Canada: Supreme Court Overturns Conviction of Medical Marijuana Activist

In a decision handed down Thursday, the Canadian Supreme Court has thrown out the conviction of Alberta medical marijuana activist Grant Krieger, who had been convicted of marijuana possession with the intent to distribute. The high court held that the trial judge had erred by directing the jury to find Krieger guilty.

Krieger, who claims the right to distribute marijuana to seriously ill people to alleviate their symptoms, did not kowtow to judicial power during his trial (or before or after), and the trial judge repaid him by instructing the jury at his 2003 trial to "retire to the jury room to consider what I have said, appoint one of yourselves to be your foreperson, and then to return to the court with a verdict of guilty."

Two jurors objected at the time, one citing religious reasons and one citing reasons of conscience, and asked to be excused from the case, but the judge refused.

The judge's jury instructions were clearly unconstitutional, the high court ruled. "The trial judge's direction was not a 'slip of the tongue' to be evaluated in the context of the charge as a whole," the court wrote in its decision. "His purpose and words were clear. In effect, the trial judge reduced the jury's role to a ceremonial one: he ordered the conviction and left to the jury, as a matter of form but not of substance, its delivery in open court."

Krieger, who has legal permission from Health Canada to smoke marijuana for multiple sclerosis, is begging for a retrial. He wants to continue to use the courts as a forum for challenging the legitimacy of Canada's marijuana laws.