Pubdate: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 Source: Halifax Herald (CN NS) Copyright: 2002 The Halifax Herald Limited Contact: http://www.herald.ns.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/180 Author: C. W. Donald KUDOS TO JUDGE Dear Editor: Re: "Jail's no place for pot grower" (Aug. 16). Kudos to Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Felix Cacchione for refusing to let the Crown and police railroad yet another non-violent, harmless Nova Scotian for growing some weeds in the woods. National polls have shown for years that Canadians want the current cannabis laws changed. Maybe the police will finally get the message that wasting money on cannabis offences is an insult to taxpayers as long as there is a single unsolved murder, assault, robbery or other real crime left on their books. I hope that Justice Cacchione shows the same common sense when he sentences the medical patient involved in the same case, Mike Patriquen, whom the police and Crown have desperately tried to paint as a Marvel Comics supervillain, but who, in reality, is yet another persecuted user of medical cannabis and a patient legally allowed by the federal government to grow cannabis for his medical condition. Justice Cacchione should be lauded for his common sense while the federal justice minister muses about changing our country's outdated, and quite simply fascist, marijuana laws. C. W. Donald, Dartmouth - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart