TRANSPLANT PATIENT TELLS COURT: I NEED DOPE FOR PAIN

A Tauranga man awaiting a liver transplant has been fined $1500 plus
$130 court costs after admitting growing and smoking cannabis to help
relieve painful muscle spasms.

Brett Michael Ashby, 49, who runs his own contracting business,
pleaded guilty to one charge of cultivating cannabis when he appeared
in Tauranga District Court yesterday.

The court was told that during a police cannabis recovery operation on
March 14, 10 mature cannabis plants were seen growing in a gully
behind the rear of Ashby and his partner's Ohauiti property.

Police executed a search warrant at the couple's address and found six
medium-sized and three small cannabis plants in individual pots in a
steel shed at the rear of the property.

Three light canopies were hanging from the ceiling to assist in the
growing process and behind a black woven mat under a bench in the
garage there was a polystyrene container with 14 small cannabis
cuttings in pots. Lighting was also set up to assist the cuttings to
grow.

A number of cannabis seeds were found in an envelope on top of a set
of drawers in the master bedroom. Ashby declined to make any comment
to police.

His lawyer Ned Burke told Judge Ian Thomas that his client had pleaded
guilty on the basis that police and the courts accepted the cannabis
was grown purely for Ashby's personal use.

Mr Burke said Ashby - who had a blood transfusion for a serious liver
complaint some years ago and also took part in liver drug trials in
2001 which aggravated his health problems - now suffers muscle spasms.
Ashby, who hoped to have a liver transplant in the very near future,
had tried other medications but cannabis is the only thing that
relieves the problem, he said.

Judge Thomas told Ashby that on this occasion he would accept the
cannabis was for his personal use due to his medical history.