A Belleville man says he was prevented from using doctor-prescribed cannabis in hospital following spinal surgery at Kingston General Hospital.

Nate Craig, 35, underwent spinal fusion surgery on Friday, Oct. 14, to address chronic pain he has suffered since being involved in a car crash in 1999.

“When I found out I was going in for surgery, I knew it would be an issue,” he said, adding that he contacted the hospital ahead of time and spoke to several directors and managers about his cannabis use, even arranging to have his wife bring in fudge containing the drug for him to eat. He asked prior to his operation if he could use a vaporizer, but he said that request was turned down.

“A lot of people were informed.”

Craig has had a prescription for medical cannabis for 16 years but said the arrangements he had made with the hospital didn’t get passed along to the medical staff working on the weekend following his Friday surgery. When he tried to use cannabis in the days following his operation, he said hospital staff wouldn’t let him.

“They were taken back,” Craig said. “They essentially confiscated it from me. They told me I had to ask for it if I wanted it and never gave me any.

“They labelled me as a drug addict.”

A Kingston General Hospital spokesperson declined to talk about Craig’s case specifically, citing privacy concerns.

In a statement, Silvie Crawford, KGH’s executive vice-president and chief nursing executive, said the hospital has policies in place to permit patients to use prescribed cannabis.

“When there is a request from a patient for self-medication, this can be allowed so long as it’s approved by a physician,” Crawford stated, adding that as a smoke-free facility, cannabis cannot be smoked, including through electronic devices, on hospital property.

And since cannabis is a drug, it is securely stored in the hospital, Crawford added.

“For safety reasons, our policies state that we do not allow patients to keep any controlled substances in their room,” Crawford stated. “Medications that patients bring with them to the hospital are always stored in a locked medication room and then distributed to the patient according to their physician’s instructions.

“KGH is in the process of developing a specific policy for physician approved use of cannabis, however at this time its use falls under our controlled drugs and personal medication policies,” Crawford added. “These are the same policies that govern the use of any prescribed medications that patients bring with them to the hospital.”

Craig said his surgery was a lot more complicated than expected and took three hours longer than scheduled.

He said he was put on hydromorphone and said his complaints of pain and profuse sweating were dismissed by medical staff as withdrawal symptoms.

“I’m in a lot more post-operative pain than I am supposed be, and these people are treating me like a mental patient,” he said. “Anything I say is not taken seriously.”

He said he eventually was able to walk to a smoking area outside the hospital to smoke some cannabis. It wasn’t until Monday that he was able to “escape” and get to his family doctor, who ramped up the dosage of pain medication he was on.

Craig said he has talked to a lawyer but was advised he likely would not get much for compensation.

He said other cannabis users should be aware of how they could be treated by some medical staff.

“People should know,” he said. “You are going to be abused. You are going to be in more pain and you are going to be laughed at.”

elferguson@postmedia.com