Philippe Lucas
Compassionate Canadian
On May 27, the Vancouver Island Therapeutic Cannabis Research Institute (VITCRI) in British Columbia was raided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Nine hundred plants, along with computers and equipment, were seized.
VITCRI provided medical marijuana for nearly 400 patients enrolled in the Vancouver Island Compassion Society (VICS) and Canadians for Safe Access, two organizations run by Philippe Lucas. Determined to continue providing top-quality cannabis and to move forward with medical-marijuana research, Lucas intends to challenge the charges in court.
"Ninety percent of Canadians support medical marijuana," says Lucas, who's also director of communications for DrugSense. "This is not how Canadians want their law-enforcement resources spent."
Lucas was not always a medical-marijuana advocate. A writer and high-school English teacher in Victoria, British Columbia, Lucas began exploring the benefits of cannabis after he was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1995 and soon became a medical-marijuana patient. He also credits marijuana with helping to free him from two addictions: smoking cigarettes and drinking.
"For me," Lucas explains, "marijuana was an exit drug from alcohol and tobacco, not a gateway."
Inspired by medi-pot pioneers Hilary Black and Dennis Peron, Lucas decided to open a compassion club in Victoria. "I wanted to create a welcoming clinic conducive to healing," he says, "where the 55-year-old cancer patient would feel as comfortable as the 18-year-old street youth with AIDS."
VICS officially opened its doors in 1999. Until the raid, the club supplied high-quality organic medicine to seriously ill patients in a safe clinical setting, and also served as a medical-cannabis research center. VITCRI was conducting research, in conjunction with the University of California and the University of British Columbia, on medical marijuana's effects on hepatitis C and pregnancy-related nausea.
Lucas was quick to challenge the quality of the medi-pot provided to patients by the Canadian government. In tests conducted by VICS, it was determined that Health Canada's cannabis contained less than 6% THC, confirming patient allegations of the government's poor-quality medicine. With information obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Lucas publicized the fact that 30% of patients who received medical cannabis from Health Canada actually sent it back.
Lucas has testified before the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs and the House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, and has presented his research to Health Canada's Office of Cannabis Medical Access Stakeholder Advisory Committee.
When Lucas was arrested for cultivation in 2000, the judge dismissed the charges. "Mr. Lucas," Judge Robert Higinbotham wrote, "enhanced other people's lives at minimal or no risk to society…. He provided that which the government was unable to provide: a safe and high-quality supply of marijuana to those needing it for medicinal purposes.
Hopefully, the judge who presides over the VITCRI case will agree with that assessment.
For more info, go to www.thevics.com and www.safeaccess.ca
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