(News Extra)

MAN WHO SUPPLIED CANNABIS FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES ACQUITTED

The UK government faced calls to legalise the medical use of cannabis
last week after a man who set up a cooperative to supply the drug for
pain relief was acquitted by a jury.

A doctor who supplied cannabis to her daughter was cleared by a jury
in 1993, but last week's case was the first to involve supply for
medicinal purposes by someone without medical qualifications.

Colin Davies, aged 42, who started growing cannabis after suffering
severe spinal injuries in a fall, was found not guilty at Manchester
Crown Court of cultivating, possessing, and supplying the drug.

Mr Davies, an unemployed joiner, grew the plants in his council flat
and set up the Medical Marijuana Co-operative to help people with
serious and terminal illnesses control pain. Mr Davis, who admitted
taking cannabis for three years to relieve his pain, had told the
court that the side effects from high doses of conventional
painkillers had turned him into a "zombie." He had supplied the drug
to two people with multiple sclerosis. Both he and Dr Anne Biezanek, a
part time GP and homoeopath who was cleared on charges of supplying
her daughter (whose illness was not revealed) with cannabis, had
pleaded the defence of "necessity."

The BMA said in a 1997 report: "While research is under way the
police, the courts and prosecuting authorities should be aware of the
medicinal reasons for the unlawful use of cannabis by those suffering
from certain medical conditions for whom other drugs have proved
ineffective."

A private member's bill proposed by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, a
chemist, which would have allowed doctors to prescribe the drug for
medicinal use, was blocked by the government last week. A
recommendation from the House of Lords Science and Technology
Committee that medicinal use should be legalised was rejected last
November by the home secretary, Jack Straw.