For Immediate Release

Thurs Sept 11, 2014

Victoria, B.C.: The federal crown has decided to go to the Supreme Court of Canada to determine whether patients should have access to cannabis extracts, appealing the Aug 14 BC Court of Appeal decision in the Smith case. No date has been set yet. For many patients across the country this is a matter of life or death, as dried marijuana itself cannot provide the same medical benefits as derivatives.

Owen Smith was arrested in Dec 2009 making cookies in an apartment building for the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club. Defense lawyer Kirk Tousaw was able to convince a Supreme Court of BC judge that the federal regulations were unconstitutional because they do not allow patients to use extracts, restricting them to dried marijuana only. In a 2-1 split decision, the BC Court of Appeal agreed, leaving room for one last appeal to the top.

The initial reaction of Mr. Tousaw says it all. “I find it distressing that our government will spend buckets of tax dollars fighting against sick people’s right to ingest physician approved cannabis medicine in the form of cookies. I look forward to the opportunity to defend patients’ Charter rights before the highest court in the land. This is an historic moment because the Supreme Court of Canada has never heard a medical cannabis case.“

The defendant, Owen Smith, is “proud to represent the many disabled or diseased Canadians that find relief from edible or topical cannabis extracts.“ He has since moved on from the VCBC to the Cannabis Digest, where he writes weekly blogs and does the layout for the quarterly publication.

For more information call Ted Smith at 250-318-4220 or hempo101@gmail.com or check out the forums:

http://forum.cannabisdigest.ca/viewforum.php?f=5

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