Pot goes to court, again

>> Compassion Club set for their fifth trial date

by CRAIG SEGAL

Photo by Jason Felker

Ginette Gagnon, who turns 48 next week, says she was dying until six months ago, until she found the Compassion Club, Quebec’s first supplier of medical marijuana. Suffering from Addison’s disease, diabetes and hepatitis C, Gagnon says the pot helps her eat and sleep regularly. “Before I used to vomit for 24 to 48 hours, out the top and out the bottom,” says the welfare recipient, crying in the Club’s small office at 950 Rachel E. Problem is, Gagnon can no longer afford her pot, which, unlike her other prescription drugs, is not reimbursed by Medicare. Her only hope is that the Compassion Club wins a bizarre legal case that could decriminalize medical pot across Canada. Decriminalization, it is hoped, could lead to the drug becoming accepted by Medicare. Postponed four times, the case goes back to court April 23.

“Money is the real problem for the majority of patients,” says Club co-founder Caroline Doyer. She says the club can’t sell the pot for any less than $10 a gram, since it pays its undisclosed dealers $8 per gram. The $2 slice gets reinvested in the club, which is run by volunteers. “Because we buy such high quality pot, we don’t mind paying $8 a gram. Regular pot growers sell for $4 to $6 a gram, but that’s not necessarily the type of pot we want.

“Besides,” Doyer adds. “It’s illegal. And people take all the precautions they can.”
The Compassion Club has been openly flaunting the law by providing high quality herb to sick people with doctors’ notes since 1999. On February 10, 2000, Montreal police busted the club. They arrested two volunteers—Marc-Boris St-Maurice, 32, head of the federal Marijuana Party, and 22-year-old Alexandre Néron, who works as a helper for disabled university students—and seized $55 in cash, 66 grams of pot, equipment and patients’ files. Prosecutors are charging the duo with drug trafficking and possession for the purpose of trafficking. The club was closed for a month, Doyer says. Patients were left to buy their pot on the street.

The trial was originally scheduled for October 2001. The judge bumped it to December, and then bumped it twice more, without much in the way of explanation. In the meantime, Doyer says the club is under constant surveillance. She says her phones are tapped at the office and at home. And she says police occasionally park empty cars in front of the office, sometimes with lights flashing. “They’re still building a case against us,“ Doyer says. “We’re still treated like criminals. We think it’s ridiculous we even have to go to court with all the experience we have, and all the experience of clubs across the country. The B.C. Compassion Club has been open since 1997!”

The current pot law allows only select people access to medical marijuana. For example, a person who is going to die within 12 months is considered Type 1 priority, according to Health Canada’s Office of Cannabis Medical Access (OCMA) Web site. But even terminal patients have to apply for a license to grow it themselves, or to have someone else grow it for them.

For more information on the case, call the Compassion Club at 521-8764. :