Cannabis-user's
jail term reduced – Richard Lehmann, Legalise Cannabis Alliance
Source: Eastern Daily press, UK
Pub Date: Thursday July 29, 2004
Subj: Cannabis-user's jail term reduced
Contact: EDPLetters@archant.co.uk
Cited: Richard Lehmann, Legalise Cannabis Alliance,
http://www.lca-uk.org/
A former Norwich City Council candidate, who used
cannabis for his back pain and gave some to help out multiple sclerosis
sufferers, has had his jail term cut by two thirds.
Richard John Lehmann, 52, of Shorncliffe Close,
Norwich, stood in June as a Legalise Cannabis Alliance candidate for the Wensum
Ward.
On July 1, he was jailed for nine months after
admitting producing cannabis at the city's crown court.
But judges sitting at London's Court of Appeal cut
that to three months after agreeing the term was "manifestly
excessive" given the background of the crime and the offender himself.
Mr Justice Gray said a doctor preparing a medical
report on Lehmann's use of the drug said "he could derive some benefit
[from it] as it would help his back pain."
He added that Lehmann was "entitled to say he
believes he derives therapeutic benefit" from his use of the drug.
The judge, who was sitting with Lord Justice May
and Mrs Justice Hallett, said police discovered Lehmann was growing the drug at
his home when they went there on an unrelated matter in October, 2003.
Officers said the estimated 931 grams he was in the
process of producing would have lasted the average user about one year.
But Lehmann, said the judge, told police he could
get through it in eight to ten months "because he was a heavy user".
The basis of his guilty plea was that most of the
haul was for his own personal use.
He was also a member of the United Church of Holy
Sacred Herbs who would receive cannabis as "part of the sacrament"
and share it with other worshippers, said Mr Justice Gray.
Lehmann, who has previous convictions for the
production and possession of cannabis, suffered from depression but was not
getting regular medication for it in jail and was considered at low risk of
reoffending, the judge added.
Giving the court's ruling, Mr Justice Gray said
Lehmann's crime deserved a custodial sentence, and that the change in the law
in early 2004 on the legal status of cannabis "did not make an alteration
to the sentence for producing cannabis".
But he cut Lehmann's jail term because he accepted
grounds including his background, that he had not profited from his crime and
that at least the majority of the cannabis was for his own use.