Calgary cannabis crusader's sentence suspended

[grace]

Grant Krieger's longtime crusade to be able to supply medicinal marijuana to himself and others who suffer from debilitating illnesses may well be over.

 

But the Calgary man's legacy from 13 bumpy years of constitutional fighting has paved a path of change, a Manitoba judge said this week in suspending his sentence for possession for the purpose of trafficking and proceeds of crime.

 

Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg outlined in her written decision a chronology of changes in the law, from the federal government granting exemptions to possess and use the illicit drug to growing it for personal use, that have resulted since Krieger's fight began to use it to alleviate pain caused by multiple sclerosis.

 

She emphasized that Krieger, who had no success with conventional drugs and once attempted suicide before trying marijuana, never sold the drug for the money.

 

He did it, she said, to help himself and other serious or terminally ill people and educate them about the medical use of marijuana through his now-defunct compassion club, the Grant Krieger Cannabis Research Foundation.

 

"Indeed, he had no real victims," Greenberg wrote in a lengthy decision released on Monday.

 

"It is of note that those changes in the law were not the result of political lobbying but of court challenges brought by people like Mr. Krieger," she added.

 

"The fact that Mr. Krieger's acts of civil disobedience have effectively been vindicated make it all the more difficult to determine an appropriate sentence.It is difficult to chastise Mr. Krieger for not using legal methods to effect change when it has been constitutional challenges in the context of criminal prosecutions that have been the stimulant for the changes in the law that he had been advocating."

 

Krieger, 55, was charged with these offences on Jan. 7, 2004, when he was stopped by police as he was driving from his home in Calgary to deliver marijuana to clients in Manitoba.

 

Police seized one pound (454 grams) of marijuana and $4,000 in cash and charged him criminally. He was convicted by a jury in Winnipeg, but avoided dreaded jail time that may have killed him.

 

Greenberg placed him on probation for nine months, to mirror probation remaining from similar Calgary charges.

 

Calgary defence lawyer John Hooker said the judgment "is a vindication that Krieger has done a very good thing here, not a bad thing."

 

"It's a great decision from a humanitarian point of view," said Hooker.

 

Krieger, who at one time was supplying marijuana to 400 other people in Canada through his compassion club, nevertheless spent much of his time and energy fighting in the courts.

 

He took one Calgary conviction right to the Supreme Court of Canada and won a new trial, but now he says he has lost his will to fight.

 

He no longer supplies the drug to anyone else and cannot even take advantage of his judicial exemption to grow pot for his own use, because he fears eviction from his landlord.

 

Author: Daryl Slade

Date: 22 December 2009

Source: Calgary Herald

dslade@theherald.canwest.com

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