POLICE RAID LEFT MY CHILDREN TERRIFIED

I am writing in reply to the letter headed "He put family at risk" (Mail,
January 8) which accused Carl Wagner of endangering his family through
cannabis use.

Reader G Coleman suggested that the police's actions were justified because
Mr Wagner "put cannabis before his family."

This could not be further from the truth. My husband always has and always
will put his family first.

He is an honest man with strong principles and beliefs, whose only crime is
to tell the truth about a therapeutic herb, instead of hiding away his
cannabis use like some kind of criminal as the law would make him.

Our children are brought up in a safe, loving, happy and stable environment.
They are polite, intelligent and popular children. Anyone who has met them
would vouch for that.

It is one thing to disagree with someone's opinion but to make assumptions
about them as a person, or indeed a parent, just because they have the
courage to voice that opinion is an entirely different thing altogether.

If G Coleman or anyone had been at our home on the day the riot police
arrived and witnessed the terrified reaction of our little girl to seeing
her daddy handcuffed and taken away, you would have realised the harm this
raid has done to them.

If they suffer nightmares, it won't be because of my husband's outspoken
views on cannabis but because of repressive laws and heavy-handed police.

And for what?

A plant that used to grow all over the country and our great-grandparents
would have accepted as a common and effective medicine.

Arresting people like Carl, who have done no harm, simply makes a mockery of
the law.

Samantha Wagner, Hull