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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Press Release: Anger over "Pain or Prison" Choice
Legalise Cannabis Alliance Friday 16 Jan 2009 January 16 2009 No Embargo Cannabis Campaigners in the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) are fuming over the choice of pain or risking prison given to Stuart Wyatt at Plymouth Crown Court on January 16. Police had visited Wyatt and found quantities of cannabis and a small hydroponic growing set-up. Wyatt had told police he used the drugs purely for medicinal purposes, often turning it into a paste which he applied to his body to ease the pain he suffered. He also admitted he supplied the paste to other people who also suffered painful conditions, who in turn passed it on to more people in similar circumstances. A spokesman for the LCA said: ""This is an outrageously unjust mis-application of the law. "The Misuse of Drugs Act was supposedly created to try to protect people from the risks of harm from certain drugs, not to prevent people from growing a few plants to use to ease their pains and suffering." Wyatt's advocate Ali Rafati had said that the 36-year-old's "use of cannabis was ongoing" to mitigate the pain he constantly suffered. Judge Gilbert reportedly replied: "Well, that's his misfortune, isn't it?" During sentencing at Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Francis Gilbert made it clear to Stuart Wyatt – who wants to see cannabis legalised for use in pain relief – that he was not above the law. Judge Gilbert told Wyatt he could no longer break the law. He said: "You must understand cannabis is an illegal drug, It's not your privilege to choose whether what you do is lawful or illegal. There is no excuse. You're subject to the law like any other person." He then sentenced Wyatt to eight months for producing cannabis and 12 months for supplying cannabis, to run concurrently, before suspending it for two years. The spokesman for the LCA said: "Although the Judge may have considered the suspension of the prison sentences as "mercy", in fact it leaves Wyatt in the unenviable position of having to choose between intense pain and the risk of prison. "How can it be just to send a man to prison - or to torture him by keeping him away from pain-relieving plants when he has caused no trouble, done no harm and posed no threat? "It is a sad day for British Justice when the law is mis-applied in this way - when an innocent man gets punished. "The Judge rightly said that nobody is above the law - which proves beyond doubt that the law now needs to be changed. NOTES: Legalise Cannabis Alliance http://www.lca-uk.org PO Box 2883, Stoke-on-Trent, ST4 9EE lca@lca-uk.org
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