POT COOKIES, POT BUTTER: LINGO OF COMPASSIONATE CANNABIS BUYERS CLUB

Mark Russell's stress level has risen significantly over the last few months.

That's almost ironic, given that he is the founder of the Coombs chapter of
the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada.

One of the conditions some of his customers use the marijuana they obtain
through the club for is to relieve stress.

The former owner of The Hemp Store - Russell has given up the store in
large part because of the demands of operating the cannabis club - knows he
is operating outside the strict letter of the law with the club, which
provides marijuana to those who can demonstrate chronic pain or
debilitating illness, usually with a doctor's note or a prescription for
other medication.

And given the fact Ted Smith, the founder of the original Cannabis Buyers
Club in Victoria, has been visited by police three times in the past four
months, Russell knows the risk for him is real. But it's one he's willing
to take, he says, more than once if necessary.

That's because he wants to make sure the club keeps operating for the 100
members currently signed up, make sure they have access to the drug they
see as medicine.

"It's nice to be able to go to a place that's somewhat legitimate," says
Nicky, one of the club's members.

She has fibromyalgia, among other disorders, and marijuana is one of the
few drugs that provides relief, and with no side effects.

Not only does it reduce her pain, but it also controls her nausea and helps
improve her appetite. Her doctor wrote her a prescription for the drug, to
allow her to become a member of the club.

Her mother, an elderly woman who says she's allergic to the smoke from
marijuana, supports her daughter, and will come and pick up a supply from
the cannabis club when her daughter can't.

"They don't do it to get high, they do it for relief," she says.

Wendy is a grandmother drawing a disability pension. Like Nicky, she
suffers from fibromyalgia. Before starting to use marijuana - she usually
eats two 'pot cookies' a day, and have a couple of tokes - she says she was
taking 11 Tylenol 3s with codeine a day, as well as anti-inflammatory
drugs. She doesn't take any now.

While talking at the compassion club, she sips a cup of hot chocolate with
a half-gram of pot butter mixed in. Before starting her drink "the
tightness was like this," she says of the pain in her hands, making a tight
fist. "Now it's loosening up."

Neither of them have applied for the federal licence that would allow them
to use the drug legally, in part because the process would require them to
open their homes to random searches, says Nicky.

Besides, the government has changed how it plans to dispense the marijuana
it has grown for medical use.

Federal health minister Anne McLellan has indicated the medical marijuana
must go through clinical trials before it will be released to the public.
Russell says those seeking a permit to legally use marijuana for medical
reasons are now being told they have to become part of the trial, and that
means they might receive a placebo rather than the drug itself.

Even those who already have a licence find themselves in a bind. Without
the government's medical marijuana supply, they have no legal way to obtain
the drug, because it is still illegal to buy the substance from other
people, and there is no legal supply of seed to grow your own.

Which is why Russell thinks he still has a role.

"If they're not going to give or distribute the marijuana to those people,
then they should let us do it."