Pubdate: Mon, 09 Jun 2014
Source: Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Copyright: 2014 The Halifax Herald Limited
Contact:  http://www.herald.ns.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180
Author: Frances Campbell

CROWN STOPS PROSECUTION OF CUMBERLAND COUNTY MEDICAL POT USER

The Crown's case against medical marijuana user Terry Wood for growing
and possessing cannabis has gone up in smoke.

"My client is ecstatic," said Amherst lawyer Jim O'Neil. "He's been
living under the gun for quite a while on these charges."

Wood is a 53-year-old father of three who lives in the Cumberland
County community of Williamsdale, near Oxford. He had been growing and
using marijuana to control the chronic pain he suffers from chipped
bones in his elbows and knees, hip-bone spurs and a dislocated
shoulder, all from his days as a machinist in the military.

He held a federal exemption to possess and grow cannabis, but lost his
protection when Health Canada terminated all medical exemptions
approved by Dr. Rob Kamermans, an Ontario physician who signed off on
hundreds of applications at a three-day mobile clinic in Halifax in
2011.

The affected patients were given about 30 days to renew their
applications, but it took Wood five months to get a doctor to give the
OK for him to receive his new permit.

In the meantime, RCMP raided Wood's home in January 2013 and seized
cannabis resin, marijuana, a rifle and ammunition.

O'Neil said he received a letter from federal Crown prosecutor David
Schermbrucker in Halifax on May 30 advising both himself and Judge
Paul Scovil that the Crown would not be proceeding with the charges
related to cannabis marijuana.

"The Crown ultimately agreed with the charter arguments that were
raised by the defence," O'Neil said of the charges that were dismissed
against his client Monday morning. "He (Wood) was collateral damage in
a dispute between Health Canada and a doctor that had nothing to do
with him.

"This is fantastic. I feel really good about it. You deal with a lot
of cases but once in a while you get one and you say, 'What's going
on?' This poor guy has gone through a lot because of this. He was
under pretrial detention."

Wood's legal troubles are not completely behind him, although O'Neil
said Monday's proceedings dealt with 90 per cent of the case against
him.

"There are some other parts of the case relating to the (possession)
of resin that they will still proceed (with)."

There is a current charter challenge about cannabis extracts,
including tea, brownies, tincture, oil and others. In 2012, a British
Columbia judge struck down that portion of the medical marijuana
access regulations prohibiting cannabis extracts for authorized
patients in that province.

An appeal in that case will be heard some time in the next
year.

The resin case against Wood will be delayed until after a decision in
the cannabis extracts case from British Columbia comes down.

Wood's case has been tentatively set over until Sept.
15.

The Wood decision will mark the first time outside of B.C. that the
constitutionality of denying access to extracts will be ruled on.
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