Pubdate: Sat, 04 Jan 2003 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Copyright: 2003, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Page: A5 Author: Colin Freeze OTTAWA TO APPEAL RULING AGAINST POT LAWS Ottawa is appealing a ruling that found Canada's marijuana-possession laws are no longer valid. In a notice filed yesterday, the Crown says it will try to show that an Ontario judge erred when he concluded that a 16-year-old broke no laws when he was caught carrying five grams of marijuana last spring. Jim Leising, director of the Justice Department's prosecution service in Ontario, announced the decision to appeal yesterday, one day after Judge Douglas Phillips in Windsor dismissed possession charges against the teenager. Judge Phillips agreed with the defence that a previous court decision rendered the laws against marijuana possession invalid. An appeal is a matter of some urgency for the Justice Department; the validity of a marijuana law which many people are accused of breaking is an open question. Brian McAllister, the teenager's lawyer, said the case he won on Thursday leaves Ontario's legal system in a quandary. "I don't see why any judge would want to hear any other cases involving the issue until this appeal has been adjudicated." A judge in the Ontario Superior Court in Windsor will hear the appeal, likely within a few weeks. The confusion created by the teenager's case has its roots in a ruling made two years ago. In July, 2000, an Ontario Court of Appeal judge ruled that Canada's marijuana-possession laws are unconstitutional because they do not allow chronically ill people access to a substance that could lessen their suffering. Though the ruling, in effect, struck down the possession law, the judge explicitly delayed its effect for one year. The hope was that Ottawa could come up with a more compassionate scheme in the interim. The federal cabinet responded with new rules, but they may not be sufficient. The judge in the teenager's case ruled this week that the appeal court had called for nothing less than new laws passed by Parliament, and that regulations issued by cabinet do not carry enough weight. Judge Phillips ruled that because the underlying constitutional issue was never properly addressed, the possession laws remained invalid regardless of whether the person caught with cannabis was using it for medicinal or recreational purposes. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart