Pubdate: Fri, 11 Jan 2008 Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB) Copyright: 2008 Canoe Limited Partnership Contact: http://www.winnipegsun.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503 Author: Maria Babbage, Canadian Press Referenced: The decision http://drugsense.org/url/19ux35Rc Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal - Canada) MEDICAL POT USERS WIN MORE FREEDOM TORONTO -- Canadians who are prescribed marijuana to treat their illnesses will no longer be forced to rely on the federal government as a supplier following a Federal Court ruling that struck down a key restriction in Ottawa's controversial medical marijuana program. The decision by Judge Barry Strayer, released late yesterday, essentially grants medical marijuana users more freedom in picking their own grower and allows growers to supply the drug to more than one patient. It's also another blow to the federal government, whose attempts to tightly control access to medical marijuana have prompted numerous court challenges. Currently, medical users can grow their own pot but growers can't supply the drug to more than one user at a time. Lawyers for medical users argued restriction effectively established Health Canada as the country's sole legal provider of medical marijuana. They also said the restriction was unfair, and prevented seriously ill Canadians from obtaining the drug needed to treat debilitating illnesses. In his decision, Strayer called the provision unconstitutional and arbitrary. Ottawa must also reconsider requests made by a group of medical users who brought the matter to court to have a single outside supplier as their designated producer, Strayer said in his 23-page decision. While the government has argued medical users who can't grow their own marijuana can obtain it from its contract manufacturer, fewer than 20% of patients use the government's supply, Strayer wrote. "In my view it is not tenable for the government, consistently with the right established in other courts for qualified medical users to have reasonable access to marijuana, to force them either to buy from the government contractor, grow their own or be limited to the unnecessarily restrictive system of designated producers," he wrote. Ron Marzel, a Toronto lawyer representing the group of medical users who brought the matter before the Federal Court, called the decision a "great remedy" for his clients. "All this means is that the limit -- the one-to-one ratio -- it's the last nail in the coffin for that ratio," he said in an interview. The provision had been struck down by the courts before, but was reinstated by the government which contracted Prairie Plant Systems Inc. in Flin Flon, Man., to provide the drug to patients. "(It was) constitutionally suspect from the beginning," said lawyer Alan Young, who argued in court on behalf of the sick. Ottawa could either rewrite the regulations, come up with a new ratio, "or they can simply leave it as an open market so that people who are experienced and have the right secure facility will be able to apply to grow for 10 patients, 20 patients," Young said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake