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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Suicide fear for woman in drug chocolate case Tom Peterkin The Telegraph Thursday 03 Jul 2003 A multiple sclerosis sufferer, who promised to commit suicide after going on trial for supplying cannabis chocolates, was taken to hospital yesterday after the charges against her were dropped. Fears that Elizabeth Ivol had tried to take her own life were raised when a neighbour called an ambulance to take her from her remote cottage in Orkney to the island's Balfour Hospital. Ivol, 55, was said to be "stable" last night after the Crown decided not to pursue her case at Kirkwall Sheriff Court on health grounds. The trial was abandoned on its third day after the Crown received a medical report from her lawyer last week. Last month Ivol, who is wheelchair bound, had given evidence describing how she had started to take cannabis for the degenerative disease because conventional drugs had worsened her condition. She then began making "special Belgian chocolates" laced with the drug and cannabis patches, which she supplied to other sufferers by mail order. She also grew cannabis plants in her home. The court heard that her GP had advised her to try cannabis and the drug was the only thing that provided some relief from the illness. In court she said: "At the moment I feel like somebody's pulling barbed wire through my spine." Before her court appearance Ivol of Herston, South Ronaldsay, spoke out for the legalisation of cannabis and threatened to kill herself when the trial ended. Suspicions that she had attempted to carry out that threat came to light when an interview with her was broadcast by the BBC yesterday. During the conversation, recorded on Tuesday evening, she said: "My final protest will be to overdose on paracetamol and with a bit of luck - well, I will get stoned before I do it - so I don't feel any pain. I will go to sleep and then it is over and done with and somebody else can carry on. I'm tired." Sue Foard, the district procurator fiscal for Orkney and Shetland, informed the court yesterday that the charges of possessing and supplying cannabis would not be pursued. A spokesman for the Crown Office appeared to defend the decision to proceed against Ivol, saying that she had admitted in court to the "serious offence" of growing, using and supplying cannabis but pleaded not guilty. However, her deterioration meant the Crown had reassessed whether it was in the public interest to continue.
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