Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:


After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.

UK: MS patient cleared of cannabis possession

Ian Herbert, Northern Correspondent

The Independent, UK

Friday 29 Sep 2000


Subject: UK: MS patient cleared of cannabis possession

Source: The Independent, UK

Pub date: Friday 29 September 2000

Author: Ian Herbert, Northern Correspondent



MS PATIENT CLEARED OF CANNABIS POSSESSION

A MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS sufferer was cleared of possessing cannabis yesterday,
having told a jury she needed the drug to relieve pain.

Lezley Gibson, 36, who was arrested after police found nearly £40 of
cannabis in a raid on her house in Alston, Cumbria, said: "It's a brilliant
decision, not only for me, but for hundreds of other MS sufferers out there
who rely on cannabis to ease their suffering.

"I do not want to be branded as a criminal. Cannabis must be made
available on prescription for people like me."

The trial at Carlisle Crown Court lasted four days, at the end of which the
jury spent an hour and a half deliberating.

Ms Gibson, who said she would continue to smoke cannabis, began taking the
drug to ease her pain 12 years ago - three years after she was diagnosed
with MS which attacks the nervous system. Previously she had been taking
steroids, which had made her balloon to 14 stones, she said. She had also
tried valium, which made her feel "groggy and stupid" as well as
hypnotherapy and acupuncture.

MS Gibson said she smoked up to five joints a day because they enabled her
to have a more normal life. "I would use paint stripper if I thought it
would make me well," she said.

Matthew Atha, of the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit, said recent trials
using mice had shown cannabis could restore functions as well as relieving
pain, when used to teat MS sufferers.

Countless relapses of the illness have left Ms Gibson partly paralysed and
with slurred speech, poor vision and loss of balance and feeling.

In March, Thomas Yates, another MS sufferer, was acquitted on charges of
possession, and Colin Davies was acquitted in July, on a charge of
supplying the drug.

 

 

 

After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back. 




This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.

Feel free to link to this page!