October 6, 1999

From The Calgary Sun
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By Kevin Martin

JOINT-SMOKING DRIVER ACQUITTED

Tears of joy and sorrow flowed in a city courtroom yesterday as a dope-smoking motorist was acquitted in the traffic death of a Calgary father of three.
(Marijuananews note: Should papers have a note on articles informing readers if the reporter is a boozer?)

Justice Peter McIntyre ruled the marijuana joint Patrick Houlgrave shared with his then-girlfriend prior to losing control of his pickup didn't impair his driving ability.

Moments after the verdict, Houlgrave, 23, limped from the courtroom, cane in hand, with tears welling up in his eyes.

At the same time, Doug Harrison's parents, and widow Arlene Hunter, sat crying over McIntyre's decision.

McIntyre ruled Houlgrave's driving on Dec. 27, 1997, suggested he was neither impaired, nor driving dangerously.

Houlgrave lost control on a snowy stretch of the Trans-Canada Hwy., west of Banff, swerving into Harrison's oncoming minivan.

The force of the collision flipped the van on its side, killing Harrison, 36, and injuring Hunter and their three children.

Houlgrave's girlfriend at the time, Melinda McFarlane, was also critically injured.

Houlgrave, who declined comment shortly after the verdict, later told the Sun the decision was the right one: "I feel terrible about the accident, (but) I wasn't high."

Copyright: 1999, Canoe Limited Partnership.

October 6, 1999

From The Calgary Herald
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By Bob Beaty

DRIVER NOT GUILTY OF FATAL CRASH

accident that killed one person and injured others limped out of court Tuesday weeping after being found not guilty of impaired driving causing death.

Patrick Houlgrave, 23, was comforted by friends outside the courtroom while overcome with the conflicting emotions of relief over his acquittal and grief over those he killed and injured, his defence lawyer Rick Muenz said.

But there was nothing but grief inside the courtroom as friends and relatives comforted the woman who lost her husband and the father to their three young children in the accident.

"We are very, very sad knowing an innocent man can be killed by someone smoking marijuana and that man just walks away," said Judi Yacyshyn, one of the grieving widow's friends.

(Marijuananews note: This statement demonstrates how people have been conditioned to want to punish marijuana users. Notice that witnesses said that the accused was not driving erratically, and that he had not had enough marijuana to impair his driving, but they still wanted to punish him for driving after using marijuana.)

During the week-long trial that ended Friday, Court of Queen's Bench Justice Peter McIntyre heard that Houlgrave was driving west on the Trans-Canada Highway on Dec.27, 1997, when his truck went out of control, west of Banff and slammed into an oncoming van.

The van's driver, Doug Harrison, 36, died at the snowy accident site. Harrison's wife, Arlene Hunter, was badly injured, as were their three children.

McIntyre said he was also convinced by defence witness Dr. Barry Beyerstein, a Simon Fraser University psycho pharmacologist professor, that the amount of the active marijuana agent found in Houlgrave's blood was not sufficient to cause a driving impairment.