Hot for pot

>> Benefit places marijuana legalization front and centre

By NAOMI BLOCH

The pungent smell of pot saturates the corridor from the moment the elevator doors open on Claude Messier's floor. But the source of the odour is not a group of flaked-out partiers. It comes from Messier's room in the long-term care facility where he writes short stories and screenplays, all the while coping with an illness most people have never heard of: generalized muscular dystonia.

The 34 year old is plagued by muscle cramps that contort his limbs and cause severe pain. It's a condition he's had since childhood, and he says that only in the last year and a half--since he turned to medical marijuana--has he experienced any significant relief. "I suffer from cramps that are much much worse than you might experience," says Messier. "It causes a lot of pain. Marijuana has been the only medication that helps relax the muscular tension."

Messier is one of around 70 Montrealers who rely on the Montreal Compassion Club, an organization that provides clean, affordable cannabis for medical purposes. The club has strict qualification procedures before they will sell marijuana to a patient. "Patients need a medical recommendation or a prescription for marijuana," says the Montreal club's co-founder, Caroline Doyer. "When we have those papers, we call the doctor to verify that everything is legitimate and that the doctor understands everything he's signing."

Trying patients

Despite the fact that Messier has an exemption from Health Canada permitting him to use marijuana for medical purposes, the source of his medication is not legal. "The government gives exemptions, allowing certain patients to smoke and to possess marijuana, but they don't tell them where to get it and they don't provide it for them," says Boyer.

Patients with exemptions can grow the marijuana themselves and the government claims it's beginning to look into distribution options. Meanwhile, the Montreal Compassion Club has been facing the heat. On February 10, the police raided the clinic, confiscating patient files and arresting Marc-Boris St-Maurice and Alexandre Néron, two of the club's volunteers, on charges of possessing 66 grams of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking.

While the raid raised many concerns, it was the effect on patients that irks Boyer. "All the patients received letters from the police that explained to them the risks of coming to Compassion Club. But it's pretty funny because they don't explain the risks of buying marijuana off the street," she says.

Two of their members were permanently scared off, and four patients died during the closure. "While we were closed, our members had to get their marijuana on the streets. That means exposing them to serious risks, including badly controlled marijuana, street gangs--the whole nine yards."

The police seizure devastated the volunteers' morale, bringing home the fact that despite their good intentions, the club's activities are fundamentally illegal. "Helping somebody get their medication is nothing illegal--when you compare marijuana to other medications like morphine or codeine, or even coffee, you know?" voices Doyer.

The club is now banding around St-Maurice and Néron, whose trials begin November 13. "Tragedy brings people closer together and the arrest was certainly a tragedy," says St-Maurice. "Everyone was quite heartbroken over it."

Props to pot

The club's organizers have planned a four-day awareness campaign and club fundraiser leading up to the trial, hoping to raise morale and public consciousness. Hundreds of participants are lined up for Célébration Cannabis et Compassion.

The event kicks off on November 9 with an evening of blues performances, including singer Marie-Claude Lamoureux, one of the celebration's key organizers. "During that same event we're going to launch our manifesto 'From Repression to Compassion,'" says Doyer. "It's a small brochure where we take the time to make people aware of what's really going on."

The following night will feature Cabaret Jack POT, when the celebration's other key organizer, François Gourd, will emcee a night of pro-pot entertainment. Over the weekend, conferences will bring the marijuana debate to centre stage. The lineup includes Canadian senator Pierre-Claude Nolin, who advocates marijuana legalization, as well as Club Compassion founders from across Canada and Jean Dury, defence lawyer for the two accused.

Peinture en direct is one of the final day's highlights. "We're really lucky because we have over 100 artists who came to us saying that they wanted to speak out for the cause," says Doyer. The work will then be sold as part of the fundraising. The festivities finish off with the musical stylings of la Fanfare Pourpour and the La Chango family. "If somebody can stay sitting down for more than one Fanfare Pourpour song it's going to be a record."

But all the merrymaking ends when the trial begins. "It's the first time in Canada that a Compassion Club has been put on trial for trafficking," says St-Maurice, "where it is clearly and strictly only a medical case. And with the kind of documentation and stringent paperwork that is kept at the Compassion Club, it's going to be an important case."

Both St-Maurice and Néron are vocal political figures, currently federal election candidates for the Marijuana Party of Canada, and suspicions abound over the authorities' choice to target them specifically. "We obviously suspect that our arrest was politically motivated--the fact that we'd announced at the Bloc Pot about a week before that we planned to run in the federal elections," says St-Maurice.

There's also a great deal of skepticism about Health Canada's ongoing medical trials. "They have to take into account there are people who have a legitimate need and constitutional right for marijuana now," asserts St-Maurice. "I don't think it's right to pass off clinical trials as their method of addressing the need."

"We're asking legislators to end the suffering for patients who need their treatment now," Doyer stresses. "They're sick now, in two weeks they might be dead."