Pubdate: Tue, 2 Dec 1997 Source: Edmondton Sun Website: http://www.canoe.ca/EdmontonNews/ Contact: JURORS LOOK INSIDE ACCUSED'S BRAIN By Jonathan Jenkins Staff Writer Doctors took jurors on a tour of the mind of accused drug trafficker George Hardy yesterday, complete with maps of the electrical activity in his brain. Hardy, 52, was caught redhanded trying to sell four ounces of heroin to an undercover cop in May 1993 but testified earlier in the trial he did so under the deluded belief he was working for the RCMP. Psychiatrist Dr. Pierre FlorHenry called the former defence lawyer a "classic case of amphetamine psychosis." Hardy's epilepsy and narcolepsy alone would predispose him to the paranoia, hallucinations and delusions of amphetamine psychosis, FlorHenry told defence lawyer Hersh Wolch. On top of that, he was popping about 120 mg of amphetamines a day, when as little as 40 mg can cause the psychosis, he said. FlorHenry also showed the 10woman, twoman jury electroencephalogram maps of Hardy's brain, showing the epileptic abnormality in his left hemisphere. Hardy has said he was trying to work a reverse sting and catch a drug dealer so he could banish hallucinatory visits from his dead mother. Racked by guilt over her 1986 suicide, Hardy was haunted by her and an imaginary Mountie named Scott Turner. FlorHenry said he's certain amphetamines and not schizophrenia caused Hardy's psychosis because the hallucinations have cleared up since he quit taking the drugs. Under crossexamination by Crown prosecutor Larry Ackerl, FlorHenry agreed that his diagnosis depended entirely on Hardy honestly recounting both his drug use and his hallucinations from 1993. "By the time Mr. Hardy told me about working for the police, he had retrospective insight," FlorHenry said. "He knew well by then it was wrong." Earlier, psychologist Paul Sussman, who has seen Hardy off and on since 1985, told jurors how amphetamines work in the chemical pathways of the brain. Chronic use can mean normal brain chemistry takes three years to reassert itself, Sussman said. He's now treating Hardy with hypnosis, encouraging him to talk to his dead mother while undergoing the therapy.