Pubdate: Sat, 03 Nov 2001
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2001 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Kim Guttormson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

POLICE SAY MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROUP'S PLAN WOULD BREAK LAW

Pot Club Signs Up First Member

A group hoping to start a club where people can purchase marijuana for medicinal use has signed up its first member, says a 50-year-old woman with fibromyalgia.

"It will stop having to go to seedy areas," said Lorna, who didn't want her last name used. She said she has a source who usually can supply her with the cannabis that relieves her chronic pain, "but if not, it's the street. Going to bars, hanging around. People don't trust me."

Fibromyalgia produces pain in the soft tissue around joints and in skin and organs. Lorna says smoking marijuana helps relax her muscles and allow other pain medication to work.

Two local marijuana activists are trying to start a Compassion Club, essentially a buying co-op for people who want to purchase medicinal marijuana. One of them, Chris Buors, said he'd had eight people express interest already.

The federal government has begun to provide exemptions for people who find marijuana helps their chronic pain or relieves the effects of treatments such as chemotherapy. Across Canada, 559 people are already legally able to possess marijuana. The government is growing marijuana, which will be made available to those with the exemptions, in a mine in Flin Flon. The distribution method hasn't been determined yet.

Lorna said there is too much paperwork to go through the federal government.

Yesterday, she paid $10 to join the Compassion Club. If the club takes off, it will eventually allow her to buy the drug at lower than street prices.

A Need

Buors, who will manage the club, said the Winnipeg model will be based on existing clubs, such as one in Vancouver.

"It's a need that serves the ill and the elderly," Buors said, adding many people wouldn't know where to go to purchase marijuana if they had the need. Ultimately they would like a space where members could go to smoke. He says recreational marijuana users already have sources and wouldn't need the club.

The form prospective members fill out includes room for their illness, and they must be willing to testify in court about that illness and the fact marijuana helps them, Buors said. He said he will buy marijuana and then sell it to club members. He acknowledges those actions are the definition of trafficking, but he's willing to take the chance.

Winnipeg Police Sgt. Lyle MacMillan said what Buors and partner Geoff Hughes want to do is trafficking, under the existing law.

"I'm not sure what his game plan is, but the guy will have to follow the laws of the land," MacMillan said, adding that the government's new rule regarding medicinal marijuana would seem to address Buors' concerns. "There are going to be proper channels for people."

Buors will be trying to sign up members in front of the Law Courts building on Wednesdays and at the same time get names on a petition to create a political party, the Manitoba Cannabis Party. He ran for the Marijuana Party in the last federal election.

"It's a political statement, simply because . . . the law underserves the ill and the elderly," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth