Pubdate: Fri, 17 Oct 2003
Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Copyright: 2003 The London Free Press a division of Sun Media Corporation.
Contact:  http://www.lfpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243
Author: Gillian Livingston, Canadian Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

POLICE CHARGING MARIJUANA SMOKERS

TORONTO -- The glory days for Ontario marijuana smokers are over, at least
for now, with police laying possession charges again after months of turning
a blind eye to public toking when pot laws were temporarily loosened.
Ontario Provincial Police officers have been advised they can now enforce
Canada's laws against pot possession after a court ruling last week
clarified that those laws were constitutional.

Supt. Bill Crate, director of corporate communications for the force, said
yesterday officers have been told they can now enforce the law -- which had
been suspended since earlier this year due to a previous court ruling.

"What the ruling means for us is it's basically clarified that simple
possession . . . is constitutionally valid and now subject to the full force
and effect of the law."

Ontario's pot-possession laws were called into question earlier this year by
a case in which an Ontario Court judge in Windsor threw out a
marijuana-possession charge against a 16-year-old boy.

The boy's lawyer successfully argued that since there was no effective
program for sick people to possess medical marijuana without breaking the
law, then the law didn't prohibit possession. That ruling was upheld on
appeal in May.

But an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling on Oct. 7 struck down parts of the
federal government's medical marijuana access program, thereby making it --
in the court's eyes -- effective and constitutionally valid.
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