cannabisnews.com: Rock To Exempt 12 Marijuana User From Prosecution





Rock To Exempt 12 Marijuana User From Prosecution
Posted by FoM on October 04, 1999 at 06:27:41 PT
By Luiza Chwialkowska, National Post 
Source: National Post
Allan Rock, the Health Minister, is expected to announce this week that he will exempt from criminal prosecution approximately a dozen Canadians who use marijuana to relieve medical problems, the National Post has learned. 
The exemptions for the yet-unnamed individuals will be the first granted by Mr. Rock since he allowed unprecedented legal access to marijuana for two AIDS patients last June after the Ontario Superior Court ruled that lack of such access contravened a patient's rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mr. Rock has since received some 90 requests from patients across the country asking permission to use the banned substance to relieve the symptoms of diseases, including glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, manic depression, cancer and AIDS. The exemptions are being announced at the same time as the constitutional issues surrounding the regulation of marijuana return this week before the judiciary. An appeal to begin on Wednesday at the Ontario Court of Appeal will challenge Parliament's right to regulate the drug. Just as Mr. Rock's exemption policy comes into full swing, however, the minister is facing increased pressure to provide a source of marijuana to the exemption holders who complain they have been given the right to use, but not to purchase, the illegal drug. The exemptions granted under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act allow patients to grow cannabis in their homes. But some patients say they are too inexperienced or too ill to engage in horticulture. "The exemption does not resolve all the issues," Jim Wakeford, who launched the successful Charter challenge, wrote to Mr. Rock after two of his suppliers were arrested. "I have no legal access to marijuana and there is no protection from criminal penalties for my caregivers, people who help look after me during periods of illness." Mr. Wakeford is asking that the government create a medically regulated supply of marijuana for medical use. He is also asking Mr. Rock to exempt from prosecution caregivers and cultivators who supply marijuana to the ill. Sources close to the health minister say he has not ruled out either option. Indeed, Mr. Rock has instructed the Health Department to develop a business plan and a timetable for the development of a Canadian-grown source of marijuana for medical use. He is considering using such a domestic crop to supply patients. Mr. Rock is also said to be looking for a way to be "flexible" in the case of caregivers. While the minister mulls his options, however, prosecutions are proceeding. Aubert Martins, an Ottawa-area cultivator who supplied marijuana to a group of cancer and AIDS patients, including Jean-Charles Pariseau, the second Canadian to receive an exemption from Mr. Rock, will appear in court this week to set a date for his trial on charges of production and possession of marijuana. In March, RCMP raided Mr. Martins' basement apartment, seizing 178 marijuana plants and growing equipment after media reports described his efforts to supply marijuana to the ill. The charges carry a maximum penalty of seven years in prison. As Mr. Rock proceeds with his policy of exemptions for individual patients, the Appeal Court of Ontario -- the highest court yet to consider the issue -- will, on Wednesday, hear arguments concerning the removal of marijuana offences from the Criminal Code. Alan Young, professor at York University's Osgoode Hall law school, will draw on rulings in two separate lower-court decisions on joint appeal to argue for decriminalization. In 1997, a lower court convicted Chris Clay, a recreational marijuana smoker in London, Ont., but not before finding marijuana to be "harmless." Mr. Clay is appealing his conviction. The same year, in the case of Terry Parker, a Toronto epileptic, a lower court ruled marijuana to be "therapeutic" and gave Mr. Parker access to the drug. The Crown is appealing that judgment. Monday, October 04, 1999Copyright © Southam Inc.Related Articles:Quality Of Mercy Strained By Club's Sale of MMJ - 10/03/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3126.shtmlCops May Nip Clinic In The Bud - 10/02/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3111.shtmlPot Store Opens Branch In Montreal - 10/01/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3104.shtml 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on October 04, 1999 at 20:18:50 PT:
Marijuana Growers Get Off With Lenience
Marijuana Growers Get Off With Lenience In The CourtsMon, 04 Oct 1999 Vancouver Sun (Canada) http://www.vancouversun.com/ A Vancouver Sun investigation shows some growers pay no fines and serve no time. The Vancouver Sun reviewed the cases of 112 people charged with growing marijuana, dating from 1996: Of those: 37 (33%) had their charges stayed 3 (2.7%) were acquitted 72 (64.3%) were convicted. Of those 72 convicted: 19 (26.4%) received only probation or a conditional sentence -- no fine or jail. 15 (20.8%) received jail sentences 42 (58.3%) were fined (Four people received jail and a fine). Of the 15 who received jail sentences: 12 (80%) received 90 days or less (lowest: one day in jail) 3 (20%) received more than 90 days, (two received 18 months, one received two years) Of the 42 people fined: 12 (28.6%) paid $1,500 or less (lowest: $500) 18 (42.9%) paid between $1,500 and $4,000 12 (28.6%) paid $4,000 or more (highest: $6,000) Average fine: $2,655.97 Only one in five people convicted of growing marijuana in Vancouver over the past three years has been sentenced to any time in jail, a Vancouver Sun investigation has found.The investigation also revealed that one in four served no jail time and paid no fine. Most of those convicted of producing marijuana (58.3 per cent) received a fine -- on average less than $2,700. RCMP spokesman Grant Learned said court penalties like that anger many police officers, who see ``a $1,000-fine on a $250,000 grow operation as just the cost of doing business -- no more than a business licence.'' Police forces across the Lower Mainland have devoted considerable time and money investigating and arresting the operators of marijuana-growing operations. Some RCMP detachments, such as Langley and Surrey, even have their own "Green Teams," which are devoted full-time to shutting down growing operations. But police have become increasingly frustrated at the penalties given to operators once they are convicted. Occasionally, police will express anger that an operator received only a small fine. And a Sun investigation of more than a hundred cases in Vancouver provincial court dating back to November 1996 shows that fines are the norm when marijuana growers come before the courts and long jail terms are rare. The Sun looked at 112 cases in which people were charged under Section 7.1 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (production of an illegal substance). Only three people (2.7 per cent) were acquitted. A relatively high number, 37, (33 per cent) had their charges stayed. In many cases, the Crown charged a group of people, presumably found together in a growing operation, and then later dropped charges against some. Seventy-two (64.3 per cent) were convicted. Of those 72, only 15 (20.8 per cent) received jail sentences. (The percentages noted here will not add up to 100 per cent because four people received both jail time and a fine.) The average jail sentence was 166 days -- but those numbers were skewed by three high sentences (two co-accused received 18 months and one person received two years).The vast majority of those sentenced to jail time (80 per cent) received 90 days or less, including two people who were sentenced to only one day in jail. The three who received lengthy jail sentences were also convicted of other crimes -- such as illegal possession of a firearm -- which may account for their higher sentences.Most of those who came before the courts were fined. About a third of those fined were ordered to pay $4,000 or more -- with the highest fine being $6,000. Another third paid $1,500 or less, with the lowest fine being $500. The average fine: $2,655.97."If a guy is getting a $2,600 fine on a grow-op that is producing a quarter-million dollars a year of tax-free drug money, there wouldn't be very much ... deterrence," Learned said. More than one in four (26.4 per cent) of those convicted were given probation or a conditional sentence, serving no jail time and paying no fine. More than half of those who avoided jail or a fine, 10 of 19, were given conditional sentences, which allow convicts to serve their sentences in the community. In such cases, restrictions such as abstention from alcohol or use of an electronic monitoring device are placed on the person. Conditional sentences ranged from 14 days to eight months -- with the average being 118 days.Vancouver criminal lawyer Michael Tammen said conditional sentences should not be considered probation. ``From my perspective, a conditional sentence is a jail sentence.'' Tammen said police have only themselves to blame if they are devoting significant resources to arresting marijuana growers. "I don't see why police see grow operations as such a big priority for them. ... In terms of the harm being done it pales in comparison to cocaine or heroin," Tammen said. "They've spent all this money and made this effort and judges haven't sent people away to jail. ... I say to the police: 'Tough luck.'" Vancouver Mayor Philip Owen, who chairs the police board, said he was surprised the average fine is only a few thousand dollars. "The fine appears to be just a minor inconvenience and the cost of doing business," Owen said. "It appears to me to be very low and certainly is no deterrent."Learned said the profits of some grow operations can range in the hundreds of thousands. But he said police have become reluctant to discuss how lucrative the average growing operation is out of fear a comparison between low fines and high profits will encourage even more people to take up the illicit trade.Neil Boyd, a criminologist at Simon Fraser University, said low sentences for marijuana production make sense given B.C.'s ambivalence toward marijuana use."The response of the judiciary simply reflects the confusion in our society about how to deal with marijuana," Boyd said. While the public generally supports police crackdowns on hard drugs such as cocaine or heroin, the fact many British Columbians use marijuana on a regular basis -- and many more have tried it -- means its production and sale are not looked on as harshly, Boyd said. A recent poll found 63 per cent of British Columbians thought possession of marijuana should be decriminalized, Boyd said, the highest rate in Canada. "I think judges cannot help but be influenced by the culture in which they live -- and it's appropriate," he said. Boyd said while the public may support longer jail sentences for violent criminals, he doesn't think they would advocate spending tens of thousands of dollars to send more marijuana growers to prison. However, Learned said growing operations have an overly benign image. Many of the major operations are "sponsored and subsidized by organized crime," he said, which can lead to violence. The involvement of major crime groups is in part because the drug can now be grown with a much higher THC-content than decades ago, making it more lucrative. (THC is the primary psychoactive component of marijuana which is what gives users a "high".) Learned said police have some hope the sentencing of marijuana growers is changing. In some areas, such as Surrey, judges have been slowly getting tougher, he said. However, judges are bound by past case law so cannot begin handing down significantly higher sentences without being challenged on appeal, Learned said. "Sentencing patterns are very slow to evolve," he said. Unfortunately, "the profitability is moving up much quicker." Copyright: The Vancouver Sun 1999 
Marijuana Growers Get Off With Lenience In The Courts
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