. It's a three-tier system, Carlisle explained.

The first is for terminal patients, the second for patients with
debilitating illness and the third for patients classified as other.
However, Carlisle said police and prosecutors are still tackling people
with life-threatening or debilitating illnesses who are growing their own
pot or for possession.

In fact Carlisle, who has long used marijuana to ease his glaucoma, had
plants seized and charges laid against him last year. He said a recent
decision, which has not yet been published, sets a precedent that will
clear him and other medicinal marijuana users who are being prosecuted.

"I can't believe they're still prosecuting me over three plants," he said.
"Here's the problem-the same as in World War II when the German and
Japanese soldiers still thought the war was going on and they were still
shooting at us. The police and prosecutors don't understand the war is over
against the sick and they're still attacking us every time we pass by their
foxhole."

So far eight people, all with cancer, have come into Holy Smoke to ask
questions and taken away doctor's forms to be filled out, Carlisle said.

Carlisle himself, an apparently healthy 32-year-old father, who is engaged
to be married, recently found out that he is terminally ill. He said he has
seven painful conditions and it is the marijuana which has been helping him
to remain as healthy as he currently is. One of the more recent diagnosis,
is Erythma Nodosum, a painful swelling in his legs. At first doctors
thought it might be flesh-eating disease and treated it as such, said
Carlisle, who was wearing bandages on his legs and walking with an obvious
limp.

Carlisle's glaucoma was caused by a severe beating when he was 24. He has
also been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and an enlarged heart.

That and other health issues are keeping him from pursuing his dream of
being a lawyer, Carlisle said, so he is devoting his energy to Holy Smoke.

"Chilliwack is going to be the marijuana capital when I'm done," he said.