|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Cannabis, it's a Cure not a Crime
Gloucestershire Echo
Friday 07 Apr 2006 Muscular dystrophy suffer Allan Johnson says he'll fight for the right to take cannabis legally. Allan, from Brockworth, and his friend Jeffrey Ditchfield are involved in Bud Buddies, which supplies chronic pain sufferers nationwide with cannabis free of charge. But the drug is illegal and they will be tried at Gloucester Crown Court next month for cultivating, possessing and being concerned in the supply of marijuana. Both will plead not guilty because they are adamant that what they are doing isn't wrong. "I'm not a common criminal and I take offence at being called one," said Allan, 41. "All I'm trying to do is make myself comfortable and give myself, my wife and my family a decent life. I hurt no one financially, physically or mentally. This is a waste of taxpayers' money." Jeffrey says he founded Bud Buddies to help others. "Allan's only crime is being ill and getting relief from pain," he said. "What are they going to punish me for? Helping sick people? "I don't accept it's in the public interest to prosecute me or Allan or anyone who uses it medicinally. Where's the victim in our crime?" His clients include those with multiple sclerosis and cancer who swear cannabis is the only thing that relieves their pain without side effects. Doctors were banned from prescribing it in 1971 but last July it became possible for doctors to prescribe a form of the drug to be taken orally. Allan and Jeffrey, 45, are so keen to highlight what they claim is injustice that when they appeared at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court yesterday for a preliminary hearing they made the unusual request to have reporting restrictions lifted. Allan, a father-of-three of Ermin Park, has received cannabis from Bud Buddies and also grown it for them. He said: "Cannabis helps me massively. Without it, it's horrendous but while I'm using it I don't get all the aches and pains and muscle tears. My body feels relaxed and at ease. "Without it I don't eat and sleep and my circulation gets so bad my feet turn purple. "Prescription painkillers only mess with your stomach and head. "If you buy it off the street you don't know how it's been produced. It could be full of chemicals. This is all organic. "It's a sad society we live in when people like Jeffrey, who helps people in pain like me through the kindness of their hearts, risk being locked away." His wife, Doreen, said: "I'm 110 per cent behind him. It makes a hell of a lot of difference to him. He's not harming anyone and he'd be more of a drain on the NHS if he didn't have this. "The law's an ass. It's people's lives they're messing with. I'd like to see the people doing this swap places with him for just a day and see how they'd like to be in pain." Jeffrey founded Bud Buddies when a sick friend told him how hard it was to get hold of the only drug she felt helped her. Operating from a secret location in the North West, it claims to supply 250 people. "We only supply people after they have presented a referral form signed by their GP," he said. "We tend to find that once a GP has referred one person to us we get several from that GP. "Every doctor I've met says 'yes, it does have medicinal value'." He insists it's better for Bud Buddies to produce the drug than for sufferers to rely on drug dealers. "We don't want people to help fund al Qaida by buying it on the black market," he said. "The stupid thing is that I'd get more time in prison for this than someone with child porn on their computer yet there's no victim in what we do." Jeffrey, of Rhyl, Denbighshire, said: "Just because something is illegal it doesn't make it immoral. I've got no regrets - only that if I had my time again I'd try to help more people than I did." Both will appear at Gloucester Crown Court on May 26. They were granted bail until then. "I'm not a common criminal and I take offence at being called one. All I'm trying to do is make myself comfortable." Allan Johnson
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!