Pubdate: Wed, 01 Apr 2009
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2009 The Calgary Sun
Contact:  http://www.calgarysun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67

MEDICINAL FIGHT OVER POT ENDS

A longtime advocate for the use of medical marijuana has agreed to
give up a fight that has seen him battle the justice system to the
Supreme Court.

Grant Krieger, who has for years vocally defended his right to provide
marijuana to the sick, signed a legal document yesterday pledging to
stop growing or distributing it.

"I've hit the end of all my ropes and I'm just tired of it now," he
said in Calgary.

Krieger uses marijuana to treat symptoms of progressive multiple
sclerosis. At one time, he also supplied more than 400 sick people
with the drug through a compassion club. As a result of Krieger's
promise, Alberta's Court of Appeal has swapped a four-month jail
sentence for 18 months of probation in a 2007 trafficking conviction.

Krieger was at first given jail time because he "stated he did not
think he had done anything wrong and had no intention of closing his
club (and) and confirmed that he would not desist from his campaign to
distribute marijuana," the appeal decision reads.

That stand was the continuation of a campaign that saw him defiant in
court case after court case from his first trafficking conviction more
than a decade ago. He took one case to the Supreme Court, where he was
granted a new trial after the court ruled the trial judge erred by
directing the jury to find him guilty.
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