Cannabis grower Roderick Cotton must be feeling mightily aggrieved as he sits in prison, serving a 1 year sentence for growing cannabis for medical use. Especially so, when you realize the judge wasn't so much concerned with what Mr Cotton had done, but more with what he may do in the future?
Judge Marten Coates told Cotton: "I know you have a personal crusade, but you waste so much public time and money achieving nothing."
"I am not without sympathy for your point of view."
"Indeed I was tempted not to send you to prison, but you have ruined that."
This, after Cotton told Warwick Crown Court that he would not stop his campaign to help people with medical conditions, which made it difficult or impossible for them to grow their own medical marijuana.
"I have asked if he will give an undertaking never to commit this kind of offence again and he cannot give that undertaking." "Therefore I cannot pass a non-custodial sentence."
In fairness to Judge Coates we have to remember that as the law stands currently, what Mr Cotton did was illegal.
But on digging a little deeper into the evidence the police used to convict Mr Cotton, it begs the question "Is this what our already 'brim-full' prison service is for?"
During the trial, the police told Warwick Crown Court that Mr Cotton had been caught growing 250 plants. Which is a lot of plants by any standards and certainly 'more than' more than enough for one person.
Yet the only suggestion of "supply" the police alluded to throughout the entire trial, was to a group of medical cannabis patients who came together through a web based medical marijuana organisation called "Bud Buddies".
In a nutshell, Bud Buddies brings together cannabis growers who grow for their own consumption alone, and medical patients who, for whatever reason, are unable to grow their own cannabis.
Any 'surplus' a grower has, can be found a good home with a medical patient, via a clandestine, high security and much protected network of contacts.
According to the Bud Buddies website, "Bud Buddies was created to raise the profile for the argument of medicinal cannabis use and subsequent benefits of a less harmfull source of pain relief over failed allopathic regimes."
What that means in laymans terms?
The Paracetamol Tree? Not all "clinical" medicines 'agree' with the patients, and some come with a host of side effects which can create a condition worse than that which the drugs were prescribed for in the first place.
For instance the steroidal treatments prescribed for the condition 'rheumatoid arthritis' bring with it a high incidence of osteoporosis in later life, as the steroids cause bone porosity as high as 85% in some patients.
But some rheumatoid arthritis sufferers have found using cannabis instead, controls the effects of the disease, but without the side effects, and doctors are clearly agreeing as you can't use the Bud Buddies service without a note from your doctor, explaining what your condition is.
And its not just RA sufferers who use cannabis.
In the US, in Holland and in Germany, cannabis is prescribed for Aids/HIV sufferers, MS patients, those suffering from Glaucoma, as well as patients suffering the side effects of 'toxic' treatments such as chemotherapy.
The active component in cannabis (TetraHydraCannabinol or THC), suppresses the nausea which comes as a result of the chemotherapy treatment, allowing the patient a far better quality of life as well as a greater chance of survival, by assisting with (amongst other things) a healthy immune system.
And on the face of it, it becomes easy to see why cannabis/marijuana - call it what you will, remains illegal.
As literally tens of thousands of patients wait for the implementation of a law which must surely change soon, and which allows patients to be able to grow and administer their own pain relief.
But, and its a big but, in doing so, they will be costing the pharmaceutical industry billions in lost drug revenues and make no mistake, thats what this unbelievably fantastic war on cannabis is all about.
Profit and loss.
In Europe Over In Holland this week, Dutch police have demanded, (demanded, no less) the right to be able to smoke cannabis when off-duty, which under current regulations, is actually allowed.
But as of January 1st 2008, they must abstain, even though the rest of the population is allowed to use cannabis through a "tolerance" agreement.
Last we heard here on the Canna Zine, the Dutch police unions were getting involved to defend the rights of the off-duty police officer so this case isn't over by a stretch and with not a schizophrenia headline, or a risk of psychosis mentioned once in the news report.
In America Meanwhile in the US, a court judge has returned cannabis plants and growing equipment to a desert storm veteran who uses cannabis under the protection of a doctors note, in the treatment of PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Kevin Dickes returned from the gulf on a military discharge.
As a result of his injury's his doctor recommended marijuana to help him with the pain he has suffered daily since a grenade landed next to him in Kuwait when he served there as a Marine in 1991. He has no feeling below his right calf and suffers from chronic vascular disease and PTSD.
On the same subject an Oregon physician and toxicologist, (Dr Philip Leveque) said, "Everybody in a war zone has neurosis. It’s how we cope. Battle is super stressful and unless you have been in that situation yourself, you cannot even imagine how stressful it would be."
"A recent example is the serial killer at Virginia Tech who killed 32 students."
"The whole student body and faculty had a neurosis. Many will suffer from PTSD, and many will use marijuana to treat it."
In the United Kingdom? In the meantime and back in the UK, with only 9 days until Christmas, Roderick Cotton sits in prison for growing the plant doctors are recommending, and prescribing, as a medical treatment all over the world.
As a result of this the Home Office would make a lot of friends at a time it seems it could do with some, if it were to free Roderick Cotton, in time for him to spend Christmas with his family.
It is the season of goodwill, after all, and Mr Cottons crime has no victim!
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