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Raid closes local compassion society
03.26.07|Cnews Canoe Ca

A London agency that distributes marijuana for medical use was closed yesterday after a large marijuana grow operation was discovered inside a downtown building.

Members of the London police street drug unit found 840 marijuana plants, marijuana, growing equipment, cocaine, magic mushrooms, LSD and $22,000 in Canadian and American currency inside four units at 343 Richmond St. in a search on Saturday afternoon, police said yesterday.

The London Compassion Society occupies one of the units searched, police said.

The drugs have a street value of $968,000, police said.

Peter Young, 36, of St. Thomas and Rob Newman, 45, of London are charged with several drug offences, including possession of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking.

The compassion society shared its office space with the London Wellness Centre, a holistic spa offering alternative services such as reflexology and massage therapy.

A message on the London Compassion Society's telephone answering service yesterday said that it will be "closed until further notice."

According to its website, the compassion society's mission is to "provide natural therapeutic alternatives to those in need and to encourage a holistic approach to healing and living."

The society is part of a network of similar agencies that have sprung up across Canada to provide marijuana to people who have obtained permission from doctors to use it to treat chronic illnesses or help them cope with pain.

In 2001, the federal government amended drug laws to allow a limited number of patients to obtain a special exemption that allows them to possess marijuana for their personal use.

Steve Hoevenaars, who suffered a major head injury in 1998 and spent two months in a coma, said he has been getting marijuana from the London Compassion Society for a year.

He arrived at the building to get some marijuana on Saturday morning, but instead police greeted him, he said.

"They said you can't be getting marijuana off the street corner (now)," said Hoevenaars, 34.

Marijuana helped restore his sleep pattern, he said, and the society provided him with safe, legal marijuana.

"What I regret about this is . . . I realize how much it's needed," said Hoevenaars, who is a University of Western Ontario urban development student.

What the centre provided was not "street marijuana," he said -- it was legal.

"I was doing it very quietly."

Originally the London Compassion Society shared a database of doctor-approved medicinal marijuana users with the Toronto chapter, its website says.

But as other chapters were created across the country, the London society struck out on its own.

A similar club used to operate on Wellington Road.

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