Source: Aberdeen Press & Journal, Scotland

Pub Date: Monday, 7 July 2003

Pub LTE: Medicinal use of cannabis

Author: Hamish Crisp

SIR, - As a fellow-sufferer currently using cannabis to alleviate the symptoms of MS, I am appalled, horrified and terrified by the treatment of Elizabeth Ivol.

This would surely not have happened in the Scotland I envisaged when I voted so enthusiastically for the resumption of the Scottish Parliament.

It is galling, indeed, to discover that your MSP, after all the brouhaha surrounding the recent elections, has no power whatsoever to affect Mrs Ivol's legal standing. The basic response from the Mound is: "I must record that the laws governing the licensing of medicines and the use of recreational drugs are reserved to Westminster, so the Scottish Parliament does not have any powers to change the laws which Biz Ivol is charged with having broken."

Between this and the apparent unfettered costs of "The Big Hoose" at Holyrood, the Scottish state has become a farcical joke to the people. It seems that they have the power to spend our money, but not the power (or inclination) to prevent the vulnerable among us being driven into their graves by "Scottish justice".

I despair of my country.

The moral and logical reason of a law that leads to this outrage is beyond the understanding of the public in whose interests it is being enforced.

Mrs Ivol is not a criminal in the eyes of the people. Surely laws of state should reflect the values of society, and the will of the people.

The medicinal use of cannabis must be legalised and rationalised.

Hamish Crisp

21 Mayflower Street,

Townhill,

Dunfermline.