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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Cannabis activists takes to streets
Alexandra Wood Yorkshire Post
Monday 20 Jun 2005 PRO-CANNABIS campaigners will be taking to the streets of a Yorkshire city after judges rejected use of the drug to alleviate chronic pain. This year's Cannabis Education 2005 event is expected to attract hundreds of people from around the country, at a time when the drug is coming under increasing criticism. Last night's BBC Panorama programme explored how cannabis affects teenage minds and explored whether there is a link between its use and psychotic illness. A number of studies have shown that cannabis use roughly doubles the risk of psychiatric illness such as schizophrenia among young people. Another showed people with a family history of mental illness were four times at risk of developing problems as those not considered vulnerable. Fronting the march in Hull will be wheelchair users who say the drug is vital to manage their pain. The rally's organiser, father-of-six, Carl Wagner, who openly sells drugs paraphernalia from the Divine Herb stall in Hull Market, said: "The fact remains that the vast majority of people who use cannabis claim no harm whatsoever from its use; they claim benefit. "Pretending to be protecting a tiny minority by attacking and criminalising up to five million people is absolute nonsense. This is corporate democracy: why let people grow plants for pennies when you can sell pills for pounds? "It was first mentioned as a medicine some 4,000 years ago and cannabis was still being used as a tincture up until 1971 when it was made illegal per se. "What the Government is doing is torturing people by denying effective medication." Another speaker will be campaigner Chris Baldwin, who used to run two Amsterdam-style coffee shops in Worthing. He has had a lower back injury for years and needs a wheelchair to cover longer distances. He said cannabis was being subjected to a wave of anti-cannabis propaganda. He added: "Cannabis stops my legs from going into spasms and pain. I don't care what ruling a judge or a doctor makes: they can't climb into my body, they can't feel my pain or what works or doesn't work for me." In May judges at the Appeal Court told four men, including one from Yorkshire, and one woman, that unlawful actions were not "excused or justified by the need to avoid a greater evil". Lawyers for the five had argued that the legal defence of necessity should treat serious harm from an external source equally with pain, both physiological and mental, suffered by a sick person. But the judges ruled that the law could only be broken to avoid "imminent danger of physical injury" and dismissed appeals by the five, including Graham Kenny, 25, of Shipley, West Yorkshire. All had been given either a fine, community service or a suspended jail sentence for possessing or importing the class C drug. Mr Kenny said he smoked cannabis to relieve chronic back pain.
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