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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Woman who sought solace in cannabis
John Ross The Scotsman
Thursday 03 Jul 2003 THREE weeks ago, Biz Ivol sat facing a cardboard coffin assembled in her front room and talked candidly about committing suicide to end the suffering caused by multiple sclerosis. Her illness had taken a merciless toll over the past decade. The excruciating pain, which she likened to having barbed wire dragged through her spine, drained her energy, leaving her feeling like a prisoner in her own body. She was confined to bed or a wheelchair, unable to work in her garden. Crippled hands meant she could not knit, sew or even hold a pen, and fading eyesight left her unable to read. "There's nothing worth staying for any more on this Earth," she said. She had already reserved a plot of land for her burial and arranged for a neighbour to look after her cat, Willie. She said: "This is not a cry for help and there is nothing anybody can do. I do not have any quality of life." Last night, Mrs Ivol was in hospital, having apparently tried to carry through her threat. She was found unconscious about 9am yesterday at her home in South Ronaldsay, in Orkney, and was taken by ambulance to hospital shortly before the court case in which she was involved was dropped. She had previously indicated she planned to take her life with an overdose of paracetamol and champagne at the end of the case, which was due to finish yesterday. Having waited two years for the case to come to trial last month, she struggled to the court to give evidence and was due to return to hear the verdict. But on Tuesday evening, the Crown Office indicated that the case was being dropped due to Mrs Ivol's medical condition. This was later confirmed in court as she lay in hospital. During the last decade, she exhausted her GP's list of prescribed drugs for tackling MS without any comfort from the ever-present pain. She turned to cannabis as a last resort after deliberately avoiding the drug for two years because of the stigma attached to it. Mrs Ivol eventually developed her "special Belgian chocolates" - cannabis-laced confectionery - after agreeing to help another MS sufferer who was a non-smoker and needed some other way of taking the drug. She made the sweets by melting chocolate in a microwave and mixing in finely grated cannabis, before pouring the mixture into paper cases used for small cakes. Soon the "canna-chocs" were being widely distributed to fellow MS sufferers who said they were helping to counter the pain in a way no other drug had. Mrs Ivol described how one man who was paralysed with MS had feeling in his legs for the first time in 12 years after taking the chocolates for five nights. Her house was raided by police in 1997, and, at a subsequent court case in Kirkwall, she was admonished after admitting growing cannabis plants and possessing the drug. Then, in August 2001, four officers raided her house in South Ronaldsay and discovered recorded delivery slips relating to her supplies of the chocolates to other MS victims. Charges were brought under the Misuse of Drugs Act and Mrs Ivol went on trial at a special sitting of Kirkwall Sheriff Court, held in the local leisure centre last month because of the ease of access for her wheelchair. In court, Mrs Ivol admitted possessing, producing and supplying cannabis, but insisted she felt she was doing nothing wrong. "It was either cannabis or nothing. I tried everything else and nothing worked," she said. She told the court that she has muscle spasms and her eyesight was failing: "I'm completely and utterly paralysed from the neck down, more or less." For people such as Valerie Jack, the cannabis chocolates have literally been a lifesaver. Ms Jack, 44, a former flight attendant from Bristol, was diagnosed with MS 12 years ago and has twice attempted suicide. But since she began using the chocolates two years ago she has not repeated the desperate move. However, this week, Ms Jack threatened to take her life in support of Mrs Ivol if she was found guilty. Yesterday, Ms Jack said: "I am pleased the case was dropped. It was so silly when I believe cannabis will be legalised for medicinal use soon. Stress very badly affects MS and the stress of all this has obviously not helped Biz. "Obviously suicide is a major decision, but a lot of people rely on cannabis and the thought of having it taken away, as well as the injustice of it being illegal when there are criminals selling heroin to children, can be too much." She added: "Now that the case has been dropped, I have to re-think my own situation as it changes the whole context. "If the chocolates are still going to be available and if there is a chance of cannabis being legalised for MS sufferers, then I have to give that a chance."
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