Pubdate: Thu, 05 Dec 2002
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2002 The Calgary Sun
Contact:  http://www.fyicalgary.com/calsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Kevin Martin, Calgary Sun
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/grant.htm (Krieger, Grant)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

COURT UPHOLDS DRUG ACQUITTAL

Pot crusader Grant Kreiger's licence to grow won't be chopped down by 
Alberta's top court.

A three-member Alberta Court of Appeal panel yesterday upheld Kreiger's 
acquittal on a charge of cultivating a narcotic.

The  appeal  judges  agreed with a lower-court ruling that the federal 
government's  exemption  to  pot  possession was "an absurdity because 
there was no legal source of marijuana."

But  the  high  court  overturned  Kreiger's  acquittal on a charge of 
possession of the drug for the purpose of trafficking.

Justice  Peter  Costigan, in handing down the unanimous decision, said 
the  trial  judge erred in her explanation of the defence of necessity to 
the jurors, who found Kreiger not guilty.

Costigan  said  Queen's Bench Justice Darlene Acton was right when she 
ruled  Kreiger didn't have to apply for an exemption to simply possess 
marijuana for his own use.

Crown  prosecutor  Scott Couper argued that Acton erred when she ruled that 
the cultivation law deprived Kreiger -- who suffers from multiple sclerosis 
- -- the right to his medicine of choice.

"The evidence clearly disclosed a number of alternatives," he said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom