Subject: Man who supplied cannabis for medicinal purposes acquitted



Newshawk: Martin Cooke 



Source: The British Medical Journal



Pubdate: 31 July 1999





News Extra



Man who supplied cannabis for medicinal purposes acquitted

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent, BMJ



The UK government faced calls to legalise the medical use of cannabis last

week after a man who set up a cooperative to supply the drug for pain

relief was acquitted by a jury.



A doctor who supplied cannabis to her daughter was cleared by a jury in

1993, but last week's case was the first to involve supply for medicinal

purposes by someone without medical qualifications.



Colin Davies, aged 42, who started growing cannabis after suffering severe

spinal injuries in a fall, was found not guilty at Manchester Crown Court

of cultivating, possessing, and supplying the drug.



Mr Davies, an unemployed joiner, grew the plants in his council flat and

set up the Medical Marijuana Co-operative to help people with serious and

terminal illnesses control pain. Mr Davis, who admitted taking cannabis for

three years to relieve his pain, had told the court that the side effects

from high doses of conventional painkillers had turned him into a "zombie."

He had supplied the drug to two people with multiple sclerosis. Both he and

Dr Anne Biezanek, a part time GP and homoeopath who was cleared on charges

of supplying her daughter (whose illness was not revealed) with cannabis,

had pleaded the defence of "necessity."



The BMA said in a 1997 report: "While research is under way the police, the

courts and prosecuting authorities should be aware of the medicinal reasons

for the unlawful use of cannabis by those suffering from certain medical

conditions for whom other drugs have proved ineffective."



A private member's bill proposed by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, a chemist,

which would have allowed doctors to prescribe the drug for medicinal use,

was blocked by the government last week. A recommendation from the House of

Lords Science and Technology Committee that medicinal use should be

legalised was rejected last November by the home secretary, Jack Straw.