Source: Dunfermline Press and West of Fife Advertiser

Pub Date: Thursday, 17 July 2003

Pub LTE: Cannabis, MS and the Parliament

Author: Hamish Crisp

As a fellow MS sufferer using cannabis to alleviate the symptoms of MS, I am appalled, horrified and terrified by the treatment of Mrs Elizabeth Ivol in my native Orkney.

This would surely not have happened in the Scotland I envisaged when I voted so enthusiastically for the resumption of the Scottish Parliament.

It is galling indeed to discover that your MSP, after all the brouhaha surrounding the recent elections, has no power whatsoever to have affected Mrs Ivol's legal standing.

The basic response from The Mound is, "I must record that the laws governing the licensing of medicines and the use of recreational drugs are reserved to Westminster so the Scottish Parliament does not have any power to change the laws which Biz Ivol is charged with having broken."

Between this and the apparent unfettered costs of "The Big Hoose" at Holyrood, the Scottish State has become a farcical joke to the people.

It seems that they have the power to spend our money, but not the power (or inclination) to prevent the vulnerable among us being driven into their graves by "Scottish justice."

I despair of my country.

The moral and logical reason of a law that leads to this outrage is beyond the understanding of the public in whose interests it is being enforced. Ironically, the costs, which must be quite substantial, come from the public purse.

Goodness knows, all MS sufferers know of some basic amenity or service not available to them due to "lack of resources."

I know we don't matter, but for many MSers this feels like the final spit-in-your-face insult.

Hamish Crisp, Townhill