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Medical Pot Case Adjourns Again
By Hempology | August 27, 2002
From the Chilliwack PRogress, August 24, 2002
By Robert Freeman
A medical marijuana court case was adjourned for a third time this week by a B.C. Supreme Court Justice in Chilliwack. Justice Brian Joyce also denied a request for an interim court order to allow Steve Kubby to possess marijuana for medical purposes.
The judges are going to have his blood on their hands if hes arrested and goes to jail again, Mr. Kubbys wife Michele said after the court ruling Monday.
She says if her husbands access is blocked in jail to the marijuana that he is being forced to buy illegally due to the court delay, he could die.
Mr. Kubby, a U.S. marijuana activist seeking refugee status in Canada, is asking the court to grant a medical exemption from pot possession laws.
Lawyer John Conroy says the court now has evidence from two top notch cancer specialists that his client should be allowed to use the drug in the large amounts that he requires.
What we had to try and convince Justice Joyce to do was strike down the regulation as unconstitutional, Mr. Conroy says, but there was no court time available to make that argument Monday.
He says his client could legally obtain morphine and heroin in just a few hours based on the seriousness of his illness, but those drugs are more harmful than marijuana.
However, the lawyer says he is very optimistic Mr. Kubby will have a medical exemption from Health Canada by the Aug. 26 court hearing.
Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan appeared to be backing away from a $5.7 million program to supply medical marijuana to patients, but a Health Canada spokesman in Ottawa says there is no change in policy. Medical exemptions continue and clinical trials of marijuana will go ahead. More than 800 exemptions have been issued so far.
The Supreme Court of Canada will hear three cases of non-medicinal pot on Dec. 13, but it could be a year before a court ruling is made.
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