Source: London Free Press Contact: COURTS Scientist defends industrial growth of cannabis An Agriculture Canada plant taxonomist who has spent much of his career researching the drug was testifying at the trial of a hemp store proprietor. By Eric Bender Free Press Reporter There is no reason cannabis should not be grown in Canada for industrial purposes with appropriate controls, a top Agriculture Canada scientist said in court Tuesday. "There's a societal or political problem over the cultivation (in Canada and the U.S.)," Ernest Small, a plant taxonomist, told the judge in the trial of Chris Clay, proprietor of Hemp Nation store at 343 Richmond St., who is charged with several counts of possessing and trafficking marijuana. Taxology is the theory and practice of the classification of living things. Clay and employee Jordan Prentice were charged two years ago during a raid on Clay's hemp products retail outlet. Clay sold a cannabis seedling from a flat of plants in his store to an undercover drug officer. NOTGUILTY PLEA: Clay and Prentice have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Small, one of the elite scientists at Agriculture Canada in Ottawa, has spent much of his career researching cannabis, particularly in the 1970s when he presented a report to the LeDain Commission and wrote dozens of articles and a book that suggested a threshold level of 0.3 per cent toxicity in discriminating between toxic and nontoxic cannabis plants. Small told Mr. Justice John McCart of the Ontario Court that he is "flattered and proud" that his "arbitrary" level of 0.3 per cent deduced after his studies, has been adopted as a standard in countries around the world, by the European Common Market and by the United Nations. He said he identified two sub species of cannabis in his research and they fell into two categories plants that tended to be suited to hemp or fibre commercial purposes and those suited to oil from seeds, food from seeds and therapeutics and narcotics from flowers and leaves. LOWER TOXICITY: He said the hemp plants tend to have low toxicity or psychoactive properties (known as THC) while the more leafy variety tend to have higher THC. He also said cannabis grown north of the 30th parallel tends to have lower toxicity. Small said he is aware Agriculture Canada has been issuing licences for experimental hemp plots on the condition the plants contain no more than 0.3 per cent THC. Plants exceeding the limit are to be destroyed. Defence counsel Alan Young, an Osgoode Hall law professor, told the judge he would be attempting to persuade the court that Canada has, in effect, if not officially, adopted the 0.3 per cent standard. He will then argue that the Narcotics Control Act does not or should not include nontoxic substances. CANNABIS EXPERT: Young is expected to call a cannabis expert to testify today, the third day of the trial. The Crown closed its case except for a witness or two who are scheduled to appear in the third week of the trial. The second and third weeks of the trial were set aside for a constitutional argument on the use and decriminalization of marijuana.