Pot-battle double-amputee Marilyn Holsten loses her last fight

Heart attack fells woman who contested eviction for smoking pot

By Andy Ivens; August 26, 2009 - The Province
http://www.theprovince.com/health/battle+double+amputee+Mari...

[Note: For background on this story see Officials deny sick Vancouver woman's bid to smoke pot in apartment.]

Marilyn Holsten's last days on Earth were a living hell, according to her sister, Moira O'Neill.

In frail health, the almost-blind, diabetic double-amputee was ordered evicted from her apartment because of her need to smoke marijuana to control her pain.

Holsten, 48, died earlier this month from a heart attack.

"For a whole year, it went on. It was an unbelievable way to treat someone in her health," said O'Neill.

Holsten lived in a building operated by Anavets Senior Citizens Housing Society in the 900-block East 8th Avenue in Vancouver.

Many of her neighbours told her they did not smell marijuana coming from her apartment, her sister said. But, even though Holsten eventually obtained legal permission to smoke marijuana to deal with excruciating phantom pains, Anavets sought her eviction because of the smell of pot.

"It was a [witcRating 2 unt(?)]," said O'Neill, who said her sister had to move from her fifth-floor apartment to a ground-floor suite two years ago, after her first leg amputation, for her own safety.

"They knew she smoked marijuana before she moved down to the other suite," said O'Neill.

"She was in the hospital most of the time, with her amputation -- she was gone five days a week, in dialysis six hours a day."

Holsten fought her eviction at a B.C. Residential Tenancy Branch arbitration hearing in June, but lost.

The night before she died, Holsten visited her older sister.

"We resolved that she was going to stay with me in my small one-bedroom apartment," said O'Neill.

"She couldn't take opiates, they made her totally unable to function. Morphine made her throw up, and she was a diabetic, so she had to eat all the time."

O'Neill said her sister "yelled and screamed before she died," but help came too late to save her.

"It's pretty unjust, what happened. She was a fighter," said O'Neill, who picked up her sister's ashes Tuesday.

"She was extremely independent all her life."

O'Neill says her sister was also "a beautiful person" who loved life and her three parrots.

"She had an art project she was working on. She had plans to continue her education. She was an inspirational person," said O'Neill.

"I'm missing her, but I know she's got her toes back and is wiggling them in heaven."