Pubdate: Thu, 08 May 2003
Source: Taipei Times, The (Taiwan)
Copyright: 2003 The Taipei Times
Contact:  http://www.taipeitimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1553
Author: Reuters

POT ACTIVIST TAKES A HIT IN CANADA'S SUPREME COURT

There is now another reason to call it Canada's high court.

An activist seeking the overturn of Canada's marijuana law smoked hashish 
and cannabis on Tuesday before arguing his own case in the Supreme Court, 
dressed completely in hemp products.

"I took a couple hits off some bubble hash and a little bit of cannabis," 
David Malmo-Levine told reporters after delivering a 40-minute monologue to 
the nine justices.

"I was happy, hungry and relaxed, but I was not impaired."

But his arguments seem to have fallen a little flat with the justices, who 
will not rule for a number of months.

After having mercilessly grilled a lawyer arguing a companion case, they 
declined to question Malmo-Levine despite his pleas to "hammer away" at him.

His arguments were nothing if not innovative, however.

He argued that just as the court had created a prohibition against 
discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, he should receive 
similar constitutional protection on the basis of "substance orientation" 
and "vocation orientation."

"A natural preference or taste for herbs is a substance orientation," said 
the 31-year-old university dropout, sporting a black shirt, jacket, pants 
and boots, white tie, and multicolored "hankie," all made from hemp.

"Why should not cannabis cafe operators receive vocation orientation 
protection?"

He was charged in 1996 with possession of marijuana for the purposes of 
trafficking, when police raided a "Harm Reduction Club" in Vancouver which 
provided pot to its 1,800 members and which he helped run.

Appealing to the court to strike down the law, he said: "For the vast 
section of people all over the world who have an innate feeling deep down 
inside they should have a right to self-medicate and control their own 
minds, you'll be heroes."

Ironically, Ottawa defended the law before the Supreme Court even though it 
plans to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

The chief federal lawyer arguing the case, David Frankel, said that even 
under the proposed changes to the law, the government would keep criminal 
penalties for possession of larger amounts of pot and for trafficking in 
the substance.

Justice Charles Gonthier asked if the balancing of how harmful marijuana is 
was not a political question.

Burstein responded that "there is an insufficient amount of harm to warrant 
the very heavy hammer of the criminal law," and therefore courts should in 
fact interfere.
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