cannabisnews.com: Reefer Madness





Reefer Madness
Posted by FoM on February 10, 2000 at 07:50:34 PT
By Gary Dunford
Source: Toronto Sun
If your phone rings on a Saturday morning, pray it's a huckster. Don't let it be some anonymous Ottawa bureaucrat calling to alert you your sensitive personal information has been leaked to a journalist. So much for privacy, confidence and your tax dollars at work. "I was having breakfast: Bacon, eggs, toast," recalls Giff, one of 128 Canadians who got an alarming call from Health Canada last weekend. 
"A man asked if I was who I am. Then he tells me my name is on a confidential list of people who have inquired about or applied for the use of medical marijuana. And that it's fallen into the hands of a news organization." He looks at his call display, hoping for an instant it's a joke, a cruel hoax. The phone display shows ... Caller Unknown. "My god," he thinks. "This is my worst fear: Getting personal with the government." What if the list is published? Seen by neighbours, enemies, the OPP, Mounties, insurers? He knows the headline will be: Pot List. "It was his flat, bureaucratic voice that convinced me it was real," he says. Giff is one of many victims of AIDS, cancer, MS or chronic pain who have inquired about medical marijuana. Last fall, a dozen Canadians were granted an exemption from Criminal Code prosecution to use the controlled narcotic without fear of prosecution. More are interested. Health Canada is where these confidential inquiries are kept, under tight security. "They give you this bombshell, and then a number to call where you get a tape," he reports. It's Saturday! Nobody will answer for two days! As it turns out, the guy we're calling Giff hasn't even applied for the exemption. His real name is on the list because his doctor thought he was a good candidate for exemption. "My doctor sent a two-page letter to Health Canada last fall with my birthdate, name and address saying that I was a responsible person and it was a reasonable request," Giff says. The department sent him a swath of forms for completion. They're still sitting on his desk. One of the questions for his doctor: Has Giff taken thalidomide? "Why they'd rather have me take thalidomide than smoke marijuana is beside the fact. They list a whole range of drugs they'd rather see me take than make the exemption. "I didn't mail it back," he says. "I paused to think: Do I want my medical records in the hands of the government? You know I'll automatically be typed or coded or filed: Pro-marijuana. I didn't feel any fire was burning (to apply) and I wanted to talk about those issues with my doctor." Saturday's "whoops" call was hardly reassuring. But when federal offices re-opened Monday, Giff talked to the federal privacy commission. "They had no explanation," he says. "They wouldn't tell me who the reporter was; whether TV, the local paper or Canadian Press. Both the privacy commission and Health Canada have launched an investigation. They asked me if I wanted to file a complaint. I said 'YES!' " They added him to another list. "People don't really want a whole lot of government in their lives," he ventures. "I think people are happiest when they pay their taxes, get their licence renewed, cross all the T's, dot all the I's and otherwise their home is their castle and their life is whatever. To be phoned on the weekend by a government official on a sensitive subject makes you remember every paranoid movie you've ever seen. The ones where they take your ID card away from you, or access your accounts, or say you're not who you are. The bottom line is: something like this just shouldn't happen." Health Canada has apologized for its "breach of confidentiality," and says it will be "doubly appalled" if an investigation shows the list was deliberately released by a branch employee. At best, a clumsy mistake. At worst, a malicious act. Does Giff think he -- or any of the 128 Canadians who've spent the last few days fearful, apprehensive -- will ever get an explanation of what happened? "No," he says. "They certainly indicated I'd be the last to know." In Canada, our much-yapped-about "privacy rights" only shield government screw-ups. Published: February 10, 2000 Copyright © 2000, Canoe Limited Partnership. Related Articles:Applicants Fume Over Pot Plan Privacyhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4641.shtmlPot Users Smoked Out http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread4631.shtmlCannabisNews Search of Canadian Articles:http://www.alltheweb.com/cgi-bin/asearch?type=all&query=cannabisnews+Canada 
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on February 10, 2000 at 11:04:12 PT
Again, read the last sentence
How many times will this kind of thing happen before people stop begging for their rights under law and start *demanding* them?This Yank must confess ignorance when it comes to Canadian Federal law; there are probably lots of Canadians who read this and know far better than I ever will what remedies can be made to correct this gross invasion of privacy. But it should become increasingly clear that you cannot trust a government, any government, to behave with any decorum when it is involved in anything like this. Governments diffuse responsibility, so that no one person can be blamed for it's wrongdoing. (For example: Janet Reno is supposed to be directly responsible for the actions of the various US Federal Law Enforcement agencies involved in the Waco tragedy; do you see her swinging by her thumbs for the murder of those children?) Hence the anonymous, unidentifiable telephone call from a neutral voiced bureaucrat. They can only get away with what they do only so long as we are willing to let them. This time, you Canadians can press the issue and embarrass the hell out of the government there. (It seems to listen better than the one we have down here.) It just might make them think twice about all of their policies on drugs, not just this one program.
[ Post Comment ]

Post Comment


Name: Optional Password: 
E-Mail: 
Subject: 
Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message]
Link URL: 
Link Title: