LAW PUTS PRIVACY AT STAKE

Canada's move into medical marijuana is pitting one right against another
and program advocates say patients are losing out.

When applying to Health Canada, people living in rental accommodation and
requesting permission to grow marijuana must have a consent form completed
by their landlord.

Paul Lagace, client services co-ordinator at the AIDS Society of Kamloops,
is concerned this will lead to people feeling obliged to reveal their
medical condition to their landlords.

He says this is an unconscionable violation of the confidentiality between
patient and doctor. Legace adds he is also concerned it will open people to
discrimination if landlords feel they have one of the ailments covered by
the program.

Ailments covered in the regulations include AIDS/HIV, multiple sclerosis,
spinal-cord injury or disease, cancer, epilepsy and some forms of
arthritis. Health Canada media relations officer Paige Raymond-Kovach says
landlords have the right to know marijuana is being grown on their
property. She says the form does not include medical information and
property owners need not be told the tenant is an applicant.

"You can be a designate, too. There's nothing which requires you to say if
you're applying to cultivate it for yourself or if you're applying to be a
designate and cultivate it for someone else."

Under the regulations, people can be approved to grow marijuana for others
who will use it medicinally.

Raymond-Kovach adds the form is separate from the application to further
protect the individual. "There's nothing at all on it to indicate they're
an applicant, if they are."

If a property owner refuses to sign the form, however, the application is
considered incomplete, she adds, and won't be processed.

Regardless, Lagace is angry at the requirement for permission.

"If you say you're a designate, the landlord can say 'no' to you and then,
what do you do? If you tell your landlord you're an applicant, well, then
he knows you have one of the diseases and it could lead to all kinds of
things. "Why do you need permission anyhow? Do you need permission to have
morphine in your home? Do you need permission to have penicillin in your
home? Do you need permission to grow tomatoes in your home?

"Why do these people have to get permission from their landlords?" Lagace
says he sees no legal reason for the requirement. "They're just covering
their butts."