Subj: Pot-growing transplant man is freed

Date: Mar 24, 1998

Source: The Times

Pot-growing transplant man is freed

BY A CORRESPONDENT

A JUDGE has allowed a liver transplant patient to go free
after he admitted growing and using cannabis to ease his
pain. Sympathising with him, Judge John Hopkin said: "I
accept that's why you were growing it; to relieve the
considerable pain you must suffer. That is against the law
as it stands at the present time, but there is very substantial
mitigation in your case."

Richard Gifford, 49, a father of six, was given a two-year
conditional discharge at Nottingham Crown Court last
week after pleading guilty to producing and possessing
cannabis. The judge said: "Whether this substance should
be obtained by prescription is a matter for Parliament. But
it does seem from a number of cases that appear before
me that it is of benefit to a number of persons."

Yesterday Gifford pledged to carry on smoking the drug:
"While I am still alive, I intend to carry on using it," he
said. His family doctor also backed his use of cannabis in
a letter to the judge.

The court heard that police found cannabis plants, some
8ft tall, growing in Gifford's back garden in Nottingham.

Gifford said after the case that he first smoked the drug in
1968 after being medically discharged from the Royal
Engineers because of a spinal disorder. He then
contracted hepatitis and, in 1996, he underwent a liver
transplant. His chances of surviving were put at less than
40 per cent. At the height of his suffering, the former
garage owner was smoking up to 20 cannabis "joints" a
day, drinking marijuana tea and even eating freshly picked
leaves with his roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

"I couldn't begin to tell you the amount of pain and
suffering I have had to endure. But I was able, once I had
the availability of cannabis, to stop using prescribed drugs
such as morphine and other strong painkillers which are
habitually addictive," he said.

Gifford's wife, Miriam, a clairvoyant, said she had never
touched cannabis but would not hesitate to use the drug if
she fell ill. Her husband said he had been buying it on the
streets since the police cut down his 12 8ft plants. He has
asked for a licence to grow the drug legally or be able to
obtain it on prescription but he had been turned down.

Medical experts have claimed that cannabis also brings
relief to people with arthritis and multiple sclerosis, and
stimulates appetites of Aids patients.