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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Orkney cannabis campaigner vows to make new attempt at suicide David Hartley Press & Journal, Aberdeen Friday 04 Jul 2003 ORKNEY cannabis campaigner Biz Ivol vowed yesterday to make another attempt to commit suicide. Speaking from her hospital bed, Mrs Ivol said the discovery that she had survived taking a paracetemol overdose was like waking from a nightmare. As she recovered from the attempt earlier this week to take her own life, the 55-year-old MS sufferer said she decided to kill herself after hearing that her high-profile cannabis case was being dropped. "I'd been waiting for two years for it to come to court. I knew I was far too tired to carry on fighting and that it was time to end my life." Mrs Ivol, from Herston, South Ronaldsay, had pleaded not guilty to three charges involving the possession, production and supply of cannabis. But she admitted under cross examination that she had produced cannabis chocolates she supplied to help fellow MS sufferers. Earlier this week, when the case resumed at Kirkwall Sheriff Court, the charges were dropped on the grounds that her deteriorating medical condition made it impossible for her to make further appearances at the trial. "I was bitterly disappointed - it was not how I wanted it to end," said Mrs Ivol, who had vowed to take her own life once the case was concluded. "I wanted to change the law - I wanted to go all the way to the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights." The veteran cannabis campaigner has described the pain MS causes her as being like barbed wire being dragged through her spine. She bought an ecologically-friendly cardboard coffin and made plans for her own funeral. Mrs Ivol said. "I just decided when I went to bed that there are plenty of people who can carry on the fight for the medicinal use of cannabis to be legalised" She said she smoked a joint early on Wednesday before taking 10 paracetemol tablets with a glass of lemonade. "I felt happy and relaxed after smoking the joint and I soon fell asleep," she said. "I woke up a couple of hours later, smoked another joint and took some more tablets. "I wasn't feeling guilty or upset - just happy that things were coming to an end and that I was in no pain. I woke again at about half past five and, as the paracetemol hadn't seemed to have Worked, swallowed some more tablets I found lying in the bed. "But I was still fully conscious when my next-door neighbour came round just before eight o'clock and I told her what I'd done." Mrs Ivol was rushed to the Balfour Hospital, Kirkwall, where her condition yesterday was described as comfortable. "I am so disappointed that I'm still here. Now I can't wait to get home - I'll make sure I do it properly next time. "I'm really cross with myself and I feel like having a good cry. I don't want to live anymore. This disease has taken over my body and life is just to painful for me to carry on." Meanwhile, independent MSP Margo MacDonald yesterday called on the Executive to seek the public's views on whether or not they believe the UK's cannabis laws should be changed. Ms MacDonald, a regional MSP for the Lothians, has lodged a motion at the Scottish Parliament calling for a public consultation into whether people think cannabis use should be allowed for medicinal purposes. The former Nationalist MSP lodged a motion in 1999 calling for a parliamentary commission to be set up to examine reasons why people use cannabis. Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme, she said: "Why on earth are we still forcing people like Biz Ivol to go through the indignities and the trauma that she has had to go through?" The MSP "likened cannabis use for medicinal purposes to people who take a brandy before going to bed to ward off the cold. And she added: "There are two different questions to be resolved here. One is the question of the humanity and the commonsense of allowing an MS sufferer to gain relief from pain this way. "The other is the widespread acceptance that cannabis is a drug of choice that will not go away any more quickly than a nice wee white Chablis."
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