Pubdate: Tue, 24 Jul 2012
Source: Comox Valley Echo (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 Comox Valley Echo
Contact:  http://www.mapinc.org/media/785
Author: Spencer Anderson

MEDICINAL POT ADVOCATE CHALLENGING LAWS

A Comox Valley medical marijuana advocate is challenging the
constitutionality of federal regulations on the substance following
police searches and his arrest at his home last year.

On Wednesday, Ernie Yacub filed a motion to challenge the
constitutionality of sections of the Controlled Drugs and Substances
Act (CDSA) as they apply to cannabis used for medical or therapeutic
purposes.

Yacub is also seeking the dismissal of two counts of possession for
the purpose of trafficking he is faced with under the CDSA. The
charges were laid about three months ago, and he has entered not
guilty pleas on both.

Yacub has been involved with the North Island Compassion Club as a
member and also as a manager and director for several years, during
which time the club supplied its members with medicinal marijuana
products to help them cope with pain and illness.

The club operated a dispensary at Yacub's rented home on Sixth Street
in Courtenay for seven years without incident, according to Yacub, who
said he even informed police of the location of the dispensary.

However, police raided the club in February 2011, seizing several
pounds of marijuana, and arresting four people.

"Police are concerned the club has become a front for marijuana
dealing," RCMP spokeswoman Const. Tammy Douglas said in a statement at
the time of the incident. "We recognize there are conflicting views on
the medicinal value of marijuana but it remains illegal to sell in the
manner in which they were conducting business."

Police raided the club a second time in July 2011, costing the club
thousands of dollars, Yacub said at the time.

"After that, we had to shut the dispensary down because we couldn't
afford to keep losing money and medicine," Yacub said.

At a press conference Thursday, Yacub's lawyer Kirk Tousaw said the
CDSA fails to protect people from criminal prosecution for medical
marijuana use under the act, and fails to provide patients with a
"safe, effective and lawful source of cannabis and cannabis-based
medical products."

Tousaw said aspects of the federal statute and Marijuana Medical
Access Regulations under the act have already been found to be
unconstitutional on several other occasions in the past, including in
B.C. Supreme Court.

He said his client is prepared to take the case to the Supreme Court
of Canada if necessary, but noted the highest court in the land has
not yet agreed to hear a medical marijuana access case.

"We fully expect to demonstrate to the provincial court in Courtenay
that the system the federal government has set up continues to be
ineffective and continues to deny patients the ability to access this
safe and effective natural health product, and we hope that a
successful result in this case will finally drive home to the Harper
Conservative government that Canadians - critically and chronically
ill Canadians - deserve safe, unfettered access to medical marijuana
." Tousaw said.

Tousaw called his client a "compassionate" person providing people
with health issues a valuable service, and said current and proposed
access laws were overly restrictive.

"Look, let's be very clear," he said. "Marijuana is a safe and
effective natural health product, there is no reported case of
overdose in thousands of years of human history, it provides little
danger to patients who consume it, and a great deal of benefit."

Yacub said he doesn't make any money off of the North Island
Compassion Club, and said he runs the club "because it needs to be
done."

"I welcome the opportunity to inform people that the law is broken,
it's wrong," he said. "People have a right to this medicine which does
all kinds of amazing, wonderful things for people."

Tousaw said the Crown could choose to drop charges against Yacub at
any time during proceedings.

"These are battles that aren't chosen by the accused, these are
battles that are chosen by Crown," he said, adding that Yacub was
charged about a year after his arrest and the initial search warrant
executed by police.

"These raids and these charges have impacted the community in a very
negative way, and will continue to impact the community in a negative
way until the federal government comes to its senses and puts into
place a system of access to medical marijuana that actually works and
is actually to the benefit of patients," said Tousaw.

Under current access regulations, a person may apply for a license to
possess dried medical marijuana, a license to grow marijuana, or a
license to have a designated person grow a set quantity of marijuana
on their behalf.

Health Canada Health provides eligible patients with dried marijuana
and seeds obtained from Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems
Incorporated, a company that grows, harvests and processes plants for
pharmaceutical products and research.

The federal government does not license or regulate compassion clubs,
Tousaw said.

"The unfortunate thing is, on the one hand, you have the federal
government saying, 'Well these are illegal, unregulated businesses,'
while on the other hand absolutely and categorically refusing to
license them and to regulate them," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt