LOCKED AWAY IN PAIN

Jail Shouldn't Keep People From Medicine In A Civilized Country, But It
Does Here

If a man needs medicine to be free of pain, and is sent to prison, should
he still be allowed his medicine? The answer in any civilized country would
be yes. But the answer for a local man now in Dorchester Penitentiary is no.

A motorcycle accident in 1999 left Mike Patriquen with a damaged nerve in
his neck. Anyone who has ever suffered nerve pain can tell you it is
horrible and overwhelming. The federal government knows this too, and so
issued Patriquen licenses to grow and possess marijuana.

All but the most ideological anti-drug campaigners agree that marijuana can
be medicinal.

Before receiving his Health Canada licence, Patriquen had been using
expensive painkillers - which left him barely able to function.

For him, marijuana does the job of the painkillers, without the nasty side
effects. Marijuana is vital medicine.

Yet Patriquen, in prison, is not allowed his medicine. As a result, his
wife says, he is in constant, debilitating pain, and has lost 45 pounds in
just a few months.

Most of us who have never been imprisoned tend to think of it, well, almost
not at all.

And we might even indulge in the notion that whatever hell people go
through there is their own fault. But we need to look at this case closely.

A Middle Sackville man is writhing in pain in prison - not in China or
Egypt or Guantanamo - but right here in the Maritimes.

If Patriquen was diabetic, we would not deny him insulin. If he was dying
of some devastating disease, we would not deny him morphine. Yet marijuana
- - for which he is approved by Health Canada - this he is not allowed.

"The (medical marijuana) authorization exempts you from being criminally
prosecuted for possessing marijuana," says Corrections Canada spokeswoman
Michelle Pilon-Santilli in Ottawa.

"It doesn't say you can smoke it in prison ... At the present time no one
is smoking marijuana in our institutions ... It would mean a change in policy."

Sounds good to me. A change in Corrections policy is not being planned, but
is exactly what is needed.

What we have here is a case of the right hand not knowing what the left
hand is doing: the Department of Health has a policy, but it doesn't fit
into Justice Department guidelines.

This is government by Monty Python. It makes you want to laugh. Except that
this is not funny.

Sending someone to jail for breaking the law is one thing; leaving them in
constant pain is unconscionable.

The fact that Patriquen, 49, may not be a model citizen is beside the point.

Yes, he has a criminal record dating back to 1976. And yes, last fall he
was sentenced to six years in prison for conspiring to traffic marijuana in
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

He's a well-known pain in the Official Butt, too. He co-founded the
Marijuana Party of Canada, which in the last federal election ran
candidates in 73 ridings. Patriquen ran in Halifax, winning 632 votes.

The point is that the departments of Health and Justice need to get their
act together. It is time to fill in the crack into which this man has
fallen. The torture of Mike Patriquen has gone on long enough.