Epileptic launches cannabis challenge

Wants laws forbidding marijuana possession struck

Terry Parker says the only thing standing between him and lifethreatening
seizures are the 71 marijuana plants police confiscated from his Toronto
apartment.

Severely epileptic, Parker, 42, says the drug is the one thing that helps
him fight the debilitating attacks and, with the support of some of the
world's top experts, he heads to court today to challenge Canadian laws
stopping him from growing and possessing marijuana.

His seizures, some lasting for 45 minutes, have led to being mistakenly
arrested for drunkenness to being hit by a speeding ambulance after
collapsing on the street. While a recent attempt to overturn Canada's
cannabis laws was unsuccessful, his case is worth watching. Two courts have
accepted his marijuana use as medically necessary, decisions rendered in
connection with his 1987 acquittal on charges of simple possession.

Today, before Judge Patrick Sheppard of the Ontario Court, provincial
division, Parker will argue that laws restricting him from possessing or
producing marijuana should be struck down as unconstitutional.
Alternatively, the Narcotics Control Act and the Controlled Drugs and
Substances Act should be redefined to allow for personal medical use, he says.

``When I am treated only by legal prescription medicine, my life is very
difficult to live, and at times truly miserable. At times it has been a
struggle to carry on,'' he says in an affidavit filed with the court for
the hearing at old city hall.

HIT ON HEAD

``When I have access to marijuana and can consume it daily, I am able to
enjoy my life free from the seizures and carry on in a relatively normal
way,'' says Parker, whose epilepsy was triggered when he was hit on the
head with a swing at 4.

He was charged on July 18, 1996 with cultivating and possessing marijuana
for the purpose of trafficking after Metro police entered his apartment
after being tipped about large quantities of the drug growing there. They
seized 14 marijuana plants growing hydroponically in Parker's bedroom,
another 57 on the balcony and some in a shopping bag, according to facts
filed by the crown and defence with the court.

In his affidavit, Parker says allowing him to grow marijuana would save
taxpayers' money spent on his prescription drugs, which often have side
effects. It would also save him up to $450 a month to buy an ounce and a
half of the drug and spare him and relatives the risks associated with
buying it, he says.

While some experts say the beneficial effects of potsmoking amount largely
to the ``high'' as opposed to any medical advantage, a conflicting opinion
from Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard
University, has been filed with the court by Parker's lawyer, Aaron Harnett.

But perhaps the most poignant court document is an affidavit from Parker's
mother, Helen Cork, 61, who says she considers herself a lawabiding citizen.

``Notwithstanding that I an aware that marijuana use is illegal in Canada,
I have bought marijuana for my son in times of need,'' she says in the
affidavit. ``I am so convinced that marijuana has been effective in
treating his seizures that I have risked arrest and the dangers inherent in
dealing with the persons who sell it, to protect my son.''

Parker points to a diary of the effects of marijuana in treating the
epilepsy that worsened when he was involved in a car accident at age 6.

``After 38 years of this terrible affliction, and hundreds, if not more
than a thousand, I can say that it is only with the assistance of marijuana
that I have ever been able to . . . stave off an oncoming grand mal,''
Parker says.