POT PLANTS KEEP USER FROM B.C. HEARING

Licensed Smoker Loses Her Job Challenge by Staying Home to Water Her
Crop

VANCOUVER - A B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has thrown out a complaint
filed by a medical marijuana user who objected to a
no-drugs-on-the-job policy while seeking work as an extra in the
television and film industry.

A two-day hearing was scheduled to start Wednesday in Vancouver, but
complainant Debbie Palm failed to appear, so tribunal member Kurt
Neuenfeldt dismissed the complaint.

Palm, a former B.C. resident who lives near the town of Nipawin,
Sask., said she couldn't come to the hearing because her marijuana
plants, which need daily watering, would have died in her absence. She
has a Health Canada licence to grow and use marijuana for medical purposes.

According to an interim ruling by another tribunal member last
December, Palm initiated the complaint because of a job interview she
had in February 2006 with Sherry Massey of Massey's Talent Agency, a
Langley-based firm.

"In brief," the ruling states, "Ms. Palm alleges that, when she told
Ms. Massey that she took legally approved medicinal marijuana, Ms.
Massey referred to a 'no drugs, no alcohol' policy and told Ms. Palm
that she was 'unhireable.' "

The B.C. Human Rights Code says a person must not refuse to employ an
individual because of "physical or mental disability," nor on the
basis of such things as the applicant's race, colour, ancestry, sex,
political belief or religion.

Massey, whose aunt used marijuana while fighting cancer, told The
Vancouver Sun she doesn't personally object to the medical use of
marijuana and wanted to help Palm.

But Massey said she had never before dealt with an applicant who used
medical marijuana and didn't want to be sued by production companies.

"I told her I would check into it the following week but she was quite
upset when she left my office and told me she could smoke medical
marijuana just outside the door and that kind of stuff," Massey said.

Massey said she started making inquiries with agencies like the B.C.
government's employment standards branch, but Palm sent a voice mail
and a fax, followed by a letter demanding a written response within 10
days.

"I got a little upset about that and felt I was harassed," Massey
said. "I said this no longer has anything to do with medical
marijuana: I don't like the way you're treating me."

Massey said she's glad the complaint has been dismissed: "It's just
been a nightmare for me."

Palm said she asked that she be allowed to appear at the hearing by
teleconference or that the hearing be adjourned, but her request was
denied.

Palm said she couldn't come to the hearing because she would have had
to be away from her plants for too long while Saskatchewan bakes in a
heat wave.

"I'm not a rich woman so the only transportation I could afford would
be to drive," Palm said in a telephone interview. "From where I live
in Saskatchewan, I would have had to drive for three days to Vancouver
and three days back, plus two days for the hearing."

Palm, 51, had her first epileptic seizure at age 20. But she said
she's been "seizure-free" since she began using marijuana with other
medications 14 years ago.

She was granted a Health Canada licence to grow and use marijuana for
medical purposes about five years ago. Since 2001, the federal
department has given such licences to people who suffer seizures from
epilepsy or severe pain from illnesses including cancer, arthritis and
HIV/AIDS.

"For anyone to ask me to give that up is just cruel and unusual
punishment," Palm said.

Neuenfeldt, the tribunal board member who dismissed the complaint, did
not immediately release his written reasons.