Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jan 2008
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2008 The Windsor Star
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/windsor/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Meagan Fitzpatrick, Canwest News Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)

OTTAWA LOSES POT CHALLENGE

(CNS) - The federal government lost another court challenge to its 
controversial medical marijuana program, and now has 30 days to 
decide whether to appeal the ruling that declared one of its key 
policies unconstitutional.

Under the current set of regulations, licensed producers are only 
allowed to grow the drug for one patient at a time. Federal Court 
Judge Barry Strayer said that one-to-one ratio violates the Charter 
of Rights and Freedoms.

The decision, the latest in a string of court cases, will essentially 
mean more choice for approved medical marijuana users and should 
provide easier access for them to the drug.

"What the federal court effectively did was assert that the 
government of Canada does not have a monopoly over the production and 
distribution of medical marijuana," said Alan Young, one of the 
lawyers who launched the court battle on behalf of 30 patients.

'NOT TENABLE'

Authorized users who cannot grow their own marijuana because they are 
too ill, or for other reasons, must then rely on a sole source 
provider -- either a licensed private producer, if they can find one 
willing to produce only for them, or the government, which buys the 
plants from a Saskatchewan-based company.

"It is not tenable for the government, consistently with the right 
established in other courts for qualified medical users to have 
reasonable access to marijuana, to force them either to buy from the 
government contractor, grow their own or be limited to the 
unnecessarily restrictive system of designated producers," Strayer 
wrote in his decision.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom