Freedom Lawyers of America

> http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/3093.html
>
> Marijuana laws struck down in British Columbia
> by Reverend Damuzi (12 Sept, 2003) Westernmost
> province joins Ontario, PEI and Nova Scotia in ending
> prohibition
>
>
>
> On September 4, Provincial Court Judge P Chen made a
> landmark ruling regarding marijuana laws in British
> Columbia. In his decision, Judge Chen said parts of
> the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA) are
> "invalid" and that "there is no offense known to law
> at this time for simple possession of marijuana" in
> the province.
>
> Judge Chen's decision was based on a series of court
> cases in Ontario that led a judge there to strike down
> marijuana possession laws in January of this year. It
> all goes back to medpot user Terry Parker's case
> before the Ontario Court of Appeal (CC Online, Ontario
> Supreme Court rules in favour of medical pot ) in
> July, 2000. In the Parker case, Judge Rosenberg ruled
> the CDSA's pot possession laws unconstitutional, but
> delayed the section's repeal for one year, giving the
> government time to change the law.
>
> Rather than change the law, however, the Canadian
> government made medpot regulations, which it published
> one day before the one-year deadline (CC 35, Official
> Interference.) In January, 2003, Ontario Provincial
> Court Judge Phillips decided that regulations were not
> enough (CC Online,Judge tosses Canadian pot law.)
> Regulations can be changed easily by the cabinet, said
> the judge, unlike laws which require a democratic vote
> by parliament. Thus possession laws were struck down
> in Ontario.
>
> Not long after, court cases in PEI on March 14 and
> Nova Scotia on March 31 upheld the Ontario court
> decision, and it seemed that prohibition would fall
> from sea to shining sea, but as the pro-pot dominos
> dropped across the prairies, the ultraconservative
> stronghold of Saskatchewan stood firm against
> enlightened change. In a pot-possession case on April
> 15, Saskatchewan Provincial Court Judge Orr ruled that
> he simply didn't agree that regulations weren't enough
> to save the CDSA from the Parker ruling.
>
> The next day, when a case challenging possession laws
> came to court in BC, the court predictably followed
> the Saskatchewan decision. On April 16, in a case
> titled R vs Nicholls, Provincial Court Judge
> Stansfield ruled that "It remains to be determined
> whether [medpot regulations] do or do not 'pass
> constitutional muster.'" Stansfield wanted to see what
> would develop in Ontario: until the medpot regs
> "muster" was decided, said Stansfield, pot possession
> laws would remain valid.
>
> Afterwards, R vs Nicholls was regularly cited by BC
> Provincial Court Judges in pot-possession cases as an
> excuse to continue pot possession prohibition ---
> until this September 4 and Judge P Chen's ruling.
>
>
>
> In his ruling, Judge P Chen pointed out that after R
> vs Nicholls, the original Ontario case striking down
> pot possession laws had been brought to the Ontario
> Court of Appeal, where Judge Rogin agreed that the law
> should be thrown out on May 16 (CC Online, Marijuana
> legal in Ontario.) Judge Chen was the first BC judge
> to consider that because of Rogin's decision, the
> circumstances of the Nicholls ruling had changed. It
> was time to reassess the law.
>
> Then Judge Chen made new rulings sure to shake
> prohibition to it's core. First he addressed the
> Parker case, in which judge Rosenberg ruled section 4
> of the CDSA unconstitutional and gave the government a
> year to change the law. Previous judges have
> interpreted this to mean that the law could be "fixed"
> by giving medpot patients legal use of cannabis.
> However, Judge Chen showed that the law was actually
> struck down as unconstitutional after one year and
> needed to be replaced by new a law.
>
> The idea was that the new law should include access to
> medpot. Instead, the government wrote medpot
> regulations that didn't address pot-possession, and
> didn't write a new possession law to replace the old
> one. So the government totally missed the mark.
>
> If he "was wrong on this", Judge Chen was prepared to
> defend his ruling on other grounds. He quoted from the
> January 9, 2003 Hitzig decision (CC Online, Ontario's
> highest court smashes pot prohibition,) in which judge
> Lederman found medpot regulations unconstitutional
> since they did not provide a legal supply of pot to
> patients who couldn't grow their own. Judge Lederman
> gave the government 6 months to fix the medpot
> regulations, by providing a legal supply, which the
> government did on July 8, 2003, one day before the
> deadline.
>
> But it "came too late", ruled Judge Chen. In order for
> medpot regulations to fix the CDSA, they should have
> been fully and constitutionally enacted before the one
> year deadline of July 31, 2001, as set out in the
> Parker case.
>
> Judge Chen's decision is not only more progressive
> than previous BC Provincial Court decisions, it also
> considers a wider and more up-to-date range of case
> law, and should set the standard for further decisions
> until the matter is decided in a higher court.
>