ACTIVIST DOESN'T GET OUT OF JOINT

RETIRED Pembroke lawyer Rick Reimer believes he puffed his way to a
pot-smoking landmark this weekend when Ottawa jail guards allowed him
to smoke dope in detention.

Reimer, a marijuana activist, was arrested at a Saturday morning G-20
protest in downtown Ottawa and spent about 17 hours in a courthouse
cell.

He said police grabbed him when he refused to hand over a gas mask to
an officer.

When they got to the Elgin St. courthouse, he showed police a letter
that gives him an exemption to smoke grass and demanded to keep his
stash.

"I've got a right to this, I'm taking this with me," he said he told guards.

Reimer, who has multiple sclerosis, is one of a select group
Canadians allowed to grow and possess a tiny amount of pot for
medicinal purposes. He said it helps him fight nausea, ward off
fatigue and generally improve his quality of life.

The guards relented and locked him away with only the four joints to
keep him company.

But there was one hitch, he said.

"They wouldn't let me have matches."

So, after much hollering a guard finally arrived with matches and fired him up.

"That was the silver lining, they let me smoke marijuana in jail," he
said. Reimer now believes he could be the first person to smoke up
legally in jail. He's pretty sure he has the Canadian record and
maybe the world record too.

Reimer only had 2-3 grams of marijuana with him when he was arrested,
barely enough to make it through the ordeal.

Knowing he was in short supply, his girlfriend and a friend soon
arrived at the front desk of Ottawa Police headquarters and asked
that they pass along a little more to the caged crusader.

"She knew I'd run out," he said, adding that the bewildered front
desk officer refused to pass along the illicit delivery.

Reimer was never charged and was released the next morning at about
4:30 a.m. He said he's concerned about his treatment and the basis of
his arrest and has sent a letter to Ottawa Police Chief Vince Bevan,
his MP and MPP to complain.

He's also concerned about the way police treated some of the young
demonstrators at the protest.