20/02/2008 00:00:00
OAP cannabis crime creates only one victim - the pharmaceutical industry
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An old age pensioner who grew his own cannabis at his South London home
has been fined £70 and given a conditional discharge by magistrates.
Frederick Robert Turner, a horticulture specialist, used his skills to
grow the plants in relief of a painful and debilitating arthiritic
condition.
Turner, who suffers from high blood pressure as well as chronic
rheumatoid athritis, claims using the drug helps him to deal with the
pain of his inflamed joints, which are under constant attack from his
body's immune system, (see Rheumatoid Athritis for more information).
He lives solely off his £100 per week pension and is therefore unable to
afford the "luxury" of buying cannabis from an illegal drug dealer, so
he took it upon himself to grow his own. A situation which is legal in
other parts of the European Union, with a doctors note confirming the
condition.
At a time when cannabis and its beneficial qualities are in the public
eye surely this case begs the question of the validity of creating a
criminal out of an otherwise law-abiding UK citizen? A 67 year old-aged
pensioner no less, and I would be interested in hearing the comments of
ACPO cannabis leader Simon Byrne, anti-cannabis campaigner Debra Bell or
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in this instance?
Whilst pressure groups and anti-cannabis government lobby's take up the
lions share of the press, supposedly to protect the Great British youth
from damaging itself with cannabis, who is looking after the best
interests of people like Frederick Turner?
Legalise Cannabis Alliance
Alun Buffry from the Legalise Cannabis Alliance commented; "The
punishment of a victimless cannabis user is normally a bad enough flaw
in the British Justice System, but in this case Mr Turner is faced with
a choice of continuing to break the law in order to ease his pain and
suffering from a dreadful condition - rheumatoid arthritis - or to spend
the rest of his life in agony. Clearly expensive pharmaceutical drugs
with unpleasant side-effects are not helping him - the cannabis plant
apparently does. What makes this even sadder is that it is WE, the
taxpayer, who pay for these court cases and it is about time that stopped."
In a court case which has doubtless cost the public purse 10's of
thousands of pounds to bring about, is a £70 fine a worthwhile outcome
for the expense? What were the Crown Prosecution Service thinking even
bringing this case to court?
Isn't it about time we fell into line with the rest of the EU, by
allowing people with a bona-fide medical reason to use cannabis, and to
do so without fear of molestation by the police?
Its hard to comprehend what good fining Frederick Turner 2 thirds of his
weekly income has actually achieved, except maybe making an example of
him by causing purposeful hard-ship in the name of law-enforcement.
It would appear the £70 is not a fine as such, but more a covert tax
levy, in a case which only has one victim, and that victim is ultimately
the pharmaceutical industry.
http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/content/view/168/1/
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=13299
Author:
CannaZine via UKCIA
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