Pubdate:  Tues 20 May 1997
Source:   The Ottawa Citizen  News  A3
Contact:  Early Pot Crusader Feared Losing His Family
by Mike Blanchfield

  While a court battle to legalize marijuana enters its final phase today,
  Jeff Shurie will be making his own quiet contribution to the cause by
  tending a small shop several blocks away from the courtroom action.

  Mr. Shurie has fought his own war with authorities to legalize pot in
  Canada. And failed spectacularly. "It cost me my career," says the
  former school teacher, standing behind the cash register of Hemp
  Nation. 

  The store's owner, 26yearold Chris Clay, is on trial for cultivation
  and possession of a narcotic. Mr. Clay's defence lawyers are trying
  to decriminalize marijuana by having a section of the Narcotics
  Control Act struck down as unconstitutional. 

  As the trial enters its fourth week today, Mr. Clay's counsel,
  Osgoode Hall law professor Alan Young and Toronto criminal
  lawyer Paul Burstein, will present their closing arguments. They are
  trying to persuade a judge that marijuana is no more harmful than
  alcohol or tobacco, and that he ought to strike down the law. 

  It is expected Mr. Justice John McCart will take several weeks
  before making a ruling. 

  Mr. Clay and a store employee, Jordan Prentice, are jointly charged.
  And while they've been sitting in the prisoner's dock of a London
  courtroom the past three weeks, Mr. Shurie has ensured Hemp
  Nation has stayed open by volunteering his time at the store. 

  Mr. Shurie, 40, has had enough of courtrooms. He was the subject
  of another highprofile marijuana case in this Southwestern Ontario
  city. 

  In 1992, Mr. Shurie was a respected Grade 6 teacher at London's
  Hillcrest Public School when police raided his home and seized the
  hydroponic supplies he used to grow the marijuana he smoked daily.
  They had received a Crime Stoppers tip and paid out a $1,000
  reward for the bust. 

  Mr. Shurie said he never told his students about his pot smoking. "I
  was a role model," he says. "I wanted to keep that part of my life
  separate." 

  He says he grew his own marijuana rather than risk inadvertently
  buying from a student on the street. 

  He eventually plea bargained, and was convicted of cultivating a
  narcotic and fined $2,000. 

  But before the court case was resolved, he lost the teaching job he'd
  held for three years. It was a job he loved and seemed to be good
  at. On one job performance review, an supervisor wrote "Jeff's lively
  and outgoing personality motivates his students." 

  None of that seemed to matter to school officials, once the police
  charged him. He had to go. 

  "I have been drastically underemployed ever since," says Mr. Shurie.
  He's found odd jobs doing carpentry, renovating basements for
  friends. 

  It's a far cry from the career path he was on before his arrest. He'd
  studied history and psychology at university before heading off to
  teacher's college in North Bay. He worked with troubled teens in a
  special education program in Niagara Falls before funding for the
  program ran out. 

  He moved to London, where he sold insurance and ran a small
  lawncare business. His wife still works as a translator for London
  Life; she is the main wageearner for the family, which includes two
  sons, 14 and 11. 

  Mr. Shurie testified about the impact of his runin with the law over
  marijuana as part of Mr. Clay's case. His lawyers were trying to
  show that the negative impact of a marijuana arrest is far too great. 

  A senior researcher with the Ontario Addiction Research Foundation
  agrees. 

  While she doesn't advocate legalizing cannabis, Patricia Erickson told
  Mr. Clay's trial it should be decriminalized  that the penalties for
  simple possession or use should be eliminated. 

  Despite a lenient attitude by the courts to simple possession,
  someone with a criminal conviction can face hardship in the job
  market especially in these tough economic times, said Ms. Erickson,
  a sociologist and criminologist with the foundation. 

  Within a year of his court conviction, Mr. Shurie founded a group
  called HEMP Canada, a movement to legalize private, personal pot
  smoking. He toured the country, picketed Parliament Hill. 

  Mr. Shurie takes some pride in Mr. Clay's current legal battle. He
  believes his activism laid some of the groundwork for this current
  case. But he had too much to lose if he took his fight any further. 

  Mr. Shurie says his first reaction was to plead not guilty. But he says
  prosecutors told him if he went to trial and was convicted they would
  push for a fine of $9,000 and jail time in the six to ninemonth range.

  They hinted that social services might take his children. 

  "I couldn't risk that kind of devastation on my family."