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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Cannabis man to appeal conviction
Kanchan Dutt This Is Spen Valley
Saturday 17 Feb 2001 A man found guilty of growing cannabis believed his medical needs would see him escape a criminal conviction. Philip Lockwood, 43, of Back Charles Street, Brighouse, told Bradford Crown Court he had grown the class B drug to use in his treatment for depression, but the jury rejected his arguments. Now he faces a four-week wait to find out his sentence and said the judgment had affected him badly. He said: "I'm appealing, there's no doubt about that. We're going for the Human Rights Act and I'm going to fight this until I die if I have to. It was a total travesty of justice.'' Lockwood, who used to work for the fire service, said he had to represent himself after his barrister pulled out sick on the morning the trial started. He said: "I have been on medication for depression since I was seven. I was picked on in school because of the side effects of drugs like Vallium (a tranquilliser) when other children thought I was just weird. I'd had to put up with it all my life until a few years ago when I decided enough was enough and started taking cannabis. "Two-and-a-half years ago I was a director of a computer firm and for the first time everything was going well. Then the State said `You can't have that' and pulled the rug right out from under my feet." Dr Philip Robson is an expert in the field of taking cannabis for medical reasons and published his findings of a five-year study in the British Journal of Psychiatry earlier this month, but he said conclusive evidence was still not yet available. "Studies on patients with cancer who have had cannabis as part of their treatment show they have become less depressed. "Just like with any other drugs, such as alcohol, if you are already depressed it can make you more depressed.'' A spokesman for the Home Office said there had been cases where use of cannabis for medical treatment had been part of a successful defence, but it was still an illegal drug.
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