PATIENTS TAKE POT FIGHT TO COURT

Federal Access Regulations Dubbed 'A Cruel Hoax'

Seven Canadians who use or distribute medical marijuana are asking the
courts to strike down federal access regulations that are "a cruel hoax"
and to order Ottawa to provide them with hundreds of kilograms of pot grown
in an abandoned Manitoba mine.

The regulations, set up to provide sick people with legal access to
marijuana, are unduly restrictive and have made obtaining the drug
difficult because the government is demanding medical declarations that few
doctors will sign, the group of seven told a Queen's Park news conference
yesterday.

Catherine Devries, 43, of Kitchener said she uses marijuana to combat
nausea and loss of appetite resulting from a condition known as
arachnoiditis, which affects the nerve endings in her spinal column and has
left her with loss of bowel function and hooked to an intravenous line 16
to 20 hours a day.

Unable to obtain the necessary declarations from a medical specialist, she
has been forced to turn to black-market marijuana, which at times has been
so contaminated she has ended up in hospital, she said.

"Seriously ill Canadians are going on safari looking for drug dealers in a
black market to provide them with medicine," said Osgoode Hall law school
professor Alan Young, one of four lawyers representing the group.

The government "will do nothing without a court breathing down their neck,"
so "we've decided to strike back," Young said.

In a notice of application filed with the Ontario Superior Court, the seven
are asking that the federal government be ordered to distribute marijuana
harvested from an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, where it was grown
under a $5.7 million government contract for intended use in clinical
trials. Health Minister Anne McLellan recently said the marijuana was too
impure to use.

The government could not obtain standardized seeds from the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration, so it had to rely on seedlings culled from more
than 185 strains seized in Canadian police raids.

Nevertheless, Young said the supply is probably among the safest his
clients have known. They are asking the court to strike down the
regulations on the basis that they violate guarantees of fundamental
justice under the Charter of Rights.

If that happens, the law making it a criminal offence to possess marijuana
would also be wiped off the books, Young said. That's because in July,
2000, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered the federal government to
construct a viable regulatory system within a year or the possession
offence would become invalid. The system that followed was "a cruel hoax,"
Young said.

The government came up with a set of rules that say that, unless a person
wanting to use medical marijuana is terminally ill and expected to die
within a year, he or she must supply declarations from as many as two
medical specialists, who are required to state there are more benefits than
risks in the patient using pot and to recommend a dosage.

The Canadian Medical Association, at least two of its provincial
counterparts and the insurer for Canadian doctors have warned physicians
against signing the declarations.

However, Andrew Swift, a health department spokesperson, said some doctors
have signed.

Since the regulations were introduced last year, 255 people have been
granted permission to use medical marijuana.

Some are terminally ill and needed no declarations, but others did, he said.

In an affidavit filed with the court, Dr. Philip Berger, a Toronto family
physician who treats AIDS patients, said requiring declarations from
specialists "makes little sense" for HIV patients, who tend to be treated
by "a small cadre" of family doctors.

"I do not know what specialists I would refer my patients to," he said.

The requirement that doctors recommend a marijuana dosage "is impossible to
comply with," Berger said, and it would be "reckless" to do so, given
variations in cannabis strains and potency.