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You should be able to contact Grant and Marie Kreiger through Highwear Hemp in Regina, Saskatchewan. Phone: 306-586-4367. Fax: 306-584-5141. Email: highwear.hemp@sasknet.sk.ca.
By Tracey Tyler - Toronto Star Legal Affairs Reporter
Along with his passport and suitcase, Grant Krieger hopes to walk through Canada Customs tomorrow with 50 grams of marijuana, in defiance of federal narcotics laws.But this isn't a clandestine operation.
The 41-year-old multiple sclerosis sufferer from Regina has politely notified authorities of his intentions, carefully orchestrated to support his cause.
Naturally, Krieger says, he doesn't want to get arrested when he lands at Pearson International Airport.
But if he is, his act of civil disobedience will create an opportunity to test whether the Canadian justice system is prepared to accommodate the chronically and terminally ill, who use cannabis to alleviate their suffering - or retain the option of sending them to jail.
I smoke marijuana to help me with this disease. I use it as medication," Krieger said in an interview from Amsterdam, where he has obtained a doctor's prescription for the drug.
"With it, I can walk without a cane. It helps stop the tremors that go through my body. It helps the spasms that I get."
The purchase and sale of marijuana for medicinal purposes by people with cancer, glaucoma and other chronic conditions in Canada is estimated to be a $20 million to $25 million-a-year industry - all underground, says Sam Smith, of Cambridge, who helps co-ordinate the network. His wife accompanied Krieger to the Netherlands.
That could change if several Tory and Liberal senators who are studying federal drug legislation have their way. They say they favor decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana and hashish.
But that doesn't help Krieger with his immediate problem. The federal Narcotics Control Act allows for up to life imprisonment for anyone caught importing or exporting drugs, except pharmaceutical companies, which, under certain conditions, can bring it in.
In 1988, a Toronto judge allowed Terry Parker, an epileptic, to possess about one gram of marijuana to control his condition. But that was an isolated case.
While Krieger, if time allows, could get a special permit from the federal government allowing him to possess marijuana for medicinal purposes in Canada, that doesn't get around the importing ban, says Toronto criminal lawyer Aaron Harnett, who has been retained to help him out.
Prime Minister Jean Chr=E9tien made it clear to a high school student audience in Charlottetown, P.E.I., yesterday that decriminalizing marijuana is not a priority for his government, The Star's Derek Ferguson reports.
"It's a question of values in society," said Chr=E9tien, a former justice minister. "For me, I'm not feeling strongly about it, but I don't think it is a priority for the government at this time to change (the law)."
Canada Customs officials have suggested they may turn a blind eye to Krieger if he has a doctor's letter along with the cannabis, but that still doesn't mean police won't step in, Harnett says.
And although an active ingredient in marijuana, 9THC, is available in Canada by prescription, Harnett says it is unknown whether this substance working alone is what alleviates suffering when a chronically ill person smokes the drug.
Krieger learned he had multiple sclerosis about 20 years ago, shortly after he was married, his wife Marie said in an interview from the couple's home in Regina.
A disease of the central nervous system, MS is characterized by inflammation of the myelin covering of the nerves and can cause uncontrolled muscle spasms, mobility and vision problems.
While his condition went into remission for several years, Marie Krieger says her husband's symptoms were reactivated a few years ago after he was injured in a car accident.
The spasms are "like having a charley horse hit your body every few seconds," Grant Krieger says. "It hurts like hell."
He used demerol and, later, morphine to reduce pain. But, Krieger says, he stopped using morphine because he didn't want to become addicted. With marijuana, which he bakes in his food and inhales through a smoking device - because of his condition, he has lost the dexterity to roll a joint - he can alleviate his suffering yet still function, he says.
And that, he believes, shouldn't be against the law.
Krieger is believed to be the first person in Canada to put those beliefs to the test. Last year, a Rhode Island native, Todd McCormick, 25, tried a similar tack, importing 13.6 kilograms of marijuana to relieve what he said was the pain left by 10 childhood occurrences of cancer.
At the time, the president of the 3,000-member American Judges Association said he found it "incongruous that a doctor can prescribe for the well-being of his patients narcotic drugs like morphine that are habit-forming, but they can't prescribe marijuana."
Krieger puts it another way: "I'm tired of smoking in the closet. I think there's nothing really wrong with it. I don't get high any more. But what it does is give me a better quality of life."
But that's not an opinion shared by Regina city police. They raided the couple's home last Sunday, while Grant was in Amsterdam, seizing approximately three ounces of marijuana and $5,000 in cash.
Both Kriegers were charged with trafficking in narcotics. The couple has sold marijuana to people with glaucoma, other chronic illnesses and "consenting adults," Marie Krieger says, to offset the cost of purchasing the estimated 50 grams Grant smokes - at $10 a gram - about every 10 days.
That's the equivalent of about 50 cigarettes, says Smith, of Cambridge.
The stress of the police raid has been unbearable, particularly on the couple's three children, Marie Krieger says.
But is there really any evidence supporting the claim of therapeutic benefits from cannabis use?
An international committee studying alleged therapeutic remedies for MS declined to recommend marijuana as a form of treatment, says Deanna Grotzinger of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada.
The committee, which published its conclusion in the 1993 edition of Therapeutic Claims in Multiple Sclerosis, found no scientific basis for the theory that pot reduces symptoms, noting the absence of properly controlled clinical trials.
One study looking at nine patients found that seven felt better after using marijuana as opposed to a placebo, but the same study also found that one person on the placebo reported feeling "high."
In another study, two of eight patients reported reduced tremors and improved co-ordination after using marijuana.
"I think there have been anecdotal reports over the years that marijuana did seem to be beneficial to some patients in treating their spasticity, but the number of cases are small," says Dr. William McIlroy, a neurologist and national medical adviser to the MS society.
"Weighed against that is the known fact that long-term use of marijuana can have an effect on memory, so you have to consider the risks along with the benefits," McIlroy says.
A number of prescription drugs are available in Canada to control spasms experienced by MS patients, but they vary in effectiveness from person to person, he says.
Krieger says he's tried them. He suffered side-effects, including bladder and vision problems, which left him unable to drive, he says.
"It's not clean medication," he says.