Pubdate: Wed, 19 Mar 2014
Source: Metro (Ottawa, CN ON)
Copyright: 2014 Metro
Contact:  http://www.metronews.ca/Ottawa
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4032
Author: Trevor Greenway

GRANDMOTHER WAITS IN ANGST FOR POLICE POT RAID

Laurie MacEachern Uses Medical Marijuana to Treat Several Ailments

A 54-year-old "grandmother with no criminal record" is waiting for 
the day RCMP officers show up to raid her Cornwall home. She expects 
it to be any day now.

Laurie MacEachern uses medical marijuana to treat her idiopathic 
neuropathy, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome and spinal injury. 
She grows her own pot in a home garden, but when April 1 rolls 
around, she will be considered a criminal.

"We are all pretty stressed out," said MacEachern, breaking down into sobs.

Under new Health Canada rules, patients will no longer be allowed to 
grow their own medicine and will be forced to buy pot from a list of 
federal approved growers under the new Marijuana for Medical Purposes 
Restrictions (MMPR) program.

MacEachern - and 40,000 other medical marijuana patients - have also 
been ordered by Health Canada to provide a written statement 
attesting that they "no longer possess marijuana (dried marijuana, 
plants or seeds) obtained under the old program" and those who have 
been authorized to grow must also state that production has stopped 
and plants have been destroyed.

Those who don't comply will be added to a growing RCMP list of 
potential lawbreakers.

MacEachern's name will be on that list.

"I have already notified my doctor and my lawyer that I have 
absolutely no idea how I can comply or medicate after the first of 
April," she told Metro, breaking down into tears.

MacEachern says she doesn't want to break the law, but can't afford 
to buy from Health Canada's list of approved growers, which offer pot 
for as low as $4.88 per gram. MacEachern consumes 12 grams daily and 
grew enough pot for a year for less than $500 in her back yard.

She says she can't afford to destroy the limited marijuana she has left.

"Anybody on a disability pension can barely afford to live," she 
said, adding her disability pension would only pay for about 
one-tenth of her pot prescription.

So she waits for the drug raid - or hopes that B.C. lawyer John 
Conroy wins an injunction case that could extend the old rules for home growers.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom