Pain relief dope crop costs paraplegic

[grace]

Pain relief dope crop costs paraplegic

12 January 2009

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4816320a12855.html

 

A man who became a paraplegic after a logging accident 10 years ago turned to cannabis for pain relief because he did not like the effects of his prescribed medication.

 

But that has landed 48-year-old Graham Coote in Tauranga District Court on a charge of cultivating the class C drug and cost him a $600 fine.

 

"Regrettably the law does not allow that," Judge Christopher Harding told the wheelchair-bound man who had to sit alongside the dock.

 

"Any sympathy I might have has to be put aside."

 

However, Coote was entitled to be dealt with as a first time drug offender growing cannabis for his own use.

 

"I take into account your explanation and note that you will have to undertake new pain management," said the judge.

 

Prosecuting, Sergeant Sean Brennan said when police visited Coote's home on December 30 he took them to a locked room where there were cannabis plants in five large pots.

 

They were well established with lights on a timer, fertiliser to assist growth and a filter system to keep the smell out.

 

Coote admitted they were for his own use and that he had spent "quite a lot of money" setting the operation up.

 

The beneficiary said he had been growing cannabis for about six weeks.

 

Lawyer Andrew Blair said Coote had been prescribed methadone for pain relief but was unhappy with the side effects. He had substituted marijuana which he used to buy until deciding to grow his own.

 

Paralysed from about the mid chest down, his client was due to go to Auckland's Otara spinal unit in a month or two to see if his pain could be managed better.

 

Mr Blair said Coote's two teenage children lived with him, the elder one as his primary caregiver.

 

- NZPA