cannabisnews.com: Calgarian Vows to Open Club!





Calgarian Vows to Open Club!
Posted by FoM on May 25, 1999 at 11:00:36 PT
Where Patients Can Smoke Pot!
Source: Edmonton Journal
A Calgary club that will provide seriously ill patients a safe, reliable supply of high quality marijuana to alleviate their suffering will be open by the middle of June, says a pot crusader.
Grant Krieger, convicted last December of marijuana trafficking, says he stopped visiting his probation officer in March because he questions the legitimacy of any law denying him access to a drug that helps him cope with his multiple sclerosis. A Regina judge gave the 44-year-old Calgary resident an 18-month suspended sentence in January and ordered him to report regularly to a probation officer. Krieger, who could be hauled back to court on a charge of breach of probation, said he is lying low while he lines up sources of supply for his club, Universal Compassion Club. "I was nothing more than a political prisoner," Krieger said. "Society doesn't have the right to tell me how to heal my body or what I may or may not use in the healing process." Det. Pat Tetley of the Calgary Police Service drug unit said there is no room for philosophical argument where the law is concerned, and police will prosecute users and suppliers alike. Krieger said Universal Compassion Club already has 25 members. The members suffer from such diseases as MS, fibromyalgia, cancer, glaucoma and AIDS. Most of their supply is coming from indoor growers in Calgary, he said. Fibromyalgia patient Mara Czayka, 37, who lives on an acreage in the Turner Valley area, recalled how the quality of her life improved dramatically after meeting Krieger last March. Czayka suffered from unending pain, extreme fatigue, tremors and memory loss and often was bedridden. Her physicians could do little. A friend suggested she go see Calgary's pot crusader. Krieger handed Czayka a pipe and she took a couple of puffs. "Suddenly my shaking stopped," she said. "It was great. I was in rough shape. "I was shaking. I remember sitting on the couch and Grant offered me the cannabis." Czayka, who now has the appearance of a vital, healthy person, said she is living a more normal life. She takes about four or five puffs from a joint as often as 10 or 15 times a day to ease the effects of her disease. Brenda Fischer, 37, of Calgary, who suffers from Ehler-Danlos syndrome -- a rare, incurable, genetic connective tissue disorder --said she, too, will do whatever she can to make Krieger's club a success. An internal federal Health Department memo obtained last month by Southam News suggests Canadian drug and tobacco strategies could be undermined if marijuana were allowed for medical use while the government is trying to stamp out smoking and illegal drug use. Nonetheless, Health Minister Allan Rock announced in March that Ottawa will start clinical trials of medical marijuana. Krieger said an 800-member Compassion Club continues to flourish in Vancouver after a pot activist there launched it two years ago. However, police in London, Ont., recently forced the closure of a club by arresting and prosecuting its suppliers, he said. 
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