Michael Korchak was admittedly a little nervous flying home to Toronto from Halifax for the holidays last week.
He’d hit a snag on his trip home to Burlington last Thursday for Christmas and a group of Air Canada employees was gathering around him at its busy departure gate at the Halifax airport.
The 25-year-old Canadian Armed Forces member, who’s in the process of receiving a medical discharge because of a traumatic injury suffered on duty, has a prescription for medicinal marijuana to help with chronic pain.
But despite having a legal prescription and all the necessary paperwork, he was repeatedly told he couldn’t board the plane unless he threw out the medicine — worth about $100.
Korchak says when he tried to prove his case with his documents, he was told he was being “difficult” and Air Canada workers threatened to call security.
In an email statement, Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick said the airline has since changed its policy to allow legally prescribed mediacl marijuana in both leaf and pill form.
“Although he had official medical authorization forms he was not accepted for travel because his medical marijuana was in leaf form and our travel policies at the time only permitted medical marijuana in pill form,” he wrote. “Our procedures for travelling with medical marijuana have since been amended to include leaf form.”
“We apologized, immediately offered a refund, and assisted him in booking a flight on another airline. We also explained that he could submit any further expense incurred to our customer service team.”
Agencies/Canadajournal
why was he searched for drugs without a warrant?
I think he probably disclosed that he had mediacl [sic] marijuana thinking that it won’t be a problem because he has the required documents. Air Canada being the progressive company that it is, obviously didn’t have a probl… no wait, call the lawyers, we’ve encountered something we’ve never seen before, marijuana in leaf form.
Smoking a Zimmerman Dylan, keeping the jealous god in central Inquisition terrorist HQ appeased. Drug addicts dumbed down enough to not know perceive the fix. Apologise to him.
this is not news. moved him to another carrier who’s policy allowed leaf from weed. his responsibility to know the policies of the carrier who he wishes to travel on.
So if one is doing something legal, one is obligated to check to see if that legal behaviour is allowed? I would think it would take a lot of extra time. I have never checked to see if my morphine is allowed on Air Canada or any other airline I have used.