CANADA: Ottawa's monopoly on pot over

[Alison Myrden]

Ottawa's monopoly on pot over

– Court dismisses federal appeal

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By BRETT CLARKSON, SUN MEDIA

 

28th October 2008

 

Alison Myrden, who eats, drinks, and smokes 50 grams a day of medical pot, couldn't be happier that the federal government's marijuana monopoly has gone up in smoke.

 

Myrden, 44, was one of several medicinal marijuana users who yesterday watched as appeal court judges dismissed Ottawa's bid to keep the medical pot supply chain limited to one grower per smoker.

The controversial Health Canada one-grower-per-patient regulation was struck down in January by federal court Justice Barry Strayer, who ruled the restriction was unconstitutional.

 

Yesterday, federal lawyers Sean Gaudet and James Goreham mounted the government's appeal of Strayer's ruling. Because Strayer's ruling was under appeal, the Health Canada regulation was still in effect until yesterday's decision. Gaudet and Goreham argued the one-to-one policy was required to ensure against the pot from licensed growers straying illicitly into the open market.

 

However, the three judges, John Maxwell Evans, Karen Sharlow, and C. Michael Ryers, didn't buy it. They dismissed the appeal after the lunch break, reducing the scheduled one-day hearing to a half-day.

 

And while the tight-lipped government lawyers -- who declined to comment -- started packing up, the pro-medicinal marijuana advocates cheered and congratulated lawyers Alan Young and Ron Marzel, who were representing 30 patients seeking the right to buy pot from a Smiths Falls grower called Carasel Harvest Supply Corp.

 

Yesterday's ruling means that licensed medical pot smokers are no longer restricted to getting their weed from a grower who only provides bud to them.

"We all want the same thing ultimately and that's our freedom. That's what it boils down to, the freedom to be able to do what we want without government intervention," Myrden said.

It also means that the much-maligned green grown in Manitoba by a federally contracted grower is no longer the only supplier who can provide weed to more than one person.

 

Myrden adamantly refuses to smoke the government-issue weed grown in Flin Flon by Prairie Plant Systems.

"I've tried it, it's garbage," said Myrden, a former corrections officer who smokes to combat symptoms of chronic progressive multiple scleroris. "It's absolutely disgusting, it's sticks and seeds and stems, I can't believe they'd make us smoke that as medicine."

 

Myrden, who also suffers from a rare facial condition she says causes "violent pains," has a government licence to grow her own. She consumes 50 grams a day by eating it, drinking it in tea, and smoking 30 joints.

Outside court yesterday, Young called on Health Canada to adopt more open-minded policies surrounding medicinal marijuana.

 

"It's time for Health Canada to recognize that medical marijuana is an established part of the regimen of a lot of patients," Young said. "Instead of thwarting patient needs, they should be accommodating patient needs. Hopefully this case will be a signal to them. Quite frankly, they've lost almost every round (in court)."

 

(© 2008 The Toronto Sun)

 

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[Alison Myrden]

A few articles from our Court win this week in Canada...

 

Check them out.

 

Love and stuff,

 

 

Alison

xx

 

 

 

 

Canadian medical pot monopoly overturned

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Oct. 28, 2008

 

TORONTO, Oct. 28 (UPI) --

 

A Canadian federal appeals court has overturned the government's monopoly of saying where medical marijuana users can buy their legal supply.

 

A three-judge panel in Toronto took just half a day to strike down the government's policy of one marijuana grower per legal user, Sun Media reported.

 

The judges said they weren't persuaded by government arguments that growers supplying more than one patient would lead to an unregulated industry, the Canwest News Service reported.

 

Authorized users who can't grow their own marijuana previously had to designate a grower, or obtain government-issued marijuana supplied by Prairie Plant Systems in Manitoba, who grows the plants in an abandoned mine.

 

There are about 2,000 people in Canada who are allowed to smoke, brew and eat marijuana to alleviate pain from various diseases. Government statistics show 20 percent buy it from the Manitoba supplier, the report said.

Alison Myrden, a former corrections officer who legally smokes, said the Manitoba marijuana is substandard.

 

"It's absolutely disgusting, it's sticks and seeds and stems, I can't believe they'd make us smoke that as medicine," she told the Sun.

 

 

 

(© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

[WantDaChronic]

good on ya for sticking it to them alison

[brick]

Well done Allison.

[smokinjoe]

Myrden, who also suffers from a rare facial condition she says causes "violent pains," has a government licence to grow her own. She consumes 50 grams a day by eating it, drinking it in tea, and smoking 30 joints.

Outside court yesterday, Young called on Health Canada to adopt more open-minded policies surrounding medicinal marijuana.

 

Well done.

 

This made me laugh though, how on earth can one consume near enough 2 ounces of pot daily. me thinks she might be helping some other 'medicinal' users out.

[Naycha]

Congrats, that is great news Alison

 

"It's absolutely disgusting, it's sticks and seeds and stems, I can't believe they'd make us smoke that as medicine," she told the Sun.

 

Good on you for letting the public know what a poor job the federally contracted grower is doing