HTTP/1.0 200 OK Content-Type: text/html Police Raid Puts Pot Club Out Of Business
Pubdate: Fri., August 27. 1999
Source: Calgary Herald (Canada) Copyright: 1999 Calgary Herald Contact: P.O. Box 2400, Stn. M, Calgary, Alberta T2P 0W8 Fax: (403) 235-7379 Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/ Forum: http://forums.canada.com/~calgary POLICE RAID PUTS POT CLUB OUT OF BUSINESS The universal for seriously ill and disabled people who smoke marijuana for pain relief has been put on hold after Calgary police arrested Grant Krieger, his lawyer said Thursday. 'It kills it, at least temporarily,' lawyer Adriano Lovinelli said outside provincial court following Krieger's first appearance on four criminal charges. 'If his pot growing operation is shot down, the people in line don't get it. He still wants to continue .... but it's suspended for now.' Krieger, 45, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is a medicinal marijuana activist, spent the past two nights in the Calgary remand centre after being arrested Wednesday evening and charged with cultivation of a narcotic and possession with the purpose of trafficking. Officers had found two marijuana plants in the backyard of the house at 4611 Bowness Road N.W.when they had gone to charge Krieger with two counts of breaching probation relating to prior convictions. They executed a search warrant on the residence later in the evening and seized 29 more plants -- a half-dozen of which were mature - and drug paraphernalia. `I think it's going to wipe us out,' Compassion Club member Gilbert Brenton said Thursday. He added, however, that Krieger told him by telephone that he intends to rebuild the club. Member Brenda Fischer, 37, of Calgary, who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - a rare, incurable connective tissue disorder - said she will have to look elsewhere for her supply. Her doctor wrote her a letter that said he had no other drugs to ease her pain. `They should have better things to do than hurt sick people,' Fischer said of the raid. `They really are hurting us sick people by doing that. There are people that need this. And they come in and take it.' Krieger is to be back in court this morning for a bail hearing and Lovinelli said, 'it's going to be an uphill battle.' During Krieger's brief hearing before provincial court Judge Gary Cioni, Crown prosecutor Dan Mitsuka said he will ask the court to keep the man in custody - --- MAP posted-by: manemez j lovitto