[420 Girl]

A medicinal pot activist convicted of drug trafficking acted "purely out of compassion" and not for his own financial gain, a judge said yesterday.

Grant Krieger "felt that, but for him, his clients would be forced to suffer without relief or to resort to obtaining the product on the street," said Justice Shaun Greenberg.

Krieger, a 55-year-old Calgary man, was convicted in Winnipeg last year of drug trafficking in connection with a 2004 incident in which RCMP pulled him over in Headingley and seized about one pound of marijuana and $3,925 cash from his vehicle.

He has multiple sclerosis and can legally possess marijuana. Krieger did not dispute the charge but argued he did not sell pot for profit and was supplying the marijuana to a distributor in Selkirk who provided it to terminally ill and extremely sick clients who used it as medicine.

Last March the Alberta Court of Appeal overturned a four-month jail term Krieger received for a similar offence at almost the same time as his Manitoba charges. The court instead imposed an 18-month suspended sentence and probation.

Greenberg rejected a Crown recommendation Krieger receive a conditional sentence and instead imposed a sentence of nine months probation, to be served concurrent with the remainder of his Alberta sentence.

"A conditional sentence is a sentence of incarceration, albeit served in the community, and carries with it a degree of punishment and denunciation that is not warranted in this case," Greenberg said.

Krieger has similar convictions dating back to 1999. Following a 2000 court challenge, he was granted a constitutional exemption to allow him to grow marijuana for his own use.


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