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Menopause Medication Brings Criminal Charges
By Hempology | June 4, 2007
Port Hope Evening Guide
June 3/07
Marijuana is supposed to ease the nausea from a variety of conditions. For Carrie Hooper – who pleaded guilty to possession in Port Hope court May 25 – it was menopause.
Federal Crown attorney Marc Bebee described how, on January 18, the Kawartha Combined Force Drug Unit executed a search warrant on Mrs. Hooper’s Colborne home in the early afternoon. The 47-year-old accused answered the door, and the only other person present was a home-renovation worker unaware of what all the fuss was about.
“The officers found marijuana soaking in isopropyl alcohol, which is the process used to make resin,” Mr. Bebee stated.
There was a five-gallon pail in a bedroom, with a filter on top that contained a quantity of marijuana leaves. In a hot-tub room, there was another five-gallon pail with 556 grams of marijuana leaves.
Two hydroponic grow lights were in an empty room, and nine were in cardboard boxes in the garage. An electric frying pan in the kitchen contained a substance suspected to be trace amounts of resin.
Defence counsel Bruce Olmstead said his client suffers from arthritis and the nausea associated with menopause.
Besides, he said, it takes quite a quantity of leaves and stalks to yield very little resin.
As a woman who supports herself on a part-time job, Mr. Olmstead added, “she very simply can’t afford to buy marijuana, and she gets the leaves from friends.”
“I am sorry for this situation,” Mrs. Hooper told Justice Robert Graydon. “I do find that it does help me.”
“You should apply to your doctor for a medical exemption,” Justice Graydon suggested. Mrs. Hooper said she had since done so.
“She is at or near the poverty level, and I’d rather have her put something back into the community,” he said, handing down a suspended sentence with a 60-hour community-service order as a condition of her one-year probation.
All items seized will be forfeited, and Mrs. Hooper is also subject to a 10-year weapons prohibition.
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