VIEW OF JUSTICE FROM PATRIQUEN'S SIDE OF THE FENCE

Unfortunately, my access to the print media is severely limited, but I have
noticed in The Herald over the past several weeks articles, editorial
comments and reader views on my medical dilemma.

I'd like to give my view from this side of the fence.

Following a motor vehicle accident in 1999, I found myself with a very
painful disability. Our family physician and a number of specialists spent
a great deal of time and testing to come up with the correct diagnosis and
treatment plan.

Initial drug treatments ranged from Advil at the beginning to huge daily
doses of powerful narcotics, to which I became physically dependent, toward
the end. Nothing worked. Nothing would control my constant, chronic nerve
pain and allow me any quality of life. Yes, synthetic THC, Marenol, was
considered, and rejected due to its extreme psychoactivity, lack of pain
control and extreme gastrointestinal upset.

At the end of the pharmacopia, I suggested, in desperation, applying for a
Section 56 exemption to the cannabis laws to use marijuana to treat my
neuropathic pain. After seven to eight months of attempting to come up with
an alternative, the team of specialists at Health Canada agreed there was
no alternative therapy available and approved my application in August of 2001.

After two months, I was weaned off the narcotics - an experience close to
death - and stabilized on cannabis. My pain was under control, as was my
life. I went back to work on my project of developing a new business;
family life resumed; I began rehabilitative physical therapy and, with the
assistance of my therapist, rebuilt my wasted body.

After over two years of fruitless experimentation that had cost me my
health - and almost my life - cannabis was deemed my saviour.

This spring, I reapplied to Health Canada for cannabis approval under the
new medical marijuana access regulations, which have much more stringent
application procedures - requiring that two specialists submit the
application under their signatures. In their application, the specialists
only made one change to the original application - to up the daily dose by
250 per cent.

After studying the application for only three months, Health Canada
approved it on July 22 of this year, making me one of the very few
Canadians with symptoms severe enough to have qualified under both sets of
rules.

I knew I had a prison sentence looming for growing pot and planning to sell
some. I also knew that Allan Rock's department had grown 250 kilograms of
pot to distribute to exemptees, so I was not concerned as to my medical supply.

Early this summer, Health Minister Anne McLellan announced that she would
not distribute the herb until she had conducted double-blind studies - to
commence this fall.

Knowing that a lack of medicine - the medicine of last resort - would be
catastrophic to my health, and that it would now not be available in
prison, I requested that my attorney petition the Supreme Court of Nova
Scotia to delay sentencing until Health Canada made cannabis available to me.

The decision on the very narrow legal issue of whether I had the right to
be heard was delivered by Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Hood on
Sept. 10, 2002. She stated that this matter was not her problem, but the
problem of Correctional Services of Canada (CSC). She then proceeded to
sentence me to six years' federal incarceration.

She was wrong: It is not CSC's problem - it is my problem. I believe that
CSC honestly wants to help - they are watching me suffer - but their hands
are tied. I have seen both doctors here and have dealt with all of their
medical staff. Since all conventional therapies have been tried and have
failed, and there is no legal source of cannabis, all they can offer me is
their sympathy.

I have dealt with the authorities to the highest levels, who have consulted
with their superiors in Ottawa. I have the one medical need that cannot be
treated in prison.

I am in constant pain, 24 hours a day. The only question awaiting hourly is
the severity to be dealt with. Due to the nausea created by the pain, I am
able to eat little - and most of that comes back up. Rather than sleep, I
lie quietly and hope to drift into a state of semi-consciousness, which
happens from time to time for periods of 20 minutes or so - until I am
jolted awake by a new arrow of pain.

In essence, by being imprisoned and deprived of my medicine, I am subjected
to constant severe pain, deprived of food and denied sleep. Quite simply:
torture.

If a Canadian were being held under these conditions in a foreign country,
there would be an international diplomatic furor. Yet it is happening to a
Canadian, in Canada.

To this end, the Marijuana Party of Canada has issued a complaint to
Amnesty International, which we expect will fully investigate and complain
on the world stage.

My family, friends, colleagues and well-wishers are naturally upset with my
treatment. Members of the House of Commons and the Senate have expressed
their outrage. Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has recently stated that our
pot laws need to be modernized and streamlined. This is the type of
situation he must have meant, where we have three federal ministries -
Justice, Health and Solicitor General - all fighting over the archaic
marijuana laws while people such as myself suffer. It was Cauchon's own
minions in the federal Department of Justice who fought so savagely to have
me imprisoned - with no medicine.

I don't know what will happen to me in the short-term, but I know that if I
am not treated in the long run, I will leave here crippled, in a wheelchair.