[420 Girl]

Manitoba justice officials are not seeking a jail sentence against a medical-marijuana crusader found guilty of trafficking pot to clients across Canada.

Grant Krieger said he feared he would die behind bars after jurors found him guilty during his high-profile Queen's Bench trial last fall. But the Calgary resident returned to Winnipeg for sentencing Wednesday, and learned the Crown agrees he can remain free in the community under a conditional sentence.

The judge has reserved her decision until next month.

Krieger, 54, announced last week he was shutting down the Grant W. Krieger Cannabis Research Foundation, through which he has distributed pot to hundreds of sick and dying people across Canada. The move prompted the Alberta Court of Appeal to replace a four-month jail sentence with 18 months of probation.

Krieger has been battling progressive multiple sclerosis since 1978, and says his only relief comes from smoking and ingesting cannabis. At his Winnipeg trial last year, Krieger admitted at trial he broke the law, but was seeking to be acquitted on sympathetic grounds. Jurors took only about 30 minutes to reach their unanimous guilty verdict.

Krieger testified in his own defence how his life was in a rapid downward spiral, and even included a suicide attempt before his discovery of marijuana.

"Without it, I wouldn't be standing here before you today," he told jurors. "I'd be in a wheelchair, or dead, right now."

Krieger said his many customers are in a similar position: They are suffering from chronic pain, disease, and even terminal illness, and have come to him looking to improve their quality of life.

The Crown's case against Krieger was simple: Although he had clearance to possess pot for his own health needs, he didn't have permission from the federal government to sell marijuana for medicinal reasons. There's a program in place to distribute the drug to those who get special clearance from doctors, but Krieger said the whole system is flawed.

He said most doctors are afraid to make such a declaration. And Krieger ripped the feds for the quality of their drugs, produced in Flin Flon, Man.

"It's grown in a dirty mine shaft," Krieger told jurors. He said the drug is overly processed and diluted by the time it gets to those in need, mitigating the relief it can provide.


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