NEW PLEA ON CANNABIS USE

HOME Office ministers were urged to change the law on cannabis yesterday
after a jury cleared a disabled man who used the drug to ease his pain.

Campaigners said it was the latest in a series of cases where jurors had
refused to convict sick people who used cannabis for medicinal reasons.

Thomas Yates, a multiple sclerosis sufferer, was accused of producing a
controlled drug after police found 40 cannabis plants growing at his home
in Lowestoft, Suffolk.

Mr Yates, 51, a former deep sea diver, said cannabis wasthe only drug that
eased his pain without unpleasant side effects.

He said he was trying to grow a ten-year supply because his wife Andrea,
41, was dying of lung cancer and increasingly needed his time and support.

A jury at Ipswich Crown Court accepted his argument that he needed cannabis
to ease his pain and cleared him of any offence.