A decision of the Court of Ontario which could legalize possession of marijuana in the province is considered by the Federal Government, officials said.
"The Government of the Canada is to review the decision and will consider its options," Leslie Meerburg, spokesperson for Health Canada, said Wednesday in an e-mail.
A worker affects a cannabis plant in a growing medical marijuana in Israel installation. (Nir Elias/Reuters)
Justice Donald Taliano gave Ottawa until July to correct federal program of medical marijuana or face the prospect of effectively legalizing the possession and production of cannabis.
In a decision issued earlier this week, Taliano found the program unconstitutional because patients cannot get medical marijuana by appropriate means and must resort to illegal actions such as the culture of their own food.
Therefore, sick people should be able to obtain drugs are marked as criminals, he said in the decision.
Justice of St. Catharines stated the invalid program, and laws prohibiting the possession and production of cannabis, since they can be used criminally charge medical users unable to obtain drugs routes legal.
If left to stand, the decision - which takes effect in 90 days - would make possession and production of legal marijuana in Ontario, said Alan Young, a Toronto lawyer involved in several other challenges to the law of cannabis in the Canada.
This would encourage judges in other provinces to invalidate the law in their courts, when confronted with similar cases, he said.
The case would probably lead to the Supreme Court of the Canada, which may adjudicate federal laws, he said.
"Health Canada has no Plan B," Young said Wednesday. "Therefore the reflex response will be of appeal" and fight vigorously to obtain a stay of judgment which would maintain the law in place until that appeal is resolved, he said.""
"This case is exposing only the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential litigation against the Government of the Canada, so that they can defend all this they want using, but they are not going to escape the assault", he added.
"It makes more sense to admit defeat, surrender and come to something that helps Canadians to really.".
The judge's decision came in a criminal case involving Matthew Mernagh, 37, of St. Catharines, who suffers from Fibromyalgia, scoliosis, seizures and depression.
Unable to find a doctor that would support his application for a licence of medical marijuana, Mernagh began to develop his own and was eventually charged with producing the drug.
Taliano concluded that doctors across the country largely ignored the Health Canada medical marijuana program and refused to sign off the coast on forms that allow people to legally obtain cannabis.
Counsel for the MERNAGH, Paul Lewin, said he is confident that the decision will be confirmed by the Court of appeal for Ontario.
During this time, Mernagh was granted an exemption which allows him to smoke and to cultivate cannabis.
"I have already started the germination of seeds," he said.
Medical marijuana in the Canada program was created in 2000, after the Court of appeal for Ontario confirmed a right Torontonians to smoke pot to alleviate his seizures.
In this case, the Court in Ottawa a year to change the law so that patients can access the medicines they need, or see that it struck down completely.
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