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Medicinal pot crusader busted
By KEVIN ENGSTROM, SUN MEDIA,
January 9, 2004
WINNIPEG -- A Calgary-based
medicinal pot crusader faces possession charges after being busted
by Headingley Mounties on Tuesday.
Grant Krieger, 49, said he
was pulled over Tuesday night by RCMP, who seized roughly $7,500
worth of marijuana and cash from his vehicle. Krieger, an MS
sufferer who has smoked marijuana for medicinal purposes since
1994, said the pot was for himself and a Selkirk resident stricken
with cancer.
Both are legally allowed to
grow weed and smoke it for medicinal purposes, Krieger said yesterday.
Krieger is head of the Krieger
Foundation, a group devoted to supplying the narcotic to those
who need it for medical use.
Krieger said all but a few
grams of pot were seized by Mounties.
"These officers, in their
infinite wisdom, decided I needed no more than four or five grams
and left it in my car," said Krieger, who smokes a half-ounce
of weed daily.
RCMP spokesman Sgt. Steve Saunders
would not confirm Krieger's arrest. He did say, though, that
officers found an undisclosed quantity of marijuana and cash
after pulling a vehicle over on the Trans-Canada Highway near
Headingley early Tuesday evening.
Krieger was convicted by a
Calgary judge just last month of trafficking pot after testifying
he distributed home-grown marijuana in 1999 to members of his
Compassion Club.
After a
long and difficult battle . . .Jury finds in favour of pot crusader
Krieger justified in breaking
law, Calgary court rules,
June 21, 2001
CALGARY (CP) - Medical marijuana crusader Grant Krieger
was justified in breaking the law and selling pot to chronically
ill people, a jury here ruled Wednesday night.
The one-man, 11-woman panel
accepted defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli's argument his client,
a former salesperson from Preeceville, was saving lives when
he supplied marijuana to the sick.
"It's fantastic, I feel
great," Krieger said moments after the verdict was read.
"I'm ready to start providing medicine for people who are
ill. This is a major step forward."
 Krieger,
46, who has multiple sclerosis and has been fighting for more
than five years to have the drug legalized for medical purposes,
had been charged with one count of possession for the purpose
of trafficking.
Iovinelli said outside court
the verdict reflected public opinion on the current state of
Canada's laws on using marijuana for medicinal reasons.
"It's a message to the
government that we've got to change the laws," he said.
During final arguments Iovinelli said his client was clearly
in possession of the drug for the purpose of trafficking, but
broke the law out of necessity. "This is the first time
I've ever said to a jury, `My client did it,' " Iovinelli
told jurors.
"Mr. Krieger believes
what he is doing is not wrong, what he believes is he is supplying
individuals with medicare they can't get anywhere else."
Krieger readily admitted growing
29 pot plants in his home in August 1999. He said the crop was
designed to help the chronically ill - who came to his Universal
Compassion Club - ease their pain and suffering.
Crown prosecutor Scott Couper
argued despite Krieger's motivation, he didn't meet the strict
legal test of necessity.
"Ask yourselves whether
Mr. Krieger's belief of imminent and pressing peril compelled
him to set up this grow operation," Couper told jurors.
But Iovinelli argued Krieger knows first-hand to what depths
individuals might go to ease their suffering.
"At the end of the day
it was necessary for Mr. Krieger to provide marijuana to his
clients out of fear that they would commit suicide," the
lawyer said. "You can shut your door, you don't have to
have humanity, you don't have to help anyone else. . . . Mr.
Krieger made it his problem because this is who (he) is."
Const. Christian Vermette had
testified he arrested Krieger when he spotted two pot plants
on a table in the backyard of the home while he was there on
unrelated business.
Vermette said Krieger immediately
told him he had other marijuana plants growing inside the house.
In April, the federal government
announced people suffering from severe forms of arthritis will
be given the right to possess and smoke marijuana legally if
they can prove they can't be treated with other drugs to alleviate
relentless pain.
The regulations also allow
terminal patients and people with AIDS, multiple sclerosis, spinal-cord
injuries, epilepsy and other serious conditions to use the drug
if it eases their symptoms.
The measures also allow the
government to license third parties to grow marijuana for individual
sufferers who can't grow it for themselves.
The new rules create three
categories of people who can possess the drug: those with terminal
illnesses with a prognosis of death within one year, those with
symptoms associated with serious medical conditions, and those
suffering from symptoms with other medical conditions.
For those who will be allowed
to produce the drug, the rules will set maximums for the number
of indoor and outdoor plants to be grown, authorize a grower
to receive and possess seeds and allow for site inspections and
criminal-record checks of designated growers.
In December, Ottawa awarded
Prairie Plant Systems Inc. of Saskatoon a contract to grow marijuana
for Health Canada for research purposes. The first crop is expected
to available later this year.
Judge strikes down pot growing
law
But MS Sufferer Grant
Krieger Not To Sell Medicinal Marijuana
Calgary Herald, December
12, 2000
An Alberta judge has struck
down a portion of federal law that prohibits the cultivation
of marijuana for medicinal purposes, saying it's unconstitutional.
Justice Darlene Acton struck
down Section 7(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act
Monday, but stayed the decision for a year.
That time, she said, would
allow the federal government ample opportunity to correct the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms breach she ruled has been made
against marijuana crusader Grant Wayne Krieger.
Acton, as part of the decision,
also stayed cultivation charges against Krieger, 46, who has
multiple sclerosis, and granted him an exemption under Section
56 of the act so he can now legally grow the illicit drug for
his own personal use.
The judge said exemptions permit
citizens who require marijuana for health reasons to possess
the drug, yet what "triggers the absurdity" is that
they are forced to grow it or purchase it illegally off the street.
At least this way, she says,
there will be some measure of quality control.
As of Oct. 2, she said, Health
Minister Allan Rock has granted 72 exemptions nationally. He
also turned down one person and intended to refuse five other
applications. Krieger has not applied.
"It would be inhumane
to not grant Mr. Krieger an exemption to grow marijuana for his
own medical use," the judge told court in reading her 30-page
written decision on Krieger's charter challenge in a pre-trial
application.
"He has proven to court
he needs it and although he hasn't tried every available option,
no other conventional drugs have been successful for him."
Defense lawyer Adriano Iovinelli
said the judge has made it "very clear" that if the
government doesn't react, she'll strike down the section of the
act."
I'd be very surprised if the
government doesn't react, he said. "She anticipates she'll
get a reaction."
However, the judge did not
go quite as far as Krieger and his lawyer had hoped.
She dismissed a second application
that would have permitted Krieger to sell the marijuana he grows
to others who also require it for medical reasons, but may not
have a Health Canada exemption.
The judge said she did not
find such a limit unjustified and added society would not be
protected adequately if anyone could distribute otherwise illegal
drugs to whomever they chose.
Krieger still faces a second
charge of possession for the purpose of trafficking and is scheduled
to appear in court Jan. 10. His illness is an incurable chronic
disease of the central nervous system.
Outside court, Krieger was
elated with the partial victory . "I'm very happy but it's
step 1," he said. "It's a very important decision,
because I need it.
"This means I have no
fear of police coming to my house and shutting me down,"
he said. "However, I feel sorry for those people who are
in pain and dying and have no supply."
Licensed to
Heal; Licensed to Wheel: Grant Kreiger Gets a Ticket to Ride
from Cannabis
Culture
In January, 42-year-old Grant
Krieger received his driver's license from the Saskatchewan Government,
even though he admitted on his application that he consumes marijuana
on a regular basis to relieve the muscle spasms and pain associated
with multiple sclerosis.
Grant Krieger drew national
headlines last May, when he tried to openly bring prescribed
marijuana from Holland into Canada (see CC#6). He was detained
by Dutch Authorities and his healing herbs were confiscated.
Kreiger submitted his Dutch
prescription to Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI),which
is the agency that approves the province's driver's licenses,
and he testified that he no longer gets impaired when using marijuana,
which he both smokes and ingests on a regular basis.
Darcy McKenzie of SGI was quoted
as saying that the board followed "the guidelines set by
the Canadian Medical Association and the American Medical Association,
in concert with our legislation in Saskatchewan." He continued
"There's not a lot of extensive research in this issue,
and let's be fair, doctors have prescribed the use of cannabis
in Canada for glaucoma." Who knows, maybe SGI even read
the 1994 study by Holland's Institute for Human Psychopharmacology,
which, after comprehensive on-road driving tests, concluded that
"THC's adverse effects on driving performance appeared relatively
small," and that "users seem able to compensate for
its adverse effects." This confirmed a massive 1992 study
by the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration,
which concluded that marijuana is rarely involved in driving
accidents except when combined with alcohol, and that "there
was no indication that marijuana by itself was a cause of fatal
accidents." Bianca Sind
This from newsworld, Jan 5 ,1999
REGINA - Marijuana activist
Grant Krieger was given an 18-month suspended sentence Tuesday
for drug trafficking. Krieger, 44, said no sentence will change
his ways. Krieger says he smokes pot to ease the symptoms of
multiple sclerosis and plans to keep smoking during his probation.
He also intends to keep selling marijuana to others for medicinal
purposes. Krieger pleaded guilty last month to possession of
marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. He was convicted of
a similar charge in Alberta last year and fined $500. Justice
Fred Kovach said he chose not to send Krieger to jail because
he truly believes he needs marijuana. Kovach said it wasn't his
job to debate whether marijuana has medicinal qualities and had
to consider the "exceptional or extraordinary circumstances"
in the case.
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