Pot-Growing Professor Hopes To Teach Again

Prof. Jean Veevers hopes to greet her sociology class at the University of Victoria on Jan. 4 and resume her teaching career.

"That's all I know," Veevers said Friday after she was fined $15,000 and handed a conditional 12-month sentence she can serve at home, for cultivating marijuana and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

"I am competent to teach. My classes are full with a waiting list," said Veevers, described at sentencing at B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dean Wilson as an offender who does not pose a risk for the community.

Wilson imposed a 12-month term with conditions that Veevers remain in the province during that time and perform 60 hours of community service. He also gave her three years to pay off the $15,000 fine.

UVic president David Strong will review her case next week and make a decision on her status as a sociology professor.

On medical leave since a police raid on the home, Veevers said losing her teaching job is her biggest fear.

A UVic professor since 1980, she pleaded guilty on Oct. 26 to cultivating marijuana and possession for the purpose of trafficking. Charges of theft of power from B.C. Hydro and mischief were stayed by Crown counsel Ernie Froess.

Veevers: 'For once in my life, I wanted help.'

RCMP drug section officers raided Veevers' residence on April 17, 1997, and seized 122 marijuana plants and 8.6 kilos of marijuana from what was described as a sophisticated-grow operation.

"It was a God-awful surprise," Veevers said Friday.

"I had absolutely no idea of what was coming upon my head. I was stunned by what came raining down on me."

Veevers she has been in a perpetual state of embarrassment over the publicity.

"I thought I would live under my bed."

She credits her doctor, Dr. Robert Angus, and psychologist, Dr. Frances Ricks, with helping her through the ordeal.

"I got very good help there. For once in my life, I wanted to be helped."

Veevers, 55, has been teaching at universities since she was 23, and became a full professor before age 40.

Much had been made in court of a statement taken from her computer journal that she wanted to retire at 55.

"It is certainly something I said a lot," admitted Veevers.

But she said it was in the context of her chronic health problems and not monetary that she wrote that statement.

Suffering from chronic depression and fatigue syndrome, arthritis and fibromyalgia, Veevers said she realized that she could not carry a full workload at UVic until she was 65.

To that end, Veevers had taken a reduced responsibility appointment in the sociology department and was to teach only one of terms, from January until June of each year.

Meanwhile, Crown counsel Froess, who initially said that he would not appeal Wilson's decision, later retracted his comments and said he would forward his report to the Vancouver headquarters for a appeal decision.

Staff Sgt. Pat Convey, head of the Vancouver Island RCMP drug section, asked to comment on the sentence, said

"It's not a hell of a lot to comment on, actually.

"I don't know what kind of message it sends to people out there who want to get into the marijuana-growing business. It's something that's not going to deter a lot of people."

Copyright Victoria Times-Colonist

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