CANNABIS ACCEPTED AS PAIN RELIEVER

An Alice Springs magistrate has spared a builder from jail after accepting
he possessed and cultivated cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Nicholas Gallitch, 54, was instead sentenced to 28 days' home detention and
random drug testing by magistrate Mr Warren Donald at Alice Springs
courthouse yesterday.

Mr Donald accepted that smoking marijuana could have beneficial effects and
accepted Gallitch smoked marijuana to relieve pain.

"This is the breach of the law that has been driven by the pain you have
suffered," he said during sentencing.

At a trial in November, a doctor testified that Gallitch had tried a
variety of other prescriptive drugs for his back pain - which stemmed from
his years of working as a labourer - but they did not work or he suffered
allergic reactions.

Research about the medicinal effect of marijuana was also tendered as
evidence.

After sentencing yesterday, Gallitch said he would have to be more careful
when he smoked marijuana.He said he used it only to have a good night's sleep.

"I never thought much of it," he said. "I thought it was one of those
things that people took just to have kicks.But what I found out was that it
didn't have that effect on me ...

"After taking it, about 20 minutes later, it just knocked me out
completely.Knocked me out for about six hours, seven hours. I had a good
sleep, I would get up in the morning, free and easy and ready to face the
day."

In February last year the Queensland Supreme Court also accepted that
cannabis could be used for pain relief after hearing the case of a Mackay
man who had grown 150 marijuana plants which he claimed were for his own
use in relieving back pain.

The NSW Premier, Mr Carr, announced last October that the Government was
setting up a working party to examine the possibility of using cannabis as
prescribed medication for pain relief.

The working party - which will meet this year - will include
representatives of organisations including the Australian Medical
Association, the AIDS Council of NSW, the National Drug and Alcohol
Research Centre and NSW Health.