Epileptics Against Tasers petition to immediately suspend police use of TASER® weapons

My name is Christine Lowe. I have had epilepsy since childhood. I have been diagnosed with “complex-partial/secondary-generalized” seizures. In layman’s terms, it’ is a combination of two seizures in one. The convulsive seizures I experience are extremely intense and physically violent.

Seizures occur when a surge of electrical energy passes between cells in a person’s brain. This sudden overload may stay in just one small area of the brain or it could engulf the whole system. This changes behaviour, affects consciousness and causes unusual body movements.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition which affects approximately 300,000 Canadians.

Being able to recognize seizures is important because they can be mistaken for something else such as drunken and disorderly conduct, mental illness, drug induced psychosis, hysteria, or the deliberate ignorance of instructions of authorities, just to name a few cases.

Neurologically speaking, TASER® weapons are bad for anyone as they disrupt the functions of the central nervous system but for an epileptic to receive 20,000-50,000 volts, could easily be LETHAL.

Personally, we don’'t trust law enforcement to have the “common sense” not to abuse the technology, and given the recent actions of the RCMP in Vancouver and police in Halifax, We feel even less assured.

Because of the frequency and severity of my seizures, I already live under 24-hour supervision for obvious medical and safety issue. But given recent events, myself and other epeileptics are now quite literally terrified to leave our homes for fear of running into some “trigger-happy” officer who misconstrues our behaviour as non-compliance, and zaps one of us with his “cattle-prod”.

I am an epileptic, not a violent offender! Nor am I a drunk or a bovine!

We encourage EVERY Canadian to contact your Member of Parliament (see the link below) and local Police Chief and demand the use of these lethal weapons be discontinued. We also encourage you join our Faceook group and ask your friends to sign the petition to have these weapons banned.

You can find your member of Parliament's contact information at this link, and be sure to join us on Facebook too.