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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Canada: Pot Crusader Helps Pain Go Up In Smoke
Calgary Sun, The (Canada)
Saturday 10 Feb 2001 Pubdate: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB) Website: http://www.canoe.ca/OttawaSun/home.html Author: Licia Corbella POT CRUSADER HELPS PAIN GO UP IN SMOKE Grant Krieger technically committed a criminal act yesterday right in front of me. I was not offended nor did I feel compelled to phone the police. On the contrary, I feel what he did was necessary. Krieger, Calgary's cannabis crusader, sold some marijuana to a brain-injured woman who lives with excruciating pain unless she smokes the plant. Unlike most drug dealers, Krieger did not make a profit. In fact, he actually lost money in his sale of seven grams of marijuana to Rae Schweitzer, 40. What's more, he drove across town to deliver the drugs to her Fairmont Dr. S.E. apartment. The 46-year-old father of three grown children doesn't drive a flashy car, wear a Rolex watch or carry a solid gold lighter -- like many drug traffickers. Instead, he scoots about town in a rusty, five-speed 1985 Honda Accord, has to ask me repeatedly for the time and uses a Bic lighter to light up the marijuana cigarettes -- or joints -- that make it possible for him to do more than lie down or sit in a wheelchair. "I have a criminal record but I am not a criminal," says Krieger, from Schweitzer's main floor apartment. "What I am doing is improving lives -- including mine -- and saving the taxpayers millions of dollars in medical costs." Krieger, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, was supposed to appear in provincial court yesterday to apply to have 100 grams of marijuana he grew returned to him, after police removed it from him upon entering prison. That was delayed and is expected to proceed on Monday. On Dec. 11, Krieger won a landmark Court of Queen's Bench ruling allowing him to grow and cultivate marijuana. The province is appealing the decision. Krieger says the eight days he spent in jail in January for an unpaid fine were hellish. Without his marijuana, he was in terrible pain and ended up needing to use a wheelchair, in facilities that were not wheelchair accessible. "Because of marijuana, I no longer walk with a cane. I'm no longer confined to a wheelchair. I'm free," he says. "In jail I saw grey bars in front of me temporarily but that's nothing. My body was a much more hellish prison before I found the right medicine." Krieger just shakes his head when he hears that some Calgarians say he should use prescription drugs -- instead of an illegal substance. "I always taught my kids to not smoke, drink or do drugs. And when I was diagnosed with MS I followed doctors' orders and took prescribed medications and I was in terrible pain." In fact, it got so bad, that in December 1994, he drained the bottles of pain killing medications his doctors legally prescribed to him and attempted suicide. "I couldn't walk, I was trapped in my body, I was in pain all the time, there was just no quality of life." When he got out of hospital, another ill friend suggested he try marijuana and he says he was immediately amazed by the relief it gave him. He soon was able to walk again, he could see better, his hands stopped shaking and the pain subsided. Schweitzer nods in agreement. On May 12, 1989, two months after being struck by a car on a city crosswalk, Schweitzer suffered a brain hemorrhage and underwent surgery to relieve the blood pressure on her brain. When she regained consciousness, she had lost her ability to speak, read and write. A fist-sized indentation and scar on her forehead are graphic testimony of her ordeal. The former paralegal says without marijuana, the pain in her brain is so harsh she is unable to see. "Before I started smoking pot I had to get two shots of pain killers from my doctor every day and I was taking so many Tylenol 3s (with codeine) I actually overdosed one day. "Now I refuse to use prescription drugs. This is much healthier," says Schweitzer, puffing on a joint. "I just hate living outside of the law, but I don't really feel that I have a choice." "Without this plant," adds Krieger, "I'd be in a nursing home in a wheelchair costing society a lot of money. Or, I'd be dead." Grant Krieger is no criminal. The system is.
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