Pubdate: Sun, 13 Aug 2000
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2000 The Province
Contact:  200 Granville Street, Ste. #1, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N3 Canada
Fax: (604) 605-2323
Website: http://www.vancouverprovince.com/
Author: Peter Clough The Province

PATIENT: I WON'T QUIT SMOKING POT

The illegal stash is hidden somewhere in Lorne Kimber's small hospital room.

It's about the worst-kept secret in the building.

The resident of Vancouver's George Pearson Centre, a care facility for people with neurological disorders, usually meets his pot-smoking buddies on the balcony outside the activity centre.

Like teenagers, they look to make sure they're downwind from any security guards before drawing their wheelchairs together and lighting up the evil weed.

At 52, and suffering from multiple sclerosis so severe that he's too weak to hold the joint himself, Kimber says he's tired of playing games. He's through with taking the hush-hush approach to an issue that's become critical to the last years of his life -- an issue that's caught hospital officials across the country in a legal and ethical bind.

The man who spoke for the rights of the disabled at Expo 86 now speaks in whispers. But Lorne Kimber reckons he can muster the strength for one last battle.

Last September, just days before federal Health Minister Allan Rock announced clinical

trials on the medicinal benefits of marijuana, the executive board at George Pearson informed residents of their new zero-tolerance policy on smoking pot. The officials, concerned that the activity had been getting out of control, warned residents that marijuana use on hospital property could result in discharge. They even spoke of calling in the police.

Kimber says that if hospital officials don't back down on the policy by Sept. 1, he'll take his fight to the B.C. Human Rights Commission. He says residents of long-term care facilities who need marijuana to relieve pain and nausea are entitled to administer their magic herb in a dry, warm environment -- much like people do in their own homes.

"I must take this issue all the way," says Kimber. "I really don't have a lot of time. It's not good enough that something might be done 10 years down the road." The devout Christian thinks for a moment. "I may be home by then," he says.

Kimber's voice was loud and clear during the early stages of the disease when he headed a committee on making Expo 86 fully accessible to the disabled. (The story goes that Expo chairman Jimmy Pattison, congratulating Kimber on one of his speeches, made the mistake of patting him on the head. Kimber backed up in his wheelchair and proceeded to run over Pattison's foot.)

Since then, he has worked with municipalities on improving access for the disabled to public buildings and in the late '80s he co-founded Kimber Cabs, Canada's first wheelchair-friendly taxi fleet. Last April, he was honoured for his work by B.C.'s Coast Foundation, which presented him with a Courage to Come Back award.

He started smoking marijuana shortly after being admitted to George Pearson in 1992.

"I was told that marijuana would help me by another person here with MS," he says.

"She was right."

He says the first major benefit was that marijuana relieved his severe eyeball pain. It also eased his nausea and increased his appetite. Most significant of all, he says, it calmed the violent muscle spasms in his legs.

Kimber was not among the 250 Canadians chosen to participate in Health Canada's clinical study of medicinal marijuana, a process that's expected to take at least five years. He sees a day when facilities like George Pearson all have their own in-house hydroponic grow ops.

"I'd love to get one started," says the activist, his eyes lighting up.

He knows that's not likely.

Barbara Cameron, spokeswoman for Vancouver Hospital, which administers the facility, says the zero-tolerance policy will remain in place as long as marijuana is an illegal substance.

"We have a lot of empathy for Mr. Kimber's point of view on this. We're deeply conflicted as well," she says. "But we can't make a policy decision that goes against the law of the land."

Kimber doesn't know whether he'll be around to see marijuana legalized for people like him. In the meantime, though, he says the hospital is free to follow through on its zero-tolerance threat.

"I'm not going to stop smoking," he says. "They'll have to make a decision."
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