CHARTER ALLOWS USE OF POT, CIVIL SUIT SAYS

A group of medical-marijuana users is preparing to take the federal
government to court, charging that marijuana regulations deprive them of
the drug and their constitutional rights.

At a Queen's Park news conference yesterday, the eight applicants said the
civil suit is to be filed in federal court on Tuesday. The suit argues that
the federal government's marijuana regulations are fundamentally
unconstitutional, depriving the applicants of "life and liberty,"
guaranteed under Section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Regulations make it nearly impossible for the seriously ill to obtain
medical marijuana through legal means, the applicants charge.

But the court action could be cancelled if Health Canada agrees to release
the estimated 150 kilograms of marijuana it has cultivated in an
underground laboratory in Manitoba.

The group's lawyer, Osgoode Hall Prof. Alan Young, said the crop should go
to the approximately 1,000 chronically ill Canadians eligible to use the
drug legally.

"There are 200 kilograms of medical marijuana sitting in storage," Prof.
Young said. "Most of that will probably be incinerated." That's a shame, he
added, given the marijuana's relative purity and, hence, its potency.

But the federal government did not intend the crop to be distributed, said
Health Canada spokesman Andrew Swift. It is earmarked for research in
clinical studies in Montreal and Toronto, he said.

The eight applicants also call for Canada to change its new marijuana
medical-access regulations to ensure more seriously ill people are exempted
from prosecution for using the drug. Three of the eight are without that
exemption, although as many as seven suffer from chronic diseases such as
multiple sclerosis and hepatitis C.

The regulations, introduced last July, allow only doctors to extend that
immunity, and only when a patient is sufficiently ill to warrant use of the
drug.

Prof. Young said the regulations are "a hoax" perpetrated on the seriously
ill, most of whom use marijuana as a painkiller. As well, the drug is used
by many AIDS patients to restore appetite.

"Before marijuana, my condition meant constant nausea and partial
paralysis," applicant Catherine Devries said. Ms. Devries said the
nerve-degenerative disease arachnoiditis keeps her virtually confined to
her Western Ontario home. Smoking marijuana has restored her appetite and
increased her mobility, she said.

But insurance companies and some provincial medical associations direct
doctors not to provide patients such as Ms. Devries with exemptions, Prof.
Young said, because of concerns with liability issues and inconsistencies
in dos- ages.

Health Canada shares the medical associations' concerns, Mr. Swift said.
Marijuana's medicinal properties remain largely anecdotal, he added.
"Marijuana is not an approved medical product, as yet.

The research being conducted in Canada now will provide more science-based
evidence."