|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Man caught with 10,000 UKP cannabis haul spared jail after cancer patients defend 'life-saving treatment'
knowledia.com Saturday 21 May 2022 A medicinal cannabis supplier caught with more than a kilogram of the class B drug has escaped jail after hundreds of cancer patients submitted letters to the court in his defence. Andrew Baines, 46, a father of two and a cancer patient himself, supplied hundreds of patients with medicinal cannabis oil. The same patients and their families submitted scores of letters to the court describing how Mr Baines - who faced a possible charge of possession with intent to supply and production of a controlled drug - had saved their lives. Mr Baines was spared a 15-year sentence in a landmark ruling after the CPS decided not to pursue charges, instead giving him a six-month community order, the lowest possible punishment. Mr Baines used his personal "Cancard" - a medical cannabis card recognised by police - to illegally supply other patients with cannabis-based medicine. However, in April 2020 he was arrested after police found a kilogram of cannabis - including 30 plants of the drug, with a street value of £10,000 - at his home in Lincoln, east Midlands. Medicinal cannabis was legalised in the UK in 2018 but many patients struggle to receive a prescription forcing them to buy from street dealers (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved) Cannabis-based medicines were made legal in November 2018, to be prescribed only by specialists for patients who cannot be helped by other available drugs. But it is rarely prescribed on the NHS forcing patients to seek it through more dangerous and expensive illegal means. Giving her ruling at Grimsby Magistrates Court, judge Sue Fortune said: "If the law was different Mr Baines would have been applauded not punished. "I take the view that a community order is justified in this case, not because of you but because of the message we must send," the judge… https://news.knowledia.com/GB/en/articles/man-caught-with-10-000-cannabis-haul-spared-jail-after-cancer-patients-a25e9eda1e3246ef916a7f9fa4445db909c6a063?fbclid=IwAR27hN3uO2voXOoSy6TgVRUhYSQATRUNKB26YBS7Pj790-ViHqm2J77m-fI https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/medicinal-cannabis-spared-jail-cancer-patients-b2083747.html
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!