Pubdate: Tue, 03 Apr 2001 Source: Globe and Mail (Canada) Copyright: 2001, The Globe and Mail Company Contact: http://www.globeandmail.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168 Author: Brian Laghi OTTAWA MAY LICENSE POT GROWERS Ottawa - The federal government may soon start licensing angels of mercy to supply the desperately ill with marijuana. Ottawa will unveil proposed new regulations this week making it legal for third parties to grow and supply marijuana for those who need it to relieve the agony of terminal illness and other serious conditions. The new rules will allow people who require the drug to alleviate suffering to designate a grower on their behalf, sources told The Globe and Mail Monday. The rules will also set out three categories of people who will be allowed to seek exemptions from prosecution for using marijuana. Government officials would only identify one category - the terminally ill. Officials familiar with the proposal say Ottawa would grant licences to people for possessing and for growing or supplying marijuana. The move comes four months before a court-imposed deadline forcing the federal government to act on the issue. "The licences to produce would be either for the individual who has asked for the exemption, or they can designate someone," said the source, who asked not to be identified. An advocate for people who require the drug to relieve symptoms was overjoyed at the news. "I think it's terrific. It's a big move forward," said Philippe Lucas, director of the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, a Victoria-based organization which advocates the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. "It's a realization that a lot of sick people will not have the health or the knowledge to grow it themselves - that they need a third party to do it." The regulations will be unveiled by the end of the week and the general public will be given 30 days to respond. New regulations must be in place by the end of July, and come after the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the country's laws forbidding the possession of marijuana are unconstitutional and gave the federal government one year to amend them. The decision resulted from the case of Terrance Parker, a 44-year-old epileptic who won a 23-year court battle for the right to smoke and grow marijuana to control his seizures. Mr. Parker's hydroponic garden was raided by police in 1997. The new regulations would allow people like Mr. Parker to grow their own or designate someone else to do it for them. "We're trying to correct the contradiction that on the one hand allows someone to take it for medical reasons and on the other makes it illegal to actually produce it, buy it or grow it," the source said. The other key feature of the new rules clarifies just who can and can't apply for exemptions. Currently, people who believe their suffering can be eased by medicinal marijuana can apply for an exemption from prosecution for growing or using it. However, lawyers for medicinal marijuana users say applications for exemptions go into a "black hole" at Health Canada and that relatively few people receive approval. The federal government has supplied exemptions for 210 people. Ontario alone has about 150,000 individuals who might benefit from marijuana's ability to ease the symptoms of AIDS, cancer, epilepsy and other conditions. "This is designed to make it more transparent and more regular for people," the source said. "You have to create the infrastructure to support what had originally been seen just as a few exemptions." The government is also working on setting up clinical trials to get a more scientific understanding of which conditions might be best alleviated by the drug. The federal government has recently agreed to tender a contract to a Saskatoon-based company to produce marijuana for medical purposes, but the first delivery of the drug will not take place for about a year and Health Canada officials needed to develop a strategy to make it available in other ways. With a report from Susan Bourette - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe