T
The420Guy
Guest
May 10,00
Editorial
Toronto Star
****
A jubilant woman wheeled out of a courtroom
Tuesday clutching her precious package of marijuana and immediately lit up in front of the courthouse.
''I am ecstatic,'' Catherine Devries, 42, said after a judge ordered police to return 21 grams of marijuana they seized April 22.
Devries is one of 37 Canadians legally entitled to use marijuana for medical reasons.
Police seized marijuana sent to her by a British Columbia group that supplies it free to exemptees after the package broke open at the Kitchener postal plant. Neither police nor the post office knew Devries had the medical exemption because Health Canada has not yet passed along the
names of exemptees to police departments.
After they found out, police said they couldn't return the marijuana because that would be trafficking.
So Devries and her lawyer took the matter to court and they got the order in about 10 minutes.
A police officer wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans came into the courtroom holding a brown inter-office envelope and handed it to Devries, who was seated in her wheelchair at the
front of the court. Devries began to cry as Sgt. Jim Erstad passed her the drug she desperately needs to control nausea and enable her to eat. She
has a small bowel disorder and suffers from a painful back condition caused by a degenerative nerve disorder.
''Yes!'' she shouted, twirling around in her wheelchair in the hallway. ''I'm going to go outside and do some medicine,'' Devries said as
she pulled three plastic packages of marijuana from the envelope. ''I can actually feel the lining of my intestine easing up. Am I
getting my colour back?'' she asked reporters after lighting up.
Earlier, federal drug prosecutor Gerry Taylor told Justice Donald MacMillan that Devries shouldn't have to worry that her drugs could be taken again.
Staff Sgt. Gary Askin, who leads the police drug unit, said police can't make any promises because the post office initiated the seizure by calling in police. ''If we run into another situation where they seize a package and turn it over to us, we have to take it. We just can't say no, you
keep it,'' he said. Drugs are illegal and are considered ''non-mailable'' material,Canada Post spokesman Tom Dalby said. There is no policy in place to deal with this ``new wrinkle'' of
medical marijuana being mailed across the country to exemptees, he said.
Kitchener, Ont. (CP)
Published: May 9, 2000
Copyright 1996-2000
Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
Editorial
Toronto Star
****
A jubilant woman wheeled out of a courtroom
Tuesday clutching her precious package of marijuana and immediately lit up in front of the courthouse.
''I am ecstatic,'' Catherine Devries, 42, said after a judge ordered police to return 21 grams of marijuana they seized April 22.
Devries is one of 37 Canadians legally entitled to use marijuana for medical reasons.
Police seized marijuana sent to her by a British Columbia group that supplies it free to exemptees after the package broke open at the Kitchener postal plant. Neither police nor the post office knew Devries had the medical exemption because Health Canada has not yet passed along the
names of exemptees to police departments.
After they found out, police said they couldn't return the marijuana because that would be trafficking.
So Devries and her lawyer took the matter to court and they got the order in about 10 minutes.
A police officer wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans came into the courtroom holding a brown inter-office envelope and handed it to Devries, who was seated in her wheelchair at the
front of the court. Devries began to cry as Sgt. Jim Erstad passed her the drug she desperately needs to control nausea and enable her to eat. She
has a small bowel disorder and suffers from a painful back condition caused by a degenerative nerve disorder.
''Yes!'' she shouted, twirling around in her wheelchair in the hallway. ''I'm going to go outside and do some medicine,'' Devries said as
she pulled three plastic packages of marijuana from the envelope. ''I can actually feel the lining of my intestine easing up. Am I
getting my colour back?'' she asked reporters after lighting up.
Earlier, federal drug prosecutor Gerry Taylor told Justice Donald MacMillan that Devries shouldn't have to worry that her drugs could be taken again.
Staff Sgt. Gary Askin, who leads the police drug unit, said police can't make any promises because the post office initiated the seizure by calling in police. ''If we run into another situation where they seize a package and turn it over to us, we have to take it. We just can't say no, you
keep it,'' he said. Drugs are illegal and are considered ''non-mailable'' material,Canada Post spokesman Tom Dalby said. There is no policy in place to deal with this ``new wrinkle'' of
medical marijuana being mailed across the country to exemptees, he said.
Kitchener, Ont. (CP)
Published: May 9, 2000
Copyright 1996-2000
Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
