WEED PUSHING THERAPIST TOSSED 60 DAYS

By Quebec Order. Psychologist Had Offered to Buy Drugs For
Ex-Patient

Montreal addictions specialist Jean-Pierre Rochon has been suspended
from the Quebec Order of Psychologists for two months for offering to
buy marijuana for a former client.

The decision, handed down Thursday by the order's disciplinary
committee, means Rochon cannot call himself a psychologist again until
April.

He's already changed his Web site, which now refers to him as a
psychotherapist.

The ruling on penalties follows a decision in June in which the
disciplinary committee of the psychologists' order said Rochon's
actions were an attack on the honour of his profession.

Testifying before the committee, the former client said Rochon made
the offer at a breakfast meeting in April 2002, telling the man he had
contacts with the Hells Angels.

The client, whom Rochon treated for a drug problem from 1995 to 1997,
said he found the offer extremely distressing.

"Jean-Pierre, how can you not see that it makes absolutely no sense
that you be offering to become my pusher when you were my therapist
for more than two years - specifically because of my addiction to
cocaine and pot?" the ex-client wrote in an e-mail entered into
evidence at the hearing.

The disciplinary committee also issued Rochon a reprimand for
revealing to the same man, when he was still a patient, that he was
also treating a famous music star, whom he named.

Rochon, who has an office on Jean Talon St. E., and another in Ste.
Agathe, is well known in French Quebec for his expertise in drug,
alcohol and Internet addictions.

Efforts to reach him yesterday were unsuccessful. An answering machine
message said his calls had been transferred to his cell phone, and if
he wasn't picking up it was because of poor reception as he hiked in
the mountains.