Volume 3 Number 4 & Volume 4 Number 1 - Winter 1997/98
The Terry Parker Case: Marijuana for Epilepsy – And Soon for HIV/AIDS?
Terry Parker, a 42-year-old resident of Toronto, has been using marijuana to treat his epilepsy since he was a teenager. Following an Ontario Court ruling on 10 December 1997,[1] he can now use marijuana and grow his own plants legally.
Terrance Parker was four when he first showed symptoms of epilepsy. Seizures became a daily event for him, even with heavy doses of prescription drugs. At the age of 14, Parker underwent a right temporal lobotomy on the advice of his neurosurgeons. The seizures intensified and he experienced his first grand mal seizure in the recovery room. A second temporal lobe cortical resection was carried out three years later, but the seizures continued. It was during this time that an orderly in one of the hospitals gave him some marijuana. Parker noticed that the more he smoked, the less frequent and intense his seizures were. On his physician's advice he began to keep a diary and noted the direct relationship between having seizures and not smoking marijuana. The physician provided Parker with a letter specifying that he needed marijuana for medicinal purposes.
"When I feel a seizure coming on, I smoke a couple of joints ... and everything is under control," says Parker. Marijuana is also free of the side-effects of depression and loss of appetite that come with the prescription drugs. When he does not smoke, Parker experiences from three to five grand mal and a dozen petit mal seizures per week. He has been hospitalized more than a hundred times due to accidents during seizures. In court Parker stated that
When I'm treated only with prescription medicine, my life is very difficult to live and at times truly miserable. When I can consume marijuana every day I'm able to enjoy my life, free from seizures, and carry on in a relatively normal way.
Parker was first arrested for cultivation and trafficking in July of 1996, when 71 plants were confiscated. He was again arrested in September of 1997 and charged with possession. Three plants were confiscated. Because Parker admitted to giving marijuana to others for medicinal purposes, Judge Sheppard convicted him of trafficking and sentenced him to one year on probation. Judge Sheppard acquitted Parker on the other two charges on the grounds that both the old drug law, the Narcotic Control Act, and the new drug law, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, are over-broad and unconstitutional and violate section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In his decision, Judge Sheppard drew heavily on another case (the Chris Clay case) that had challenged Canadian drug laws with respect to the recreational use of marijuana,[2] stating that "Marijuana causes no physical or psychological harm for the vast majority of users." He ruled that to deny Parker marijuana amounts to an infringement of his Charter right to life, liberty and security. He ordered that the three marijuana plants that had been confiscated on the second raid be returned to Parker on the grounds that they are necessary medicine, saying that Parker, being on disability allowance, could not afford, nor should have to, purchase the marijuana on the street.
The lawyer for the Crown requested that the ruling be stayed for six months to give Parliament an opportunity to deal with the decision, and argued that allowing marijuana for medicinal use would cause chaos. Judge Sheppard rejected these arguments and requests, emphasizing the fact that it will be doctors who will be deciding who uses marijuana for medical purposes.
The Crown has appealed the decision. In the meantime, Parker is free to cultivate and possess marijuana, but other medical marijuana users will have to take their cases to court until a decision is made by a higher court or the federal Parliament moves to change the law. Parker’s comments after the decision were very apt: "When the Supreme Court of Canada decides pot should be approved for medical purposes, then we'll have the victory we truly need to help people who require it." Meanwhile in Ontario and throughout Canada, numerous other challenges to the laws regarding medicinal marijuana are in the works, and on 18 December Ottawa physician Don Kilby applied to obtain access to marijuana for medical use for one of his patients with AIDS.
- Diane Riley & Eugene Oscapella
For further information and research materials about medicinal marijuana, visit the Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy Internet site at http://fox.nstn.ca/~eoscapel/cfdp/cfdp.html
Top of this page
Return to Table of Contents
Return to Home Page
ENDNOTES
[1]R v Parker (Ont Ct Prov Div), 10 Dec 1997, Sheppard J.
[2]R v Clay (Ont Ct Gen Div), 14 Aug 1997, McCart J.