The story also received coverage from Canadian Press, and a photo of Grant appeared in the Globe and Mail.
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By Tracey Tyler - Toronto Star Legal Affairs Reporter
A 41-year-old Regina man who has been using marijuana to treat his multiple sclerosis symptoms says he may return to the country that deported him to face court proceedings.Grant Krieger landed at Pearson International Airport on a charter flight from Holland yesterday, but was driven almost immediately to hospital after he was wheeled off the plane.
"Get me to a hospital," he winced as his wife, Marie, leaned over to embrace him in a wheelchair.
Krieger had planned to return to Toronto Sunday, but was arrested and taken into custody at the airport in Amsterdam for trying to export 900 grams of marijuana without proper documentation.
He and a friend had travelled to The Netherlands to buy the drug legally with a doctor's prescription. He was bringing it back to Canada to test whether the criminal justice system would exempt chronically ill pot users from federal narcotics laws.
Krieger says marijuana alleviates pain caused by the spasticity characteristic of his disease and allows him to walk without a cane.
But because he was deported empty-handed by Dutch authorities, he never got the chance to challenge Canadian law.
Krieger was charged with attempting to export marijuana without a permit, said his lawyer, Aaron Harnet.
He was deported because it appeared he had committed a crime, he had no means of supporting himself in Holland and no reason to stay, Harnett said.
He added that Krieger may return to face the court proceedings in the next two months.
He said he drove Krieger, complaining of intense pain, to hospital in Cambridge yesterday.
Doctors there were reluctant to give him painkillers, Harnett said, and sent him to the home of friends Sam Smith and Joan Harnack to sleep for several hours.
Last night, Smith said people who have been lobbying the federal government to legalize the drug estimate that at least $20 million a day can be recovered if it were taxed.
The estimate is based on a "voluntary contribution" that could be added to the price of the 1 gram smoked by 10 per cent of the population each day, Smith said.
"Besides just the medicinal value, there are just a number of benevolent ways this benign herb can bless those who choose to accept it," Smith says.
Krieger said, "If things don't change in this country, I won't be living here much longer.
"When I got off the plane going to Amsterdam, I wasn't in a bloody wheelchair."