Toronto ? Jari Dvorak scored two ounces of pot Tuesday and lit up, but — unlike in the past — the deal involved no back alley exchange or hiding from police.

This time, the 62-year-old Dvorak went to a doctor to pick up his supply, making him one of the first patients to receive government-grown marijuana. He paid $245, tax included.

“I just smoked some and it’s doing the trick,” said the HIV-positive Dvorak, one of several hundred Canadians authorized to use medical marijuana for pain, nausea and other symptoms of catastrophic or chronic illness.

The program announced last month by the federal health department provides marijuana grown by the government in a former copper mine turned underground greenhouse in northern Manitoba.

Dvorak described his new stash as light green and orange in color, sealed in vacuum-packed bags. If he saw some lying around, he said, “I would say that’s marijuana, especially if I sniff it.”

Getting it has been a three-year struggle for Dvorak and other Canadian patients who have battled through the courts to make the government respond to what they call their need for a compassionate exemption from criminal law.

Jari Dvorak, of Toronto, shows off his first shipment of medical marijuana, along with the bill from Health Canada. Dvorak smokes marijuana to combat the effects of HIV; he is one of several hundred people in Canada who have been approved to use the drug.

Marijuana possession remains a crime in Canada, though the government has proposed making small amounts — less than half an ounce — punishable by a citation and fine similar to a traffic ticket. U.S. officials have warned of tighter border security if Canada takes that step.

Last month, Health Minister Anne McLellan announced the program to sell the government-grown weed, satisfying an Ontario court order to make a legal supply available to authorized patients. The court ruling said current laws made “seriously ill, vulnerable people deal with the criminal underworld to get medicine.”

Qualified patients can get just more than an ounce of dried pot for about $105, well below street prices. Authorized growers can buy packs of 30 seeds once a year for $15.

Dvorak’s supply came with something he never had seen — a content analysis. He noted the THC content was 10.2 percent, compared with the 3 percent to 18 percent range in most street marijuana. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

Dvorak smokes pot in the morning to soothe nausea from the HIV drugs he has taken for 15 years. “I’m so happy the government is coming through with it,” he said. “Are they going to carry on with it? We’ll see.”

McLellan has called the initial program an interim measure to satisfy the court order while the government appeals the ruling.