When the Toronto Canada Police Department, decided to raid the two bedroom apartment of Terry Parker, they may have come face to face with a 'Pot Superman.' They were armed with their lead box and their kryptonite, though. The badges were the 'lead box' and the search warrant was the 'kryptonite,' containing the charges of "cultivation for the purpose of trafficking."
Parker's door came down with a battering ram, splintered and smashed. An action which caused his landlord to serve notice of eviction the same day. Like vultures tearing apart a carcass that was not even dead yet, they swooped in for the kill. His visiting girlfriend, Sharon, had attempted to open the door for the officers, upon hearing strange noises of "Police, open the door!" With not enough time to unlatch and unlock it, she was practically injured in the entry as she was forced to watch with horror, the destruction that ensued.
She was also charged. Situated on the 22nd floor, high above Toronto, overlooking Lake Ontario, it is hard to imagine just where the police figured that the well known inhabitant could escape to. Acting on a tip that Parker was growing marijuana on the balcony of his apartment, they proceeded to seize a crop of 71 plants of Cannabis Sativa in various stages of growth, some near maturity, others still in the seedling stage.
The police were fully aware that in 1987 Terry had won the right in court, to not be found guilty of possession of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Judge Kenneth Langdon of the Brampton Provincial Court of Ontario had ruled in Terry's favour. The decision had come after numerous appearances by Terry on similar charges of possession.
So why were they so surprised that he was growing Pot? Parker believed in his mind that having been found not guilty in the 1987 case, that he had the right to possess cannabis whether in ready-to-smoke form, or growing on the stalk, and that his victory included the right to access in any form.
Both before and after winning the right to possess for medical purposes, Terry Parker, assisted by this writer, communicated with numerous government officials to request and obtain access to a supply of legal medical marijuana. He was met with closed doors at every turn. His lobbying led to discussions, letters and petitions with the Departments of Health and Justice, the Bureau of Dangerous Drugs, the Office of the Prime Minister, Federal MPs, Senate Committees, the House of Commons, Canadian Medical Association, and the Chiefs of Police Association.
Within the Province of Ontario he contacted the Ontario Bar Association, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Ontario Medical Association, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Ombudmans Office, the Bureau of Advocacy for the Rights of Disabled Persons, the Ex-psychiatric Patients' Association, Local MPs, and the Addiction Research Foundation. Tirelesly he asked all possible authorities for help and direction in gaining access to marijuana to fulfill his court victory and administer to his medicinal need.
Throughout the last 15 years you could find Parker on many occasions walking through the streets of downtown Toronto. From Roncesvalle to Yonge, from the water front to Bloor St. Terry carried a 60 lb. hemp back-sack, attached to which was a six-foot sign towering above his head: "Legalize Marijuana," "Medical Marijuana," "No More Prisoners of Weed," and "Join N.O.R.M.L. Canada," were only a few of the slogans that could be seen for a block or more across the busy traffic. You could hear his loud voice, like a town crier bellowing out the need to consider medical marijuana. In time he became a fixture along the sidewalks of this major downtown core. He never grew tired of stopping to speak to, and answer the questions of novices and veterans alike about the cannabis issue. Yet, what was his reward?
He is sad today after loosing his medication, but does "drug enforcement" work with compassion? Do the Government of Canada and the Ministers of Health recognize Terry's situation as Medical Applicant? All the doors for legal access to marijuana for medicinal purposes were slammed in his face. In fact according to Parker, some of the bureaucrats he approached even advised him verbally to 'grow his own.' I doubt, however that they would ever admit this publicly. (But if any should step forward to confirm such advice given, he Free World News and NORML Canada will publish it).
So he did (grow his own that is) ...
Parker's home was taken apart with extreme force and his medicine was carted away. He was charged with "cultivation of cannabis sativa for the purpose of trafficking." He has approached lawyer Aaron Harnett, known for representing Grant Krieger of Regina Saskatchewan, to defend him on the charges and prepare a constitutional challenge, under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This writer and N.O.R.M.L. Canada have agreed to assist once again in the preparations for the case.
If convicted Parker could face upwards of 14 years imprisonment. The opinion gathered prior to this article, is that this would constitute harsh and unusual punishment, not to mention violation of Parker's rights as a patient in need of medical remedy.
The Frankfurt Resolutions and the World Health Organization both provide for the rights of autonomy of one's body, and the right to seek medical remedy for improved health, and seek such remedy wherever it is available, exempt from prosecution and persecution regardless of borders and laws prohibitive of such substances.
So just who is Terry Parker? Victim? Crusader? Superman? Criminal???
Parker, injured in a swing accident at the age of four years, was beset by the illness staticus epilepticus (the severest of the grand mal seizures). Hard life, suffering, abuse and persecution, are no strangers to this man.
In 1969 and 1972 Terry underwent what he claims, was experimental psycho-surgical behaviour modification. This surgery was twice performed with the intent of removing those portions of the human brain thought responsible for causing Terry's uncontrollable, life-threatening seizures.
Bouts of convulsions, 20 to 30 minutes in duration, that make the unfamiliar cringe with horror and helplessness. The lobotomies left permanent scars, a constant reminder, stretching from the temporal lobe to the back of his head ; a hideousness he would have to live with. Memories of the surgery, done while he was wide awake and cognizant, are still vivid in his mind. And yet the surgeries were unsuccessful in producing an end to the severity and the dangers of epilepsy's grasp on his existence. Pills became a large part of his daily schedule. At first with numerous doctor prescribed mind altering drugs, later with massive amounts of Tegretol and Mysoline. He was ordered to treat his illness with these medications having side effects that manifested in erratic, self-destructive and potentially abusive or aggressive behaviour.
Education was soon out of reach. Labeled anti-social by ignorant educators, with no effective treatment forthcoming from the doctors, Terry was left alone in his own world.
From the years 1968 to 1979 Terry was shifted from one psychiatric ward to another. He found himself an "unwilling prisoner" of places like the Clarke Institute in Toronto, or the halls of the Addiction Research Foundation, and various hospital wards around the city.
His admissions to emergency rooms throughout the city by ambulance, became commonplace. I recall one instance in which, during a seizure in an underground subway station, he was robbed of his money and guitar, and beaten as a drunk.
The police attending, rousted him for appearing drunk in public and eventually jailed him for protesting and belligerence. Talk about double jeopardy.
Parker does not, and never has, consumed alcohol, having learned in his early years that alcohol would trigger seizures, even in minute amounts.
In 1976 Terry discovered cannabis. While registered as an in patient at one of the Toronto institutes, another patient with epilepsy introduced him to a marijuana 'joint'. Soon after smoking it, he became aware that the impending feeling of doom associated with his type of grand mal seizures, subsided. Terry found himself drawn to this strange feeling of freedom, and was elated at his new found relief.
It had been many years since he had felt in control of his body. He told his doctors of his experience, but found that he was soon being considered a perfect candidate for behaviour modification surgery. With societal attitudes toward cannabis use, he was prepared for the procedure, including electro-shock therapy. He still claims to this day that the surgery was experimental and contrary to Nuremberg Provisions (1946 trials), establishing a codes of ethics for human experimentation and mutilation.
N.O.R.M.L. Canada was aware of Terry. Terry was a member of N.O.R.M.L. in 1978. His protesting of the surgery, and his desire to use marijuana for seizure control, led to a 1979 study at the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto. The essence and the purpose of the study entitled "The effects of Marijuana and Epileptic Seizures in Man" were to test his claim that marijuana helped him. Parker enlisted as a volunteer subject. The nine week study was inconclusive. Spending $100,000.00 of tax money and nine weeks had proved fruitless. According to Parker, this was the next spear to pierce his rapidly disintegrating life. He claims that fraud was exercised when the ARF used 'THC delta 9' in inhalation form. Some form of smoking material was sprayed with liquid synthetic 'tetra-hydra-cannibinol delta 9' and administered as acrude simulated form of marijuana. Terry believes that he was used as a guinea pig, but the substance used was not natural form cannabis sativa, his true medical salvation.
It is clear that he felt abused, by a system intent on avoiding the real issue of cannabis benefits, by planting disinformation. Nothing would please Parker more than to bring court action against the ARF, the doctors, and some Toronto lawyers who refused to seek compensation for him, in spite of agreeing with Terry's claims that a new study was warranted using crude form marijuana. Could it be that the medical profession was afraid of the reality of cannabis and its potential medicinal benefits?
Terry believes this with fervor, even insinuating that it is part of the decades old, continuous, hippocritical war against otherwise law-abiding Canadian citizens, especially disabled persons. This writer joins Terry's plea for medical marijuana, and freedom from prosecution for all marijuana users.
From 1978, the year Parker was first arrested (there have been a number since) to the year 1987, much of his time was spent in court pleading medicinal need and in jail serving time as a criminal. Backed by the 1979 Regina vs. Hauser and the 1984 Regina vs. Perka (the former regarding Health and Welfare vs. Criminal Justice, the later regarding establishing medical criteria for compassionate use).
Terry became active in N.O.R.M.L. Canada's Toronto chapter office, and in 1980 was elected Assistant Executive National Director.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Canada, had broken from the original NORML (of which it had been an authorized chapter), in the USA, and had taken root and established Canadian Corporate Status, run and operated entirely by Canadians for Canadians. Members included various political, legal, educational and medical advocates of cannabis. During these times in the 1970s, the Le Dain Commission Inquiry into the non-medical use of drugs in Canada and the Liberal party of Canada had recommended and promised decriminalization.
With the onset of the U.S. based, Nancy Reagan "just say No campaign" came a new low in Canada: the passing of section 462.2 of the Criminal Code (banning drug literature which "promotes" illicit drug use).
The Era of Cold Silence began. With fear in the atmosphere in an unprecedented degree, N.O.R.M.L. Canada all but disappeared and so had open participation by individuals ready to face the issues of cannabis education. Yet again suppressed! Yet Parker fought on.
During this period of "the literature and education ban," police and prosecutors viewed any legalization activity or discussion as a crime. The constitutional victory by NORML Canada/Umberto Iorfida from 1992-95 came 8 years to the date after Terry Parker walked out of a Brampton, Ontario, courthouse a 'free man.'
In 1987 (and again in 1988 in the Federal appeal process) Parker was cleared of the charge "possession of cannabis sativa" on the basis of medicinal necessity and compassionate use. Parker was elated yet very surprised upon hearing Judge Kenneth Langdon's decision (later upheld by Federal Judge B. Shapiro in 1988).
Over the next 6 or 7 years Terry continued in his drive to obtain legal marijuana through legal channels, but none were there and none came into being. He also found that most bureaucracies were unwilling to initiate legal channels. His victory joy was soon dashed, much like his dream of a productive life, free of pain and horror. Even if it did destroy a few braincells, using marijuana did not compare to the brain cell destruction and impairment of the quality of his motor functions by epileptic seizures. What could be more humiliating and more cruel than allowing him to suffer publicly, while keeping a natural remedy such as pot away from his reach? Rather than face yet another excruciating surgery, he decided to produce his own access by growing his own.
That's what brought the local police and the Narcotics Forces to his door.
Between the seizures, one man demonstrations and playing the guitar, Parker launched a campaign bent on exposing illicit human experiments, and cruel and inhuman abuse of disabled persons.
Is there a connection, a conspiracy by authorities to torture and make life miserable for disabled persons?
History records that hundreds of thousands of disabled persons were among those selected by the Germans to suffer in the detention camps and ultimately to be industrially exterminated during World War II.
Terry believes that the actions and policies directed against him over the last 20 years were no accident. Terry also believes at times that he was unknowingly fitted with implants (and he has the X-rays) that are electronically controlled.
"I'm a walking cyborg", he says laughingly. Is he deluded, or is this the protective shield he has built around himself? There's no doubt that life has dealt Terry an incredibly splintered existence.
The answer may lie in the upcoming court battle which will start in early to middle 1997. Terry hopes to mount a constitutional battle in an effort to establish non-criminal provisions to provide himself with his "herb of Life." For him anything less would be comparable to condemning his life to torture and issuing an order of execution; to wit, death by "epileptic Russian roulette" due to prohibition of marijuana.
This is cruel and unusual punishment, callous disregard for human life, and is totally unjustifiable in a free and democratic society. Terry believes in the right to choose, the right to life, and the right to health, through safe and legal access.
The court case will be expensive and will be the second chapter in the Terry Parker Chronicles - one man's battle for legal marijuana. Terry and his lawyer hope to raise money to cover the cost of the trial. Donations can be made directly to:
Mr. Terry Parker
#2209-55 Triller Avenue
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6R 2H5