Cannabis
Digest 
Thirteenth Edition, Summer 2007
Reply to the CBC from the BCCCS
Jan. 31, 2007
Dear Ted,
I hope that this finds you well and I send my
best wishes and those of the BCCCS for a happy and healthy 2007.
My apologies for not having responded to your
letter sooner.
Your letter began with a statement of your
intention to facilitate communication and cooperation.
We echo that intention, and in that spirit we
accept your apology for the disruptive behaviour that you and a CBCOC
staff member exhibited while visiting the BCCCS. We appreciate your kind
words regarding our leadership and professionalism, and we are aware of
all of your efforts and congratulate you on them as well. We also
appreciate your invitation to visit the CBCOC, and would be happy to take
you up on it when we find ourselves in Victoria.
The BCCCS has been aware of the CBCOC/ Ted’s
Bookstore for many years. We have followed a policy of accommodating CBCOC
members to visit the BCCCS upon producing documentation that meets our
standards. We do not judge other dispensaries for having different
standards than ours, but we must insist on meeting ours in order to
protect ourselves and our members’ continued access to our services. Ted,
you and I talked about this on the phone last summer and seemed to have
found an amicable understanding about these issues. We mutually recognized
that the CBCOC is currently more diligent about collecting medical
paperwork from their clients than it was in the past, and that some
records are missing due to a police raid. Please understand that we
require medical documentation for visitors from other clubs, and we are
not singling you out in this regard.
In your letter, you requested to be acknowledged
as a legitimate club by the BCCCS when articles are written. We are not
clear as to what exactly you are asking for. When we write articles, we
mention other clubs with whom we have worked on a particular project or
who are otherwise relevant to the content of the article. In terms of
public recognition, please note that the CBCOC is listed on our website as
one of seven clubs in Canada we feel confident enough to vouch for.
The BCCCS has not worked as closely with Ted/
CBCOC as we have with some other clubs and societies. That is likely
because we have had different focuses and have not experienced a natural
rapport that would facilitate such work. Although we haven’t worked
closely with you in the past, it does not mean we are excluding you, nor
that there won’t be opportunities to work together in the future.
In your letter you make an assertion that the
CBCOC is the oldest public medical cannabis club in Canada and ask us to
acknowledge this. The BCCCS has stated for many years now that we are
Canada’s oldest compassion club, and you have never disputed this fact
before. We are not sure why this is suddenly an important issue for you,
and we are not interested in fighting with you over this status.
We have stated that we are the oldest compassion
club in Canada because that is what we believe. It has been in no way
connected or related to you, nor intended to negate your good work. Nobody
could, or would, dispute your long-term dedicated cannabis activism and
your great work dispensing cannabis to those in medical need. As an
individual, Ted, you may very well have been selling cannabis to those in
medical need before 1997. Thankfully, you were not alone in that noble
work. We are less clear on the history of the CBCOC – such as when it
began operating as a medical cannabis dispensary under that name. We
remember having visitors with membership cards from Ted’s Bookstore, which
was perhaps a predecessor of the CBCOC.
The BCCCS is celebrating its 10 year anniversary
this year. We count our birthday from the year the BC Compassion Club was
formed and started operating under that name. Here are some facts which
led us to our belief that we are the oldest compassion club in Canada: The
BCCCS was the first medical cannabis dispensary to use the words
‘compassion club’; there were no compassion clubs in Canada before ours,
nor any other established medical cannabis dispensaries of which we were
aware at that time; we were the first medical cannabis dispensary to
become a registered non-profit society; from all accounts, we ere the
first organization to be distributing cannabis for strictly medicinal
purposes (i.e. requiring and verifying proof of diagnosis/ recommendations
and keeping records); from all accounts, we ere also the first to be
above-ground about what we were doing.
I agree with your statement that it is our hard
work and professionalism that has made the BCCCS what it is today, and it
is upon that which we rely for our credibility. However, we will not deny
our history. We also accept the truth of the your efforts, Ted, and those
of the CBCOC. I don’t believe these are mutually exclusive. We do not wish
to engage in a dispute with you over this matter and hope we can find a
way to a mutual understanding of facts through all layers of
semantics.
Finally, the BCCCS has never made negative
public statements about, nor done anything to delegitimize or discredit
the CBCOC. Conversely, in your recent internet posting, you publicly made
negative comments and false claims about the BCCCS. That was extremely
disappointing. We have enough challenges to face from outside the
movement. If you have real concerns or gripes with us, we request that you
contact us directly to find out the facts and attempt to attain
resolution, as opposed to publishing them on the internet.
We have always been, and still are, your allies
for the bigger picture and in the mutual service of providing high quality
cannabis to those in need.
Sincerely,
Rielle Capler
p.s. In order to facilitate visits of CBCOC
members, it is always helpful to arrange visits ahead of time whenever
possible so that everything is in order upon their arrival at the BCCCS.
It would also be very helpful for us to know that type of documentation
you accept and for which conditions, and particularly your process for
verification. This information was not part of the package you sent
us.
Krieger Off to Jail-Pending Pot Problem Solution
Marijuana crusader and medicinal pot user Grant
Krieger must serve time behind bars for trafficking in the drug, a judge
ruled today.But provincial court Judge William Pepler delayed the start of
Krieger’s four-month sentence so provincial corrections officials can make
arrangements for him to have his dope in jail.Pepler agreed with Crown
prosecutor Scott Couper a term of incarceration was warranted, even though
Krieger peddled marijuana for altruistic reasons.
Krieger, 52, who suffers from multiple
sclerosis, was convicted last September, of two charges of trafficking
cannabis.
Pepler rejected defence lawyer John Hooker’s
argument the charges against his client were unconstitutional.
In each case Krieger sent quantities of the drug
by courier to a Manitoban who required pot for medicinal purposes.
The Calgary area resident sent 306.5 grams on
Dec. 23, 2003, and another 495 grams on Jan. 8, 2004, as part of his work
with the Compassion Club and the Krieger foundation.
The street value of the drugs if sold at the
gram level was about $8,000.
Hooker had sought a fine, arguing Krieger’s
crimes weren’t for commercial gain.
But Pepler agreed with Couper’s assertion jail
was warranted, even though he had concerns about Krieger’s ability to
access marijuana while behind bars.
Couper told the judge the provincial government
has not yet made provisions to allow prisoners with constitutional
exemptions to the pot law access to the drug.
Krieger was granted an exemption to grow his own
pot after Alberta courts ruled there was no other way he could get the
drug he was permitted to use for medicinal purposes.
“The provincial corrections people essentially
won’t allow him to have marijuana inside the institution,” Couper said
outside court, in explaining the delay in sending Krieger to
custody.
“He delayed the sentence to allow the provincial
corrections people to sort it out.”
The matter will be brought back to court June
18, to determine of the problem has been resolved by then.
Krieger can commence his jail term in the
meantime if corrections officials find a way to allow him access to pot,
which relives symptoms of his MS.
Put Pot Growers Behind Bars, Court of Appeal tells
Judges
Editors Note: Mike is and has
been a strong supporter of the med movement and on behalf of all of us at
Hempology and “The Club” we wish much peace on this warrior and our hopes
that time passes quikly. Seeya in the fall!
Ian Mulgrew
Vancouver Sun
The B.C. Court of Appeal has told lower court
judges that pot growers should be jailed to buttress the anti-marijuana
law. In a significant unanimous ruling that tries to address vexing
questions raised by judges dealing with pot offenders, a three-judge panel
unanimously ordered a 12-month jail term for a Courtenay man with no
criminal record who was caught growing dope for profit.Writing with the
support of her colleagues Mary Newbury and Risa Levine, Justice Catherine
Ryan said the $20,000 fine Michael Van Santvoord received was too lenient
because of the need to deter others from growing.
That’s why a conditional sentence would have
been inappropriate as well, Ryan emphasized.
Provincial Court Judge Brian Saunderson last
August fined 41-year-old Van Santvoord $20,000 after he pleaded guilty to
operating a sophisticated commercial operation.
Justice Ryan said that wasn’t punishment
enough - jail time was necessary.
“What is communicated [by the original decision]
is a frustration with the efficacy of laws that are not universally
embraced by Canadian citizens,” Ryan wrote. “Whatever a judge’s private
views, his or her duty requires that judge to enforce the laws that
Parliament has lawfully enacted . . . . Indeed, there can be no question
that the law at issue in this case is a legitimate expression of
Parliament.”
Police in B.C. describe the rise in illicit
marijuana production as an “epidemic” and say tens of thousands of people
have turned to growing pot as a mortgage helper and income
supplement.
The appeal court reviewed some 20 cases
involving first offenders similar to Van Santvoord, a former tree-planter
reared by hippies, in which the maximum sentence was 18 months
imprisonment.
“Mr. Van Santvoord’s crime is a flagrant
violation of the law,” Justice Ryan said. “I would, therefore … impose a
sentence of 12 months.”
In December 2004, police caught Van Santvoord at
a road stop with a little less than two kilograms of marijuana. Later,
they seized hundreds of plants, clones, dried product, financial records,
a business plan, money and equipment at two homes in the Comox
valley.
They also seized a how-to video Van Santvoord
was making that boasts of his horticultural expertise and prowess at
producing pot.
His business plan projected a net profit of
$158,905 a year.
As far as the cops were concerned, the potential
profit was two or more times that.
Entitled “Dare to Dream,” Van Santvoord’s
accounting sheets included the costs of a new truck, computer, TV, DVD and
stereo, wardrobe, dental work, and mutual funds.
The Crown argued that a year or two in jail was
appropriate; Van Santvoord wanted the Court of Appeal to reduce what he
considered too stiff a fine.
His lawyer suggested a conditional sentence
served in the community of between 12 to 18 months.
In his original decision, Judge Saunderson
discussed at length the difficulties of sentencing otherwise law-abiding
citizens to jail because they were cultivating marijuana.
A few weeks before Saunderson sentenced Van
Santvoord, a B.C. Supreme Court judge gave two other men from Courtenay
two years less a day in jail for an identical crime.
“The plethora of charges related to grow-ops
provides support for the proposition that the present range of sentences,
particularly in respect of grow-ops of considerable size, does not promote
the principle of general deterrence,” Justice Ian Pitfield said in sending
them to the lockup.
“Unless other means of reducing illegal
production specifically and generally can be found, custodial sentences …
will likely provide the only realistic means of constraining illegal
activity of this kind, and the penitentiary terms … may be
preferred.”
He labelled growers “a danger to the public,”
while Saunderson said pot-growing seemed to him to be a victimless crime
committed by ordinary people usually in a financial squeeze.
Regardless of where you stand, Saunderson noted
that B.C. has reputedly the highest per-capita use of illegal drugs in
Canada and the lowest penalties for breach of the drug laws.
His ruling brought to the fore the serious
concerns of judges.
Criminal laws should not be capriciously
enforced, nor should the penalties for breaking such laws be so varied
that one person is given a stiff prison term and another from the same
community handed a fine for a similar-fact offence. That is not only
unfair, but also erodes confidence in the judiciary and the rule of
law.
With this ruling, the appeal court weighed in on
that judicial debate and came down on Pitfield’s side.
“In my view, the facts of this case and the
circumstances of the offender warranted a sentence designed to deter and
denounce the conduct,” Ryan wrote.
“A fine, even one that reduces the profit
motive, does not, in this case, properly address those sentencing
objects.”
Like it or not, this ruling says, that’s the law
and if you don’t obey it, you’ll go to jail.
Letter from CBC of C to BCCCS, Feb.22/07
Dear Rielle and the B.C.C.C.S. We hope this letter
finds you and the staff at the B.C.C.C.S. healthy and well. Thank you for
sending us a letter on Jan 31, 2007 addressing some of the issues we
raised in our letter to you from June 29, 2006. We appreciate that you are
willing to discuss some of the current problems that exist between the two
clubs and seem interested in resolving them.
Both clubs cannot continue to publicly claim to
be the oldest compassion club in Canada as it makes the movement appear
competitive and disorganized. We have sent you some information that
should put an end to the debate about which club is older. The article
from the Victoria News, Weekend Edition, Dec 6, 1996 proves that we were
operating since Jan 1996, though it was relatively low-key the first few
months. It also points out that clubs existed in Vancouver and Toronto at
the time and that the Vancouver police were aware of this. Apparently the
club in Toronto split into 2 groups in the summer of 1997, Cannabis As
Living Medicine and the Toronto Compassion Club.
The Vancouver Medical Marijuana Buyers Club
formed in the spring of 1996, shortly after the Victoria Cannabis Buyers
Club formed. As you can see from issue #6 of Cannabis Canada, Fall 1996,
there is an advertisement for the Vancouver Medical Marijuana Buyers Club
right beside an article about a Langford city council meeting I attended
representing both the VCBC and Hempology 101 in protest of a by-law
against hemp stores. In that advertisement and the pamphlet we are sending
you, the Vancouver Medical Marijuana Buyers Club has the same mandate as
ours, which is to help people with proof of a diagnosed medical problem. I
expanded Hempology 101 to Victoria from Vancouver in Sept 1995.
Soon after starting weekly meetings and a club
at the University of Victoria I began meeting people with various medical
problems who used cannabis. I also met a woman who made cannabis cookies,
salves and massage oils. I tried to learn about the plant’s medical
properties. We spent some time deciding what the membership requirements
should be for the VCBC. We were not able to get a satisfactory
understanding of the membership application process for the San Francisco
CBC and had to create our own. We decided that we would recognize an
individual’s right to use cannabis if they had a permanent, physical
disability or disease, whether or not their doctor signed a
recommendation.
Our
thinking was that giving people with permanent, physical medical problems
access to quality cannabis should be protected by the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. It did not seem fair to deny people with serious medical
problems from joining the club because the medical community had such a
deep prejudice against the use of cannabis. While some people could get
recommendations from doctors at the time, the vast majority of the sick
people that I met in 1995 could not get their physicians to provide
written support for using cannabis.
Initially I did not think it was necessary to
record everyone’s name, their medical information and their purchases to
protect them against any potential problems that the police might cause
the club. It did not seem prudent to incorporate the VCBC because of
different legal and accounting difficulties it would present. Instead, we
incorporated the Victoria Hempology 101 Society (now the International
Hempology 101 Society) in Feb 1996 to act as the legal guardian of the
VCBC (now the CBC of C). When the legal climate changes, we will
incorporate the CBC of C as a cooperative, with a board of directors
comprised of growers, staff, members and volunteers from the
community.
Until that time, as president of the
International Hempology 101 Society, it is my duty to ensure that safe
access to quality cannabis is available to people with permanent, physical
medical problems in Victoria. When it became necessary to hire staff in
Jan 2001 we began giving everyone a membership card and collecting a
member list. In March 2001 I was told by the police, while they were
raiding a different apartment in the same building, that they had been
conducting surveillance on me for a year and were not able to obtain a
search warrant because I was running a legitimate medical club. They told
me that I should get a store. Though they could not arrest me, they did
tell my landlady what was going on and I was forced to find a new
location.
The landlord that I found was willing to let the
club operate if I opened a legitimate store in the front space. Without
much thought I called the store Ted’s Books, which officially opened on
April 1, 2001. We operated without much difficulty until Jan 2002 when a
cut-off member brought the police to our store out of vengeance.
The first police raid was rather strange because
no charges were laid at the time and after the police searched the club
they allowed us to continue operating. Charges were sent in the mail
later. The next police raids occurred in March 2002, June 2002 and Feb
2003. We opened the store the day after each raid and have never gone a
single day without selling medicine since we got the store, as we are open
on all holidays, including Christmas.
The sign for Ted’s Books was taken from the
window after the March 2002 raid when I temporarily stepped back from
working on the front line because I had 6 trafficking charges with 4
trials already and could not afford to be in the club if another raid
occurred. We never issued cards for Ted’s Books and the same basic design
of the member cards have been used since 2000, so your staff is not
correct to say that they remember cards from Ted’s Books. I am sending a
void copy of our membership card so there will be no confusion in the
future.
We have also sent you a recent copy of the
pamphlet of the Cannabis Buyers’ Club of Marin. Founded in San Francisco
in 1993, the CBC now has over 12,000 members with other branches in
Oakland, Los Angeles, Hayward and Santa Cruz. When we named our club the
CBC in San Francisco was the only other club in the world that we knew
about. It may be true that no other club in Canada used the word
compassion in it’s name before the BCCCS incorporated in 1997.
However, the Compassionate Use Act of California
passed in Nov 1996, so it seems likely that other groups started using the
word compassion in their titles shortly after that, but I have no proof.
What I can prove is that when Hillary Black incorporated the BCCCS in May
1997 she not only changed the name from the Vancouver Medical Marijuana
Buyers’ Club but she also buried the history of the group that Theo
founded with Mordiki ‘the Muffin Man’ in 1996. Even though she knew about
the VCBC and the VMMBC, she claimed to be the first compassion club in
Canada in May 1997.
Furthermore, she changed the mandate so that
members were required to obtain recommendations to use cannabis, placing
unnecessary restrictions upon people with serious medical problems. There
is no doubt in my mind that when Hillary Black incorporated the BCCCS she
was aware of the CBC in Victoria, even though we had not received a great
deal of media attention at the time. One of our first members was directly
referred to us by Hillary, as she reminded me lately.
I worked closely with Theo in the formation of
the Vancouver Medical Marijuana Buyers Club and know he would have talked
about my efforts on many occasions. When I heard later that she was
claiming to be the oldest compassion club in Canada I was shocked and
insulted. I should have immediately confronted Hillary with this falsehood
and proven to her that we existed longer.
I felt abandoned and helpless because she knew
about our club when she decided to make this claim and I did not think her
ego would so easily give up the title of the oldest club in Canada if she
had already started to make that statement in the media. To add insult to
injury, the new compassion club required members to get a doctor’s
recommendation to join, denying access to some people suffering from
serious medical problems while giving control to doctors in regards to
whether or not a person gets safe access to cannabis.
The step backwards may seem to have provided
protection to the BCCCS but it is an unnecessary hurdle to patients who
have to suffer because of conservative compassion clubs. While it may seem
more legitimate to have members obtain doctor’s recommendations, it is not
necessary for the court of law, where an individual’s right to choose
their own medical treatment has been established. In my case I proved that
incorporating a non-profit society and recording all of the financial
transactions is not as important as making sure the medicine only goes to
people with permanent, physical medical problems.
I did bring up the issue over which club is the
oldest in Canada to you and Hillary at the BEYOND PROHIBITION convention
held in Vancouver in May 2004. I did not pursue the issue further because
I was frustrated with the fact that Phil Lucas had joined the foray by
telling everyone that the VICS was the only legitimate compassion club in
Victoria. With no opportunity to resolve the issue, we just keep doing our
job.
When I stated in an article in the Cannabis
Digest that was published on hempology.ca that the BCCCS had not
acknowledged our existence I was wrong because our club is included in a
list of 7 compassion clubs on your web-page. However, in an article
written by you in Cannabis Culture #57, Oct/Nov 2005, the CBC of C was not
listed with 11 other clubs in Canada. While perhaps you did not write this
list, you did not respond to our letter of last year until you read these
remarks on the net.
Until your recent letter, it appeared as though
we had been ignored again by your organization. You may have found it
disappointing to read any negative comments about the BCCCS by me on the
internet, but you must understand how insulted I have been because the CBC
of C has been excluded and brushed aside by the ‘compassion club’
community because we did not incorporate a non-profit society specifically
for the club, do not require a doctor’s recommendation and did not use the
word ‘compassion’ in our name.
While no one from the BCCCS has made a negative
comment in print about the CBC of C, there have been several occasions
where I, staff and members have been treated rudely by people from the
BCCCS. The combination of the BCCCS dismissing our historical importance,
some unfriendly experiences, the fact that no one from the BCCCS has ever
attempted to contact our group about our mandate or court history and the
lack of a response to our first letter lead me to make those negative
comments.
I apologize for making any incorrect statements
about your club, but I do not find it easy to sit by quietly while an
injustice is being done. My time and yours would be better spent working
together. However, if the BCCCS ignores the evidence I have presented in
this letter and continues to claim to be the oldest public medical
cannabis club in Canada it will be difficult to feel respected in any
relationship we may have.
Finally, if you read the CBC of C pamphlet that
we sent, it explains that we help people with a doctor’s diagnosis of a
permanent, physical disability or disease and photo ID. We will send
another copy with this package. With a membership of over 2,000, we cannot
prepare everyone who is going to visit your club by telling them to bring
their doctor’s information.
Unfortunately, the debt of the CBC of C has
never allowed us to purchase a good fax machine so we can easily transmit
information using that means. This is an opportunity for our clubs to
recognize our differences, reconcile our past and move ahead into the
future. We hope your organization will acknowledge the full extent of our
contribution to the medical cannabis community in Canada after further
investigating the information we have sent.
Please let us know in advance if someone from
your group is ever in Victoria so we can give you a tour of our
facilities. I may be coming to Vancouver again in April and would be happy
to bring samples of our food and skin products to show your staff if you
were interested. Otherwise, we look forward to hearing from you in the
future and best of luck in all of your endeavors.
Sincerely Ted SmithPresident,
International Hempology 101 Society
Warnings Updates and Suggestions, by Gayle Quin
The first UVSS Lecture Series has been
successfully completed and I’d like to thank everyone who came to the
lectures, those who stayed behind to run the store, and Ted for his work
putting them together. I would also like to extend a special thanks to
Susan Boyd, Paul Hornby, and Bill Finely for coming and speaking. It is
only through people sharing time and information that prohibition will be
finally struck down. I myself am anxiously waiting for the fall semester
to begin.
The 8th Annual Cannabis Convention was the best
attended ever. Our greatest of thanks to the guest speakers who gave so
freely of their time and gave such heartfelt, informative speeches. They
Included Greg “the Marijuana Man” Williams- who is facing extradition to
the USA, Chris Bennett- Historian and Author, Dana Larson- running the
Vancouver Seed Bank and forming eNDProhobition to educate supporters and
representatives of the NDP about the futility of the drug war and the
benefits of legalizing cannabis, Hunter McDonald former head of campus
security and now active member of LEAP, and Ted Smith for hosting and
speaking. Joanna McKee, founder of Seattle’s Green Cross Patient
Cooperative couldn’t make it this year because of an operation. She is
feeling much better now and is looking forward to joining us next year.
All our best wishes go out to you, Joanna!
Ted and I have gone to visit Michael twice now.
He thanks everyone whole- heartedly for the cards, and he has written a
letter in response that is posted in the distribution room if you’d like
to read it.
Reach For the
Pot starts its 3rd annual tournament on May 9. Hempology meets on the back
lawn of the courthouse at 7 pm every Wednesday night now till fall. The
game show starts at 7:30 pm. The team captains have been picked and most
spots on the teams have been filled. The schedule is posted in the
distribution room if you’re interested in playing.
4:20 this year should be bigger than ever. The
weather is looking good and there’s been lots of talk around town.
Everyone is getting excited about it!
A reminder of court cases coming: VICS trail May
9th Downtown Victoria Law Courts. Marc Emery May 28th, Downtown Vancouver
Law Courts.
Attention All Artists! There is only 5 months
left till the start of the 5th Annual Art Action. It’s my favorite time of
year around the club with all the variety of work that comes about. The
place always looks fantastic. We are fortunate enough not to need a lawyer
again this year so all proceeds will go to reducing the debt or improving
the club. We thank everyone who has contributed in so many ways over the
years. We thank our community for the continued support.
Melissa Etheridge Sings Her Praises of the Healing Advantage of
Marijuana, by Veronica Horn
Marijuana helps those
with incurable debilitating diseases and those with no hope of survival to
ease their pain and receive what little comfort they may. It helps cancer
patients feel better, avoid painful side effects and maintain a healthy
diet. It also helped musician Melissa Etheridge.
Born May 29, 1961, in Leavenworth, Kansas,
Melissa Etheridge is an Academy Award-winning, two-time Grammy
Award-winning American rock musician, and now, a breast cancer survivor.
In the prime of her life and career, only 43 years old, Melissa received
the shocking news. She had breast cancer. She has given numerous
interviews attesting to her assertion that smoking marijuana helped her
overcome the medical consequences of chemotherapy in her battle against
breast cancer.
Faced with the painful treatment, Melissa turned
to a natural, alternative. “I decided instead of signing up for the drugs
that- well, there’s the drug that you take for the pain. But that
constipates you. So, you have to take the constipation drug. But then that
actually gives you diarrhea. So, you need a little diarrhea drug. Instead
of taking five or six of the prescriptions, I decided to go a natural
route and smoke marijuana.”
When asked how her doctors reacted, Melissa
says, “From the surgeons to the oncologists to the radiologist. every
single one was, “Oh, yeah. That’s the best help for the effects of
chemotherapy.” The award-winning singer divulged in an interview to using
Cannabis daily. “I was doing a lot of it at the time for my pain and for
my symptoms.” Melissa said. “And the minute I didn’t feel it, I
stopped.”
Now that her cancer is in remission, and no
longer uses marijuana, Melissa remains a staunch supporter of a patient’s
right to access the drug.
The use of marijuana with a doctor’s
recommendation is now legal in twelve states of the USA, but is against
federal law.
Asked if she was concerned about federal
prosecution in a touching interview with “Dateline NBC” back in 2005.
Melissa replied, “If they really wanted to come get me…really? I mean,
there’s so much more going on. No, I didn’t worry, but it was worth
it.”
The question was put forward if she worried at
all that talking about marijuana from a medicinal standpoint might
encourage recreational use?
Melissa replied. “Yeah. I mean, Vicodin is
abused. Everything that brings pain relief is abused. But does that mean
because Vicodin is abused, do they keep it away from people? No. They
prescribe it. Put the laws on it, prescribe it.
When asked if she would be taking a larger part
in the medicinal marijuana movement. Melissa told Dateline. “Well, I guess
I am now. Yes.”
For that, for those suffering, for those who
have passed away and for those who have survived, we owe this survivor a
debt of gratitude.
Other friends of
medical marijuana over the centuries include a variety of interesting
supporters.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791) Austrian musician, concert
writer
Mozart ate cannabis bon-bons with his
girlfriends
Bob Denver
(1935-2005) American actor
‘Gilligan’ from the TV series ‘Gilligan’s
Island’
At almost age 70. “I’ve been doing it for
years,” he says of his pot habit.
Bing Crosby
(1903-1977) American singer and actor
Bing loved his marijuana, which he alternately
called mezz (after Mezz Mezzrow), gage, pot, or muggles.
Albert Arnold ‘Al’ Gore
(1948) American politician, former
vice-president
Gore admitted to experimenting with marijuana a
few times during his Vietnam years and immediately afterward.
Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900) German philosopher
“If one seeks relief from unbearable pressure
one is to eat hashish.”
Ted Turner
(1938) American media mogul and
philanthropist
Ted Turner has been known as a toker since his
youth - he even got caught growing marijuana in his dorm room at
school.
Salvador Dali
(1904-1989) Spanish painter
“Everyone should eat hashish, but once.”
Queen Victoria
(1819-1901)
Ruler of the British Empire
Even Queen Victoria was given cannabis by her
doctor to ease her menstrual pains.
MID-ISLAND COMPASSION CLUB BUSTED, By Ted Smith
On Dec22,
2006, Comox RCMP went to the home of Mark Russell, founder of the
Mid-Island Compassion Club, to arrest and charge him with 6 counts of
trafficking cannabis. They found about 390 grams of cannabis in his home.
He has stopped operating the club since and the 85 members he served have
been forced to other dubs, the black market, or otherwise go without
medicine. It is not known how many of his members have legal permits to
possess from Heatth Canada.
"This so-called compassion club is
selling at above premium prices for marijuana going on the street." said
Comox RCMP Const. Chad Gargus. Sometimes [members] may provide a doctors'
note saying they have something." said Gargus. "Sometimes they just filled
out a piece of paper saying they do indeed have some sort of pain that
they feel requires medical marijuana."
The trial is expected to
begin in March. It is expected that Mark will simply plead guilty and hope
the court will not give him jail time so he can look after his sick wife.
The Mid-Island Compassion Club started as a chapter of the CBC of C but
separated officially a couple of years ago.
Thanks to our contributors: Ted Smith,
Gayle Quin, Veronica Horn, Carola Schleuss and Ian Mulgrew (reprinted
article).
