Joints and jail time

This year’s Global Marijuana March invites concerned citizens to show solidarity with former compassion club employees facing a minimum of five years in prison

by ELISABETH FAURE

May 5, 2011

GUILTY OF SOOTHING THE SICK: Ex-Compassion Centre admissions offcer Stephane Gauthier, a free man for now
Photo by MICHEAL BEAULIEU

This Saturday, May 7, Montreal potheads will peel themselves off their couches and hit Carré St-Louis at 2 p.m. for the annual Global Marijuana March, filling the Plateau streets with festive smoke. Only this year, the air will also be thick with anger over the fallout from last summer’s Compassion Club raids. “The charges are trafficking, possession with intent to traffic and conspiracy to traffic,” says Marc-Boris St-Maurice, founder of the Compassion Centre on St-Laurent (formerly the Compassion Club on Rachel). St-Maurice, the ex-Grimskunk bassist and Bloc Pot founder, who’s also run for office as part of the Marijuana Party and federal Liberals, founded the centre in 1999. It was shut down fol lowing the bust on June 3, 2010, along with three other, similar centres in Montreal.

The Compassion Centre provided cannabis, hashish and “edibles” (pot brownies, cookies etc) to clients suffering from such maladies as multiple sclerosis, HIV/AIDS and chronic pain.

St-Maurice acknowledges that Health Canada offers legal pot to sick people, but says rigorous testing conducted by his centre found the government’s ganja was crap. He adds that it’s “virtually impossible” for most people to get approved for medical weed by a doctor in Quebec.

There’s lots St-Maurice won’t discuss—where the centre got drugs, how much money it was making or his own personal toking habits, or lack thereof—but he has plenty to say about fellow compassion-club founder Gary Webber. “He’s dishonest,” says St-Maurice, claiming that business at his own illegal centre rolled along for years with no problems, until Webber opened an upstart club in Lachine, harshing everyone’s buzz.

“When the other club opened, I knew [the bust] was about to happen,” says Stephane Gauthier, former admissions officer at St-Maurice’s centre. Gauthier is not a Webber fan, and says the sloppy way Webber’s club sold buds is to blame for the mass raid. “He screwed up access for thousands of patients with real, diagnosed conditions. It’s disgusting,” says Gauthier.

Unlike St-Maurice’s centre, which Gauthier claims did rigorous client background checks, insisting on Health Canada papers and physician verification, Webber took a different approach, requiring only that customers produce a notary-approved letter stating that they needed herb for medical reasons. This made his centre’s product very accessible, leading to rumours that healthy people were using the centre to score.

Webber refutes St-Maurice’s criticism, saying, “as far as I’m concerned, our club was the most responsibly run.” Webber estimates his club made $30,000 a day, and says notarized documents were only accepted for hard-to-diagnose chronic pain cases.

Today, those charged live in a cloud of uncertainty. Gauthier and other ex-employees face a maximum of five years in jail if found guilty. St-Maurice could get life.

But the gang has high hopes that it won’t come to that. They plan to challenge the constitutionality of the law that saw them charged. “The good thing to come out of this is we get our day in court,” says Gauthier, who is confident that the group will win.

Rain or shine, St-Maurice hopes stoners come out on Saturday to show their support. Featuring live music by Hombre, Mad’MoiZèle Giraf and Colectivo, the afternoon should be an all-round smokin’ good time. ■