Source: News and Star, Carlisle, UK

Pub Date: Wednesday December 8 1999

LTE PUB: Well done for Colin's stance on cannabis

Author: Alun Buffry

Contact: letters@cumbrian-newspapers.co.uk

Comment: Please include a day time telephone number. Letters should mention date and heading of letter or article referred to.

Cited: Legalise Cannabis Alliance http://www.lca-uk.org

Colin Paisley http://www.ccguide.org.uk/colinp.php

WELL DONE FOR COLIN'S STANCE ON CANNABIS.

I followed with interest the election campaign of Colin Paisley who stood in the Kensington and Chelsea by-election as a Legalise Cannabis Alliance candidate.

May I congratulate Colin on his clear-mindedness on the cannabis issue and compassion he has for medical cannabis users who face prosecution.

Successive Governments have refused a debate, preferring to hide behind the "Reefer Madness" propaganda which came from the USA in the sixties. They favour more dangerous and apparently less effective drug treatments provided by the profit-making pharmaceutical companies.

The problem was highlighted in your report (News and Star November 24) that Colin's election secretary, a sufferer of MS, was arrested earlier this year for having a few bits of a cannabis plant in her home to ease her suffering.

Rather than helping her, the system is adding to be burden in a most inhumane way, by dragging her through the courts for a so-called offence that has harmed nobody, in the privacy of her own home.

It is indeed time that the issue was debated in Parliament without the Party's enforcing their Whips.

Well done Colin for making this an election issue!

Alun Buffry

Norwich, Norfolk.