TORONTO – Millions of people fly home for the holidays and experience headaches from packed airports and long lines, but one traveller says his experience was a nightmare.
“When I got past the security and went up to the gate, that’s really when the problems started to happen,” said Michael Korchak.
Last Thursday, Michael Korchak had an Air Canada ticket for a flight from Halifax to Toronto. He was looking forward to spending Christmas with his parents in Burlington, but the 25-year-old was denied boarding because he was carrying a filled prescription for leaf form marijuana.
“It’s a prescription medication from a doctor. What right do they have to say you can’t have it? It wasn’t like I was going to use it on the plane. It was inside of a bottle, inside my carry-on bag,” said Korchak.
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Korchak said he was upfront with the gate agent, informing her of his prescription. He also had all of the necessary paperwork for it and arrived at the airport three hours early, prepared for any hassle since he was flying with the medication for the first time.
When Korchak was denied boarding at the ticket counter, he was humiliated.
“People were staring, pointing, laughing. I did feel harassed, I did feel discriminated,” said Korchak.
Korchak uses the prescription to help with manage his pain after a military related injury.
“It should be treated just like any other form of prescription medication. If a diabetic has insulin, it’s not a big deal,” said Korchak.
Air Canada helped Korchak get on another flight home with Porter, which doesn’t have the same policy.
In a statement to Global News, Air Canada explained:
“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. Our procedures for travelling with medical marijuana have since been amended to include leaf form.”
On top of changing their policy this week, Air Canada also refunded Korchak Thursday morning for his flight, but Korchak said it was too late. He has already filed a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency and is in the process of filing a formal complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
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