MetroNews.ca Ottawa, Canada March 18, 2014 ‘Grandmother with no criminal record’ waits in angst for police pot raid By Trevor Greenway 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 – along with 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 a drug raid – or hopes that B.C. lawyer John Conroy wins an injunction case that could extend the old rules for home growers. RCMP officers can’t storm into medical marijuana patient’s homes without a warrant, but getting one under these circumstances may not be so difficult, according to Ottawa lawyer Leo Russomanno. “They would have to have reasonable grounds to believe you are committing a criminal offence,” Russomanno, an associate with Webber Schroeder Goldstein Abergel told Metro Tuesday. He said he could see this list of non-compliers being considered “reasonable grounds.” “It’s an open question whether that would, in and of itself, constitute reasonable grounds, but it might go towards that.” metronews.ca/news/ottawa/975779/grandmother-with-no-criminal-record-waits-in-angst-for-police-pot-raid/ ------------------------------------------------ Photo: Laurie MacEachern poses in her marijuana garden at her Cornwall home last year. She has been ordered by Health Canada to destroy all of her medicine by April 1.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 08:26:16 +0000
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