cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Exemptee Freed After Nine Days in Jail 





Marijuana Exemptee Freed After Nine Days in Jail 
Posted by FoM on October 31, 2001 at 19:48:32 PT
By Tom Philp, The Independent 
Source: Independent Online 
Dianne Bruce was freed by a Cobourg court Monday afternoon, but not before spending nine days in an overcrowded Whitby jail. The Cramahe Township mother of two teenage girls was arrested October 19 when officers from Northumberland OPP, and members of the Combined Forces Drug Squad, raided her residence near Dundonald. Her 18-year-old daughter Michelle Hughey was also taken into custody and released later the same day. 
For the next ten days Bruce was housed in a women's holding facility in Whitby. During her stay in a lockup containing only four cells and eight beds, there was never less than 12 inmates being held, she said. "At one point I counted 16 girls in here," Bruce said in a telephone interview from the jail last Saturday. "I slept on the floor beside the toilet for six nights, and they wouldn't give me my medication." Bruce told the court she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 1991, a condition that causes painful muscle spasms throughout her body. She also has three herniated discs, and severe problems with her digestive system. Unable to find relief with conventional medication, Bruce applied for a federal exemption to smoke marijuana for medical purposes, she said. Although her doctor prescribed medication for her pain and digestive problems, correctional authorities would only give her "a tranquilizer crushed up into powder," Bruce said. Correctional Services spokesperson Julia Noonan said overcrowding at provincial jails happens periodically, even though the ministry attempts to "move inmates to other facilities to lessen the problem." She could not speak about Bruce specifically, but said authorities provide health services for inmates with medical problems. According to OPP spokesmen, Bruce, and her partner Jerry Kresoja, were being investigated for growing marijuana illegally at the Cramahe property. Kresoja was not at the residence when it was searched, and police have issued a warrant for his arrest. A personal computer, growing equipment, a crossbow, and an estimated 40 pounds of marijuana were seized during the raid, a police press release stated. Bruce was profiled in the October 10 edition of The Independent, in a feature story about the medical use of marijuana. The article outlined Bruce's efforts to grow marijuana for more than 40 people across Canada who had federal exemptions to possess, and/or grow the herb. Most of those exemptees had applied to Health Canada to allow Bruce's company, Lady Dyz Helping Hands, to produce marijuana for their consumption under the regulations of Section 56 of Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Sgt. Barnum said police were not disputing the fact that Bruce and Kresoja were growing marijuana for medical exemptees, but nobody at the Dundonald home had legal authority to grow marijuana, he said. But Bruce questions the timing of the raid that resulted in "medicine for sick and dying people" being seized. "Police knew what we were doing," Bruce said during a Saturday telephone interview from the Whitby jail. "Why did they wait until harvest time, when all the exemptees were expecting their medicine?" Bruce said members of the Kawartha Drug Squad, including Constable John Murphy, had visited the operation regularly throughout the summer months. Police told her they were only ensuring that the medical marijuana crop had security measures in place to comply with Section 56 regulations, she said. Bruce said she asked Northumberland OPP Sgt. Bill O'Shea to sit on Lady Dyz board of directors as early as June 29, a day after Maclean's magazine interviewed her for an article on exemptee Jim Wakeford. O'Shea was "fully aware" at that time of what was being grown at her house, she said. In a telephone interview earlier this month, O'Shea confirmed Bruce had asked him to sit on her board, but he had declined "for obvious reasons." "I told her it would be a definite conflict of interest for me," O'Shea said. Bruce said local "recreational smokers" of marijuana began raiding the garden by night in early September. After trespassers were found on the property September 13 and 18, and again October 11, police were called on each occasion, she said. "My lawyer says this is a case of sour grapes because the police were made to look bad," Bruce said. Karen Marshall, a Belleville woman who owns half of the Bruce property, and who offered that half as surety for her friend, was challenged during the bail hearing by Federal Crown Prosecutor Doug Mann. Marshall knew marijuana was being grown on her land, and did nothing about it, Mann said. Bruce's lawyer David McCaskill rebutted Mann's argument, telling the court that Marshall was not the only person who knew what was growing in the garden. "Sure Ms. Marshall knew marijuana was growing there," McCaskill said. "But so did the police, they're the ones who are supposed to know the rules." The conditions of release include Bruce residing with Marshall, having no contact with Kresoja, not continuing with the business known as Lady Dyz Helping Hands, and not having anything to do with the production of marijuana for any purpose. Reached at her home on Tuesday, Bruce said she was "glad to be in my own bed and feeling a little better." "I couldn't stop shaking for almost ten days, throwing up, having diarrhea," Bruce said. "But once I got some proper medication, the shakes were gone within thirty seconds."Side Bar: Exemptees Ask Court To Return Medical Marijuana Three Ontario men, whose medical marijuana was seized by OPP officers in a Cramahe Township drug raid earlier this month, have served notice to have their medicine returned to them. Marc Paquette of Hawkesbury, Robert Neron of Hearst, and Donald Appleby from Vanier, near Ottawa, were part of a group of 40 medical marijuana exemptees who had contracted with Lady Dyz Helping Hands to produce the drug for them. The marijuana was seized by police on October 19. Paquette was in Cobourg on Monday to attend the bail hearing for Bruce. He talked with a reporter from The Independent before Bruce appeared. "I have signed papers from me, Donald Appleby, and Robert Neron for the court to give us back our medicine," Paquette said. He said these were the first three of many applications being filed by exemptees who relied on Bruce for medical marijuana. "When we are finished with this, there won't be any marijuana left to charge Dianne with," he said. The documents are applications from the three exemptees to have a provincial justice release about 12 kilograms of marijuana seized from Bruce's house. The affidavits attest that Paquette can legally possess 2.5 kilos of marijuana, Neron can have 5.5 kilos, and Appleby may have up to 3.75 kilos of the drug. Those figures are based on amounts approved by Health Canada in conjunction with each man's physician. In a telephone interview yesterday, Appleby said his claim is based on a grow of 30 marijuana plants. "The legal amount is never really enough," said Appleby, who has lived with AIDS for more than five years. "You end up living for the generosity of friends, and that's not coming easily given the black market." Appleby said tight restrictions on the legal use of marijuana, and police seizures of legal crops, forces sick and dying exemptees to the black market, where prices are currently about $820 per ounce. "Marijuana is literally more valuable than gold," he said. It was unknown whether the court released any marijuana to the three men prior to press time. Newshawk: puff_tuffSource: Independent Online (CN ON)Author: Tom Philp, The Independent Published: October 31, 2001Copyright 1998--2001, Conolly Publishing Ltd.Contact: letters eastnorthumberland.comWebsite: http://www.eastnorthumberland.com/Related Articles & Web Site:FTE's Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmDrug Squad Raids Cramahe Farm Property http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11197.shtmlSuffering Few Who Legally Possess Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11135.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by Dankhank on November 02, 2001 at 11:58:25 PT
Band Of Brothers ...
Been watching it also ...,I am half Bavarian, born in Munich in 1950 ...don't believe anything thay say about not knowing what was going on around them ...Those bastards knew very well what was happening to the undesirables/jews/gypsys/ etc ...didn't know ... my ass .....
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Comment #5 posted by bruce42 on November 01, 2001 at 10:58:06 PT
Scandanavians.
Not that I have anything against those of Northern European desecent. I am half German and half just about everything else. The problem is that the Midwest and plains states are chock full of very conservative, very Christian, old school farming folks. Middle Amerika is very white and very stubborn in rural areas. Any ethnic diversity is concentrated in cities and towns with a heavy industrial or commercial basis. Mexicans who come to the Midwest live in urban centers and usually work in construction or ag industry like meat packing. It is rare to find a Mexican working on a farm in rural mid-Amerika because there are no vegetables or fruits- just grain crops which are harvested once a year and by a handful of people. Therefore, families of isolated, inbred, white farmers populate the rural areas.It's really scary.
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Comment #4 posted by Sam Adams on November 01, 2001 at 09:51:37 PT
The middle of North America is rotten
Can someone please tell me what it is about big open spaces and flat cornfields that breeds fascism? It runs from Texas all the way to Ontario, apparently. I watched "Band of Brother" on HBO last night. The end of the war was happening and the soldiers stumbled into a German concentration camp. The German civilian townspeople didn't even know it was there.That's what I don't understand about the way history is perceived and taught in school. The Nazis and Hitler are portrayed as horribly evil. But the truth is, we all share 100% of their DNA - that potential for evil is within all of us. The only way we, as the human race, can prevent more atrocities is to constantly guard against evil surfacing in our midst. Even in Canada.........
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on November 01, 2001 at 09:38:52 PT
puff_tuff
Thanks for the related articles. I didn't know how to do them without copyright info. so posting them here is really appreciated.
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Comment #2 posted by lookinside on November 01, 2001 at 04:15:13 PT:
puff_tuff...
way to go...methinks the shrub is pushing the canadian guvmint hard to back off MMJ...i hope this doesn't become a trend among the kanadian gestapo...
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Comment #1 posted by puff_tuff on November 01, 2001 at 00:44:54 PT
And furthermore.....
The following article AND Editorial also appeared in the same issue (not online)Arrest of local exemptee attracts international interestLetters have been flowing into our e-mail inbox in response to our front page news story last week on the arrest of marijuana exemptee Dianne Bruce, and our editorial entitled "Canada's big drug problem - the law." The story about a Cramahe Township medical marijuana operation clearly attracted wide interest - within a few days of posting the article and editorial on our website, we had received correspondence from points as far away as Alberta, Texas, and California. So far the letters have been unanimous in support of exemptees who had contracted to receive medical marijuana from Bruce, and in opposition to the police confiscation of the herb. We welcome e-mail submissions of opinions on this or any other story which appears in the print or online edition of The Independent, via letters eastnorthumberland.com.Editorial, 
October 31, 2001Legal machinations in medical marijuana case get ever strangerUnder normal circumstances, we don't choose to devote two
editorials in a row to the same news story. Unfortunately, there is little that qualifies as "normal" in the our justice system has gone after "exemptees," the suffering people who are trying to comply with Canada's new legal provision for medical marijuana use.Since we reported last week on the police raid at the Cramahe growing operation known as Lady Dyz Helping Hands, the conduct of our courts and police forces in this case have gotten even more bizzare.First, marijuana grower and exemptee Dianne Bruce was held 
for nine days in an overcrowded Whitby jail, before the crown reluctantly granted bail. Bruce was held in custody, even though she had been perfectly open for months about her growing operation, and posed no security risk. To make matters worse, Bruce, who suffers from fibromyalgia and herniated discs, among other ailments, was without her
usual authorized medications for those nine days, and had to sleep on the jail cell floor for six nights.Now it appears that not only are the courts and police intent on thwarting the spirit of Canada's medical marijuana provision, but they may use their legal muscle to harass a newspaper, whose only offences is to provide substantial coverage of this news development. At press
time, The Independant has been informed that the OPP is preparing a search warrant, and plans to arrive at our offices on Thursday, November 1. Acting on our own legal counsel,we had already informed the OPP that we had taken care to retain all notes and photographs pertinent to this story, and we would submit this information, and answer any questions from the OPP, upon receipt of a subpoena. So we see the execution of a search warrant as another heavy-handed action, which challenges our integrity as community-minded professionals. We believe that police and courts have already wasted enough of tax-payers' money in hounding the exemptees. We hope they will soon switch their focus back to the provision of peace and security which
citizens have a right to expect.
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