RAID CLOSES LOCAL COMPASSION SOCIETY

Police found 840 marijuana plants, cocaine, LSD and $22,000 in
cash.

Two charged in drug raid

A London agency that distributes marijuana for medical use was closed
yesterday after a large marijuana grow operation was discovered inside
a downtown building.

Members of the London police street drug unit found 840 marijuana
plants, marijuana, growing equipment, cocaine, magic mushrooms, LSD
and $22,000 in Canadian and American currency inside four units at 343
Richmond St. in a search on Saturday afternoon, police said yesterday.

The London Compassion Society occupies one of the units searched,
police said.

The drugs have a street value of $968,000, police said.

Peter Young, 36, of St. Thomas and Rob Newman, 45, of London are
charged with several drug offences, including possession of marijuana
for the purposes of trafficking.

The compassion society shared its office space with the London
Wellness Centre, a holistic spa offering alternative services such as
reflexology and massage therapy.

A message on the London Compassion Society's telephone answering
service yesterday said that it will be "closed until further notice."

According to its website, the compassion society's mission is to
"provide natural therapeutic alternatives to those in need and to
encourage a holistic approach to healing and living."

The society is part of a network of similar agencies that have sprung
up across Canada to provide marijuana to people who have obtained
permission from doctors to use it to treat chronic illnesses or help
them cope with pain.

In 2001, the federal government amended drug laws to allow a limited
number of patients to obtain a special exemption that allows them to
possess marijuana for their personal use.

Steve Hoevenaars, who suffered a major head injury in 1998 and spent
two months in a coma, said he has been getting marijuana from the
London Compassion Society for a year.

He arrived at the building to get some marijuana on Saturday morning,
but instead police greeted him, he said.

"They said you can't be getting marijuana off the street corner
(now)," said Hoevenaars, 34.

Marijuana helped restore his sleep pattern, he said, and the society
provided him with safe, legal marijuana.

"What I regret about this is . . . I realize how much it's needed,"
said Hoevenaars, who is a University of Western Ontario urban
development student.

What the centre provided was not "street marijuana," he said -- it was
legal.

"I was doing it very quietly."

Originally the London Compassion Society shared a database of
doctor-approved medicinal marijuana users with the Toronto chapter,
its website says.

But as other chapters were created across the country, the London
society struck out on its own.

A similar club used to operate on Wellington Road.

GROW OPS

Other recent large marijuana grow operation busts across the
region:

- - In January, Elgin OPP found more than 400 marijuana plants worth
about $200,000 on a property on Glencolin Line, north of Aylmer.

- - In October 2006, London police found equipment and 229 marijuana
plants with an estimated value of $229,000 at 578 Highbury Ave.

- - In September 2006, Elgin OPP seized drugs worth more than $600,000
from an address on Furnival Road in West Elgin.

- - In August 2006, a marijuana grow operation was found in an old car
dealership in Sarnia.

- - In July 2006, the largest marijuana bust ever in Chatham-Kent was
discovered by police. More than 1,400 plants with an estimated value
of $1.4 million were found on a rural property near Muirkirk.

- - In May 2006, $4 million in marijuana plants were seized from a home
on Heritage Road in Thames Centre, northeast of London. Almost 4,000
plants were discovered along with magic mushrooms.

- - Also in May, more than $2.2 million in marijuana was seized from a
barn on Thirteen Mile Road in Middlesex Centre. Almost 2,300 plants
were found along with grow equipment.