GRANDMOTHER FIGHTS FOR CANNABIS LEGALIZATION

A 75-YEAR-OLD grandmother from Fife is to stand as a prospective candidate
for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance party, campaigning to make marijuana and
other drugs legal.

Retired teacher Leslie von Goetz said the drug should be made readily
available, and treated in the same vein as alcohol, so that people with
medical conditions could treat themselves.

Mrs Von Goetz, who lives in her family's Chesterhill estate outside
Newport, Fife, said cannabis had been widely used for its medicinal
qualities for more than 5,000 years.

Next month's General Election will be her first political candidature but
the reformed smoker, who is now bed-ridden due to a back injury, feels
strongly: "Cannabis is a bloody good thing - it's just fantastic."

A young member of her family has taken cannabis for medicinal purposes for
several years, and Mrs Von Goetz objects to the young woman being
criminalised .

She explained that her niece has been using marijuana for several years to
alleviate side-effects from prescription drugs: "She was getting the shakes
really badly from her medication, and found when she smoked cannabis she
could take less medication and feel a lot better.

"It should be legalised - at the moment doctors and scientists can't even
do proper medical experiments without breaking the law - it's crazy." The
classics graduate added: "Responsible people who wish to avoid mixing with
dodgy drug-dealers, are forced to grow it themselves. Then the police find
out about it, raid their houses, steal their crops, and it's all very
distressful - not to say, expensive."

"As far as I'm concerned, people who want to smoke socially can do what
they want as long as they don't get sloshed out of their mind - like they
tend to do with alcohol."

Mrs Von Goetz taught at schools in Fife, including Madras College and Bell
Baxter High School, and retired in 1984.

Since then, she has been active as a human rights campaigner.

She said: "I have been trying to help people - innocent people - who are
victims of miscarriages of justice, and I have been learning as much as I
can about the legal system."