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AIDS sufferer loses first part of legal battle to kill self with doctor’s aid

CANADIAN PRESS (February 7, 2001)

TORONTO (CP) _ An AIDS sufferer lost the first round of a provincial legal battle Wednesday in his bid to kill himself with a doctor’s help.

Justice Katherine Swinton dismissed Jim Wakeford’s lawsuit against the attorney general, saying it was “plain and obvious'” it cannot succeed in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Sue Rodriguez case, which upheld the assisted suicide law.

In 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 5-4 against Rodriguez’s right to assisted – suicide . A year later, she enlisted the aid of a doctor who agreed to give her a lethal injection of morphine and secobarbital.

But Wakeford isn’t giving up his legal fight yet. “(Swinton) is wrong, so I’ll have to go to the Court of Appeal,'” he said.

“I think the law sucks.”

In his lawsuit, he argued he does not want an agonizing death or to impose mental suffering on friends and family.

He is the first Canadian to be granted legal exemption to grow marijuana medicinally. He uses it to help him combat nausea and loss of appetite caused by AIDS drugs.

(Toronto Sun)

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