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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Leukaemia sufferer jailed for dealing in the drug that helped him Claire Stewart Press & Journal, Aberdeen Friday 20 Jun 2003 A LEUKAEMIA sufferer who used cannabis to help treat the symptoms of his disease was yesterday jailed for three years. Brechin man Dennis Palmer appeared at the High Court yesterday, after getting caught up in a police drugs operation. Judge Lord Hamilton told Palmer, a single father, that while he believed he used cannabis to ease his symptoms, he had allowed himself to get involved in the drugs trade. After the case, a Tayside Police drug squad chief said he had no sympathy for the man who was caught with dealer quantities of the Class B drug. The 52-year-old was diagnosed with leukaemia 12 years ago, and had to give up his job as a dry-stone dyker. The High Court in Forfar was told that conventional medicine can do little for his disease, and Palmer claims he started using cannabis when he discovered hat it could help with depression as well as boosting his appetite, which is badly affected in some leukaemia sufferers. Palmer began carrying out research into the therapeutic benefits of the drug, and even produced a leaflet which he distributed throughout his home town and farther afield. People with MS and other diseases began to contact him for advice on how cannabis could help them ease their symptoms. Palmer's defence lawyer, Graham Robertson, told the court: "His motivation was never at any stage personal profit. He did not personally gain anything but the satisfaction of seeking to assist people who were suffering." Over the 12 years since his diagnosis, the court was told Palmer was prosecuted a number of times for his drug use. But advocate depute Mark Stewart said Palmer had only come to drug squad officers' attention in June of last year. During the summer of 2002, Operation Monaco was underway in Dundee, with officers putting suspected dealers in the city under surveillance. One suspect who was being watched met up with Palmer in the car park of the Lidl supermarket in the city's Strathmartine Road. Police then put Palmer under surveillance and discovered he was associating with a number of known drug dealers. On September 4, he was spotted in Kwik Save's car park in Coupar Angus Road, Dundee, using his mobile phone to arrange to meet someone. Police swooped and discovered in his wallet what they believed was a tick list. A search of his car revealed a set of scales, and UKP1.700 of cash was also recovered from his home. Releasing Palmer, they continued to keep him under surveillance and moved in again when he was spotted meeting a man in the car park of Kwik Save in the city's Pitkerro Road. They seized four bars of cannabis resin with a street value of 5,673pounds which bore Palmer's fingerprints He also had 226.83 pounds in cash on him and a piece of paper believed to be a tick list. Palmer's lawyer explained that his client had agreed to act as a drug courier after the first police raid on his home left him without enough money to buy cannabis. The lawyer said Palmer's payment for doing this was to be 1 oz of cannabis which would have lasted him a month. Palmer yesterday pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of cannabis between June 13, and October 4, 2002. at various addresses in Dundee, and at his home at 125 River Street, Brechin, while on bail. Delivering sentence Lord Hamilton told Palmer: "I am prepared to proceed on the basis you conceived this as being a medication, as, so far as you were concerned, that appeared to relieve certain of the symptoms of the disease you have been suffering from for some time." But the judge added that more seriously, Palmer had become involved in distributing a substantial amount of the drug. He said: "You were involved with persons distributing drugs on a huge scale, and not for any therapeutic purposes. Therefore you allowed yourself to become involved in a trade which is clearly forbidden." Detective Inspector Campbell McGregor, head of the drugs and surveillance unit for Tayside Police, later welcomed the sentence. He said: "Here is someone claiming he is using it for medicinal purposes, which a lot of people would have sympathy with. But he is actually dealing it to other people - not just for medicinal purposes - and it is a criminal enterprise. In which case, I don't have any sympathy with it when it involves a criminal enterprise." Det Insp McGregor said Operation Monaco has been very successful, and there are expected to be several people whose cases are yet to be called in court in connection with the operation.
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