UK - State shamed into U-turn

[Guest Guest]

Source: The Herald, Glasgow

Author: Stephen Stewart and Keith Sinclair

Date: 02 Jul 2003

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A terminally ill cannabis campaigner said yesterday she will commit

suicide despite hearing that the criminal case against her will be dropped.

 

Biz Ivol, who suffers from MS, was arrested two years ago following

allegations that she was supplying cannabis to other people with the

debilitating disease across the UK.

 

It is believed Ms Ivol's agents notified her that the case, due to call at

Kirkwall Sheriff Court in Orkney today, would not proceed further because

of the deterioration of her health.

 

Ms Ivol said that she would continue with plans to end her life after her

symptoms worsened during the court case, which attracted widespread media attention to the medicinal use of cannabis.

 

"People with MS must avoid stress and over the last 18 months I have

lost my balance, my eyesight, and I am paralysed from the chest down," she said. "I have been kept in limbo for two years since the day I was raided. I am not pleased that the case will be dropped and I am still very cross.

 

"I was willing to take my case to the higher courts and the European

Court of Human Rights, if necessary, but they knew that they wouldn't stand a chance. I regret making the sheriff and the fiscal go through all this but I am not sorry for what I did."

 

Ms Ivol has received hundreds of letters offering support but was

unable to reply after losing the use of her hands. She has always made clear her intention to end her life as her physical condition declined.

 

"The plans are all made. I don't want to fight on much longer. I did plan

to walk into the sea but now I can't use my legs. I have made the arrangements and have bought a plot of land for a grave," she said. "I am

just too tired to fight on much longer. I can't start a fight to recognise euthanasia."

 

Ms Ivol had entered not guilty pleas to three charges involving the possession, production and supply of cannabis.

 

Last night, cannabis campaigners welcomed the decision to abandon the

case.

 

Jim McLeavy, spokesman for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance from East

Kilbride, said yesterday : "I think the Crown Office is doing a U-turn in

this case because they are embarrassed and ashamed at taking action against a dying woman.

 

"I welcome the fact that they have apparently seen sense, even at this

late stage, but it should never have come to this. They should never have

charged her or taken things this far. All she was doing was trying to help

other MS sufferers."

 

He added: "She has had two years of misery and the legal action taken

against her has not helped her health and probably made it worse. I feel

for her. She has done a very positive thing and stood up to this bad law

even when she is terminally ill and I think she has been very, very brave."

 

Steve Barker, administrator of the Campaign to Legalise Cannabis based

in Norwich, said: "Biz Ivol is a remarkable woman. I have spoken to her several times and there were many people from the south of England planning to attend the trial.

 

"However, I hope that her case has made people take notice of the

medical values of cannabis in helping relieve the symptoms of people who are ill, many terminally like her.

 

"Cannabis has been proved by medical trials to be twice as effective as prescribed painkillers, with less side-effects, and Biz Ivol's case has

highlighted this. It's a pity she has had to suffer so much in the process."

 

- July 2nd

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

Lousy Bastards!!

 

We all live life a little like the jews hiding in Germany during the rein of Hitler, and the stress is a thing we come to accept and live with. Varrying between forgetting about it, to watching out through the curtains at the neighbour's car at midnight.

 

With their ridiculous, financially wastefull self righteousness, they've turned many people's lives into living nightmares. But to pick on sick people with such serious health difficulties as Ms is something that these mongrels will have to face God over one day.

 

For the sake of political expediency, they're sending people to early graves; people society should be bending over backwards to help.

 

Even if their idiotic retoric about pot being dangerous were true; which of course it is not, everyone deserves the right to choose. None more so that people who's lives are stabalised to some degree by using it.

 

There was an American statesman, and I can't be certain, but I think it was Nixon. I saw a question asked of him regarding his opinion of medical use of grass. He said that even if it could bring back the dead, he would resist it.

 

Who are these idiots, and just when did voting for them in a democracy society give them such power to legislate morals?

 

rob

[Guest Field_of_Light]

Its sad to hear about someone deteriorate like that

 

I suspect if the media got onboard and attempted to pursue the decriminalisation of marijuana productively and with compassion then we would be 25% of the way there....

 

This wont happen when the media is owned by two people in Australia...

 

RGS these idiots are our politicians and will be for a long time.....unless we start voting alternatively...

 

just my opinion