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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc: 
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 Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] 
#6335821 - 12/05/06 08:39 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Court told of cannabis couple's cottage industry
December 5, 2006 - News and Star
  
A COUPLE ran a cottage industry producing bars of chocolate containing cannabis for multiple sclerosis sufferers, a jury heard today.
Mark and Lezley Gibson distributed about 22,000 bars from their home in Alston, Cumbria over a six-year period before their arrest last January.
They were helped by Marcus Davies an old school pal of Mark Gibson who operated a Post Office Box address.
The Gibsons, both 42, and Davies, 36, are on trial at Carlisle Crown Court where all deny two counts of conspiring to supply cannabis in 2004 and 2005, a charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years.
Davies lives in Cambridgeshire.
Prosecutor Jeremy Grout-Smith told the jury that police took action after receiving a complaint that 33 packets of Canna-biz chocolate had been discovered at the Royal Mail sorting office in Carlisle on January 25 last year.
A few days later officers entered the home of the Gibsons and discovered items including cannabis, chocolate bars, labels, mailing details and a coffee grinder.
A few months later Cambridgeshire police went to the home of Davies and discovered he was cultivating cannabis plants in two sheds. He was also running a PO Box number and had contact with the Gibsons.
Mr Grout-Smith said the Gibsons were in effect running a cottage industry making chocolate bars impregnated with cannabis. It was advertised as being for medical purposes.
They were not conventional drug dealers but believed their actions would be helping people alleviate the pain of a debilitating illness, however that was no defence to these charges.
He said: “To supply cannabis, even if you believe it is doing good, is not a defence.”
He said Mark Gibson, during his police interview, had admitted sending about 22,000 bars to addresses around the world. They had always sought proof that the recipients were MS sufferers.
The jury heard this morning that Lezley Gibson was herself an MS sufferer and that the other two defendants had stood in the past as candidates of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance.
A juror made it know to Judge John Phillips this morning that they had a relative who suffered from MS. The judge made it clear that was no bar to them sitting on the case.
The trial continues.
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 teryaki
Stranger
Registered: 11/20/06
Posts: 23
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6336235 - 12/05/06 11:14 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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wat is MS? cuz i want sum of them choco bars
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dedjam
Electro Penguin
Registered: 12/14/05
Posts: 2,139
Loc: Moralton, Statesota
Last seen: 1 year, 5 days
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: teryaki]
#6336285 - 12/05/06 11:33 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
teryaki said:
wat is MS? cuz i want sum of them choco bars
really...im hoping for your own sake you are not this stupid.
As for them getting arrested...it seems they were doing a good deed..and as the saying goes, no good dead goes unpunished.
In the end they were an illegal business, and while I disagree with the laws, it seems they werent too careful about how the operated.
It sucks to see anyone going to jail for cultivating a plant that has never hurt a single person...but thats just how things in our world work...and there arent enough people out there to make enough noise to warrant a change in laws. And sadly, our world is ruled by the opinion of the majority...and even in a democracy or pseudo-democracy there really is no protection to do what you wish to your own body.
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6340632 - 12/06/06 12:46 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Trio deny cannabis chocolate bars conspiracy charges
December 6, 2006 - thisislondon.co.uk
Cash receipts totalling £30,000 were seized from the home of a couple who supplied chocolate bars laced with cannabis to multiple sclerosis sufferers, a court heard today.
Mark Gibson, 42, and his wife Lezley, 42, who has MS, told police they made the Canna-Biz bars containing around 3.5gms of the drug in their kitchen and then posted them out on request.
They estimated they sent out around 22,000 bars over the last six years.
But the couple, from Alston, Cumbria, deny two charges each of conspiring to supply cannabis.
Marcus Davies, a school friend of Mark Gibson who is standing trial with them at Carlisle Crown Court, denies the same charges.
He told police he operated a post office box for the cottage industry, which advertised through a website he ran for their not-for-profit organisation Therapeutic Help from Cannabis for Multiple Sclerosis, www.thc4ms.org. But he denied being involved in the making or supply of the chocolate.
The trio were arrested after 33 Jiffy bags containing the Canna-Biz bars were seized from the Royal Mail's Junction Street sorting office in Carlisle in January this year.
Today, the jury heard Lezley Gibson told police all the money mentioned in the receipts went "straight back in" to the chocolate-making operation.
The trio claims any money received was donated and sufferers were not asked to pay for the bars. In the interview, read out to the court, she said: "You see my house, my clothes, my car.
"We don't have any money, we just want to help people. We don't want to line our pockets." She estimated she and her husband had sent out Canna-Biz bars to over 2,000 people and were regularly in touch with 100 MS sufferers each week.
The case was adjourned until Friday when the prosecution will examine its final witness. The defence is now not expected to open until Monday.
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6349684 - 12/08/06 10:26 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cannabis chocolate 'was helpful'
December 8, 2006 - News & Star
A 36-YEAR-old man in a wheelchair who suffers from multiple sclerosis told a jury at Carlisle Crown Court today that cannabis chocolate sent to him by a Cumbrian couple had been helpful.
Wayne Miller was giving evidence in the trial of 42-year-old Lesley Gibson, her husband Mark, also 42, and an old school friend of his, Marcus Davies, 38, from Cambridgeshire.
All three have pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiring to supply cannabis in 2004 and 2005.
Mr Miller said he was diagnosed with MS 45 years ago and suffered particular problems with walking. He first learned about cannabis chocolate through the MS Society's Pathways magazine.
Asked about his contact with the Gibsons, he said he had written to the couple, who live at Front Street, Alston, and asked them to send him some of the cannabis chocolate.
"They wrote back and said they needed a doctor's note to prove that I had MS," said Mr Miller. Asked if the chocolate had given him any benefit, he replied: "It was very helpful."
The trial continues.
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DNKYD
Turtle!
Registered: 09/23/04
Posts: 12,197
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6349782 - 12/08/06 11:09 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Fucking disgusting. I'm sick of hearing this bullshit. Heads need to roll, and fucking pronto.
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ToiletDuk
Cat Psychiatrist
Registered: 05/16/03
Posts: 73,285
Loc: Earthfarm 1
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: teryaki]
#6349845 - 12/08/06 11:41 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
teryaki said:
wat is MS? cuz i want sum of them choco bars
Multiple Sclerosis. But you don't want that, chocolate bars or not.
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6361335 - 12/12/06 11:42 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Police knew about drugs in chocolate
December 12, 2006 - cambridge-news.co.uk
A MAN who supplied cannabis-laced chocolate to multiple sclerosis sufferers for pain relief today (Tuesday, 12 December) told a jury he believed the service was legal.
Mark Gibson, 42, told Carlisle Crown Court that Cumbria Police had given him the impression he would be safe from arrest provided he "put his head down".
Gibson and his wife Lezley, 42, who suffers from MS, admit they ran a cottage industry making and posting out more than 20,000 Canna-Biz bars containing around 3.5gms of the drug to victims of the disease around the world over the last six years.
But the couple, from Alston, Cumbria, deny two charges each of conspiring to supply cannabis.
Marcus Davies, 36, from St Ives, who admits running a website and post office box for the not-for-profit organisation Therapeutic Help from Cannabis for Multiple Sclerosis, thc4ms.org denies the same charges.
In his testimony today (Tuesday, 12 December), Mark Gibson, said: "I had lawful reason for doing what I did.
"I believed I had a defence in law of medical necessity."
He told the court his wife and Davies also understood this to be true throughout 2004 and the first month of 2005, the period for which the trio's charges apply.
The website advertising the free Canna-Biz bars and the information sheets sent out with the chocolate were all carefully written to ensure they would comply with such a defence, the jury heard.
Gibson insisted cannabis use alleviated the symptoms of MS, as his wife's experience and medical research showed, and there was currently no suitable licensed medicine available as an alternative.
The court was also told the Gibsons made no secret of their activities in the early years, with articles and features on their cannabis chocolates appearing in the local and national media.
Detective Chief Inspector Bill Whitehead, who was North Cumbria's area crime manager in 2002, acknowledged his officers had known "in general terms" what the couple were up to and had met Mark Gibson twice to discuss the cannabis chocolates.
Today (Tuesday, 12 December), Gibson said his last meeting with Mr Whitehead at the end of 2002 left him believing the police would not try to stop him supplying the bars, provided he made his activities less public.
He said: "I was given the impression that I should put my head down but continue as I was."
He set up a post office box through Marcus Davies in response. Davies would forward on bundles of requests for chocolate and donations in larger envelopes to cut down on the amount of mail the Gibsons received.
The 2002 meeting with Mr Whitehead was the last the Gibsons heard from the police until they were raided this year, the court heard.
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6366560 - 12/13/06 02:40 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cannabis grower just 'easing his own pain'
December 13, 2006 - Cambridge News
A MAN who helped to run a cannabis-laced chocolate bar business admitted he grew large amounts of the drug in two sheds in St Ives.
But Marcus Davies, 38, said all of it was used to relieve the pain of his diabetes complications and not to supply the mail-order company with illegal ingredients.
He and Mark and Lezley Gibson have all pleaded not guilty to two charges of conspiring to supply cannabis in 2004 and 2005.
The Gibsons, who are both 42, have admitted distributing about 22,000 Canna-biz bars from their home in Front Street, Alston, Cumbria, over a six-year period before their arrest last January.
They say they supplied the chocolate as pain relievers only to people who could prove they were suffering from multiple sclerosis.
Davies, who lives in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, told Carlisle Crown Court he grew the cannabis to relieve leg spasms, kidney disease and eye problems that he suffers as complications of his diabetes. It was nothing to do with the Gibsons' operation. "What I did, I did for myself," he said.
But he admitted he offered to set up a website promoting the benefits of cannabis for MS sufferers after meeting Mark Gibson in Norwich in 2001.
He claimed he did not believe he was doing anything illegal because he knew other people had been cleared of cannabis charges after using the "medical necessity" defence.
He said he had asked the Gibsons for some of the cannabis bars to help his symptoms.
"They said I couldn't have any because I hadn't got MS," said Davies.
Davies said he had played no part in making the Gibsons' chocolate and had never been to Alston but he had agreed to do some of the couple's administration work when they set up a PO box in Huntingdon after their local police told them to "take it out of Cumbria".
He collected incoming orders and donations from the sorting office, paid money into the bank, and forwarded mail to the Gibsons in Alston - for which he was allowed to take out enough money to cover his expenses.
But Davies, who with his wife and two children lives on £387 a week benefits, said he had never made money from his involvement.
"I would say I actually lost out, but that is not a problem," he said. "Money was irrelevant."
The trial continues.
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6370460 - 12/14/06 12:32 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Cannabis trial coming to an end
December 14, 2006 - News & Star
A JURY today heard closing speeches from barristers in the crown court trial of an Alston couple who are jointly accused with a Cambridgeshire man of conspiring to supply cannabis.
Mark and Lezley Gibson, of Front Street, both 42, and Marcus Davies, 36, have all pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The prosecution had earlier told the court that the couple ran a cottage industry producing bars of chocolate laced with cannabis which they supplied to people with multiple sclerosis.
Three MS sufferers who used the chocoalte spoke of how they were asked to provide a doctors' note confirming they had the condition, and of how the chocolate had helped relieve symptoms.
Defence barrister Andrew Ford, for Lezley Gibson, urged the jury to do the right thing, saying there was a marvellous opportunity to acquit his client.
"Ultimately, this case is about the tension between that law and what is just," the told the jury.
Greg Hoare, for Mark Gibson, said it would be an infamous day in the English criminal calendar when people were rendered liable to conviction where they had neither moral blame nor criminal intent.
Mike Davis, for Marcus Davies, said his client helped the couple with a clear intention not to break the law and because he desired to do good.
Judge John Phillips will sum up the case tomorrow (Friday) morning before sending out the jury to consider their verdict.
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RoosterCogburn
Fearless,one-eyed U.S.Marshall
Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 8,508
Loc: Dirty South, NJ
Last seen: 8 months, 10 days
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6370488 - 12/14/06 12:41 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
"I would say I actually lost out, but that is not a problem," he said. "Money was irrelevant."
What the FUCK is this world coming to... If these good hearted folks go to jail, I will be HONESTLY upset. I hope this story gets world coverage.
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Sorted
Monkee
Registered: 12/26/98
Posts: 300
Loc: UK
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 Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: RoosterCogburn]
#6372896 - 12/15/06 06:11 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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They've been found guilty.. sentencing is on January the 27th. The judge told the jury something along the line of "there's no reason to find them innocent". What a piece of shit.. and the jurors obviously have no compassion or common sense either. 
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RoosterCogburn
Fearless,one-eyed U.S.Marshall
Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 8,508
Loc: Dirty South, NJ
Last seen: 8 months, 10 days
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: Sorted]
#6373163 - 12/15/06 07:54 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Time to revolt... 
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6373966 - 12/15/06 11:33 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Sorted is correct. They have been found guilty. It makes no sense at all. They have been providing this service to MS patients openly and ethically for a number of years with the knowledge and apparent approval of local law enforcement. Why go after them now? Their website is now down but contact can be made at help@thc4ms.org and LezleyGibson@lca-uk.org. ...
Cannabis chocolate trio convicted
December 15, 2006 - BBC
Mark and Lezley Gibson
Three people have been found guilty of supplying thousands of cannabis-laced chocolate bars to multiple sclerosis sufferers for pain relief.
Mark Gibson and his wife Lezley, both 42, of Alston, Cumbria, were standing trial at Carlisle Crown Court with Marcus Davies, 36, of St Ives, Cambs.
They were convicted of two counts each of conspiring to supply cannabis throughout 2004 until February 2005.
All three were ordered to return to court on 26 January for sentencing.
The Cumbrian couple admitted running a cottage industry making and posting out more than 20,000 Canna-Biz bars containing about 3.5g of the drug, to victims of the disease around the world.
But in their testimonies they both insisted this was a free service funded by voluntary donations, which was only available to MS sufferers who provided a medical note confirming their condition.
Davies admitted running a website and post office box, but had denied any involvement in making or posting the chocolate.
Cash receipts totalling £30,000 were seized by police, but the court heard Lezley Gibson told officers these referred to donations, which were ploughed "straight back in" to fund the Canna-Biz operation.
All three told the court they believed they had a defence of medical necessity in supplying the cannabis-laced bars, but this was rejected by the jury.
After the hearing Lezley Gibson said: "The maximum sentence for what we've been found guilty of is 14 years in jail. If you were a child pervert your maximum sentence is only 12.
"I think there's a mistake in the law, and I think they really, really really need to re-think the law on cannabis and medicinal use. Bringing ill people to court and torturing them like this isn't what you do.
"You look after ill people, and you try to make them better. You do not torture them and drag them back and forward to a court of law."
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6377754 - 12/16/06 06:42 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Drug deals or mercy missions?
December 16, 2006 - News & Star
Exhausted, angry, and tearful, Lezley Gibson sat in the dock, shaking her head, silently mouthing the words: “It’s just not fair”.
The 42-year-old former hairdresser, diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 21 years ago, had just heard Judge John Phillips explain a court ruling that effectively scuppered her defence in this week’s gruelling cannabis trial.
With her husband Mark, 42, and co-defendant Marcus Davies, 38, she had helped create an operation that supplied cannabis-laced chocolate to 1,600 people.
Like herself, all had been diagnosed with the neurological condition multiple sclerosis (MS).
From her own experience, and from months of research, Lezley knew there was compelling evidence suggesting cannabis can produce dramatic benefits in people with the condition.
Twenty years ago her doctor’s prediction was that she would be in a wheelchair in five years.
Mainstream medicine offered little help: anabolic steroids left her with horrendous side effects, her weight ballooning to 14 stones. Then Lezley discovered cannabis.
She became – and remains convinced – that using it has kept her out of a wheelchair.
In 2000 that contention was tested in a trial at Carlisle Crown Court and – despite clear evidence that she was using the drug – the jury accepted her medical justification for using cannabis and acquitted her.
In the months that followed Mark and Lezley turned their home into a mini cannabis chocolate production line, determined to ensure that anybody with MS who needed the drug should get it.
Marcus Davies, who used cannabis to ease symptoms associated with his epilepsy and diabetes, agreed to help, setting up a website, under the banner of their THC4MS campaign group.
From the start, the couple tried to ensure that only genuine sufferers could get the chocolate, produced with what the couple said was only the best quality cannabis.
Only those who could produce a doctor’s or MS nurse’s written confirmation of diagnosis could get it.
But everything changed on May 27, 2005, when law lords at the Appeal Court gave a decisive ruling in the case of a man called Barry Quayle, a 38-year-old double amputee who had grown and used cannabis to ease his chronic pain.
Along with four others, he had pleaded medical necessity, but the court ruled that this defence should not be available to defendants in cannabis trials.
It meant the defence the Gibsons and Davies thought they had – they were accused of conspiring to supply cannabis between January 2004 and February of last year – was taken away.
Yet throughout their trial this week, the Gibsons and Marcus Davies clung to that argument.
Three MS sufferers – one of them a middle-aged solicitor – spoke of how the drug had benefited them.
Quizzed about whether she made money from the operation, Lezley Gibson told police: “You’ve seen my house, my clothes.
“You’ve seen my car. There’s no profit in this whatsoever. I could give you a few people who would do it to line their pockets, but not me.” She said their supply was an attempt to take “scumbag” drug dealers out of the equation.
Her barrister Andrew Ford described Lezley Gibson’s motive in a single word: altruism.
Marcus Davies also contested that there was nothing genuinely criminal about what he and the Gibsons did.
“We lost loads of money doing it,” he said. “Crime is something where you have a victim, but there is no victim in this.”
Lezley Gibson’s defence barrister urged the jury of six men and six women to defy the 2005 Appeal Court ruling on medical necessity defences.
He spoke of the celebrated book A Time to Kill by US author John Grishman, which tells the story of a black man who kills the two white men who raped his daughter and walked free from court.
When the case goes to court, the fictional US jury refuse to convict, recognising a moral justification for this most serious of crimes.
“Ultimately,” Mr Ford told the jury, “this case is about the tension between the law and what is just.”
For his part, Mark Gibson’s defence barrister Greg Hoare echoed the words of US president Franklin Delano Roosevelt following Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbour, almost 55 years ago to the day.
Mr Hoare said: “It would be an infamous day in the English criminal calendar for people to be rendered liable to conviction for serious offences where they had no moral blame or criminal intent.”
The facts of the trial were never in any doubt: this was a trial not only of the three defendants, but also of the current law on cannabis that had landed them in the dock.
Lezley said yesterday that the effect of the trial on her health has been dramatic.
“It’s crippled me,” she said. “At the start, my immune system crashed: I ended up on antibiotics, with boils and pins and needles across my face, nose and mouth. I haven’t slept for two weeks.”
Mark Gibson too is adamant that the prosecution was fundamentally unjust.
Speaking after the verdict, he said: “We’ve got 65 letters from doctors and nurses saying their patients could benefit from our cannabis chocolate. So you could say that they are all co-conspirators. That information was available to the prosecution so why were these doctors and nurses not put in the dock?”
Marcus Davies said THC4MS would now revert to being a pressure group and would not supply cannabis-laced chocolate.
Both Cumbria’s Crown Prosecution Service and Cumbria police defended the prosecution.
A CPS spokesman said: “We prosecuted this case because it is an offence to possess or supply cannabis, or to conspire to supply it. We don’t make the law, we simply prosecute the laws made by Parliament.
“The Gibsons sent out cannabis chocolate bars and had no control over who ultimately consumed it.”
Superintendent Steve Johnson said: “The law has been upheld. Class C drugs are illegal and it’s an offence to supply them. It’s a political debate as to whether cannabis has medicinal benefits – a debate that is for agencies other than the police.”
He said the police decision to initially not pursue the Gibsons in 2002 was based on the facts as known to senior officers at that time.
By January of last year, the scale of their operation had grown to such an extent that officers had to take action.
“We’ll take each case on its merits,” he said. “It’s an offence to possess and supply it and people who are in possession of or supplying illegal substances will be investigated.”
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6381982 - 12/18/06 12:24 AM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Choc bar drugs pair will appeal
December 17, 2006 - Sun
A disabled woman found guilty of supplying drugs to fellow multiple sclerosis sufferers said she will appeal against her conviction.
Lezley Gibson has not given up her fight to legally supply thousands of MS sufferers with the class-C drug, which she and other campaigners claim is the only effective treatment to alleviate the debilitating condition.
Lezley, 42, of Alston, Cumbria, also says that, following her conviction last week, she has been left to celebrate Christmas with the fear that she and her husband Mark - who was also found guilty - will be sent to prison next year.
She said: "I am still in shock that we were found guilty.
"I thought there would have been at least some of the jury who could see past the black and white regulations of the law and see we were only supplying to people in genuine medical need."
Lezley, Mark, also 42, and Marcus Davies, 36, from St Ives in Cambridgeshire, were convicted of two counts each of conspiring to supply cannabis at Carlisle Crown Court on Friday.
The trio had distributed by post more than 20,000 chocolate bars, each containing around 3.5g of the drug, to people in the UK.
Lezley, who was diag- nosed with the condition at 21, said: "Sentencing has been adjourned until next year.
"The judge said we were in no immediate danger of going to jail, but I'm not sure what that means.
"If he had ruled it out completely then he should have said so."
Lezley also argues that the judgment will effectively fuel street drug dealing.
She claims that the thousands of MS sufferers across the UK who she used to supply will now be forced to source the class-C drug from street dealers.
She explained: "I used to have to seek drug dealers out in pubs.
"There were times I would be given cannabis that I wouldn't use to polish my shoes.
"There were other times I handed over money and the dealer just disappeared.
"This ruling is a step backwards for MS treatment in this country.
"Conventional drugs don't work for a lot of people and I can't think of any other condition where sufferers are denied medicine.
"You wouldn't deny an asthmatic an inhaler."
And she added: "I will be appealing and my barrister has already started to work on that."
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6385086 - 12/18/06 11:39 PM (5 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting background to the case...
'Is it a crime to want to be well?'
December 19, 2006 - The Guardian
For six years, Mark and Lezley Gibson supplied cannabis to sufferers of multiple sclerosis. The police knew what they were doing - but turned a blind eye. Now, however, the 'Canna-Biz Two' have been convicted of dealing.
Behind the purple door on the cobbled streets of Alston, Cumbria, the cooking pot was seldom off the boil. In the ordinary kitchen tucked high in the North Pennines, thick brown liquid was poured into moulds imported from Belgian chocolatiers. Luxurious bars of high-cocoa-fat chocolate were wrapped and labelled and placed in jiffy bags, then posted to all corners of the country.
It would have been an uncomplicated and charming cottage industry, but for one special ingredient: each 150g bar contained up to 3.5g of cannabis. For six years, its presence in the chocolate helped ease pain for more than 1,600 people with multiple sclerosis, almost 2% of all British sufferers. It also caused the chocolate's distributors, Mark and Lezley Gibson, to fall victim to village gossip, police raids and legal action that has left them branded as drug dealers.
On Friday, a jury found the Gibsons, and an associate, Marcus Davies, guilty of two counts of conspiracy to supply cannabis between 2004 and 2005. There were tears and gasps of shock in the public gallery at Carlisle crown court when the decision was delivered. For Lezley, who suffers from MS, the decision at least ended the mental and physical agony of a prosecution that has dragged on for nearly two years. But the reverberations of the decision reach far beyond the Gibsons' kitchen in Alston. The verdict is discomforting for those who assumed this country had, in effect, decriminalised cannabis. And it is painful for those MS sufferers who have suddenly found their supply of cannabis chocolate cut off.
The Gibsons' journey to Carlisle crown court began back in the mid-80s. Lezley was a trainee hairdresser, good enough to beat the likes of Andrew Collinge and Nicky Clarke in apprenticeship competitions. While the men went on to become celebrity coiffeurs, however, the worsening pins and needles in Lezley's legs took her to hospital in Carlisle, where she was diagnosed with MS. Treated for 10 weeks, she had two agonising lumbar punctures and was given steroids, which caused her to grow a beard and double her weight to more than 14 stone. The final piece of "medical" advice before she was discharged was, she says, to forgo butter and eat margarine instead. "I was called in-valid," she recalls, emphasising the word. "I was disabled. I was written off, no longer any use to anyone. When I was diagnosed, they said I would be incontinent and in a wheelchair within five years."
Twenty-two years on, Lezley is a slight, attractive woman with a warm smile, and no wheelchair. For three years after her diagnosis, however, she suffered paralysis of her right and left sides and periodically lost the power of speech and sight in her right eye. "This was the normal downward spiral of MS. Then I met Mark and started using cannabis," she says. Like many young men, Mark was a recreational user. Lezley noticed that when she smoked it with him, she felt better.
"I read Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies when I was young and I've always been Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby," she says. "Once I found out that cannabis did this to me, I couldn't keep it quiet. I wanted to help other people." The former MP Robert Kilroy-Silk inadvertently assisted Lezley when she appeared on his show to talk about MS in the mid-90s. There she met other MS sufferers and was inspired to found a support group, Therapeutic Help from Cannabis (THC). Fortified by a growing body of scientific evidence about the medicinal effects of cannabis on MS, Mark got involved and travelled to universities to talk at conferences about the drug.
It was when the Gibsons began talking publicly about cannabis that the police took an interest. The couple were first raided in 1989: Mark spent a week on remand in Durham prison. They were busted again in 1995 and again in 1999. In 2000, Lezley was acquitted of possession on the grounds of medical "necessity".
A friend and fellow MS sufferer, Biz Ivol, began producing "Cannachoc" for a neighbour with MS. She, too, was arrested and prosecuted. When her illness was exacerbated by legal action, the Gibsons offered to take over the production of the chocolate in 2000. When Ivol died in 2004, they named it "Canna-Biz", in her honour. Qualified in food hygiene, Mark began making the chocolate for about half a dozen MS sufferers in the kitchen above his gift shop in Alston, where he sells new age crystals and ethnic ornaments.
"It felt good to be of some use, to help society. It was terrible to be told you're no use at 20," says Lezley. As word spread, people wrote letters addressed to "The lady with MS, Alston" or turned up at their door in wheelchairs. Those who found cannabis helped reduce muscle spasm and increased bladder control were relieved to find an alternative to giving £150 a week to a drug dealer. Soon the couple were posting bars to more than 100 people a week.
As long as he didn't sell it, and only gave it to MS sufferers, Mark believed he had a defence in law. If prosecuted, he thought he could deploy the defence of "necessity", which allowed for an illegal act to avert greater harm (or, in this case, pain). A number of people, including founders of medical marijuana cooperatives and even a GP, Dr Anne Biezanek, who supplied her sick daughter, have been acquitted of possession and supply using this medical "necessity" argument.
Gibson was meticulous about how he produced and supplied Canna-Biz. He obtained the cannabis for free from altruistic growers and bought the chocolate (ideally, organic Green & Black's; otherwise Tesco's or Morrisons' own brands). Lezley helped with the administration and they instructed users to take no more than three squares from the 24-square bar each day to ensure no psychoactive effects. They never distributed it through their shop. Crucially, they never sold it, instead suggesting a donation of between £1.50 and £5 to cover their costs (some MS patients would give more; many chose never to pay anything). And they insisted that any "patient" must send them a doctor's letter, on headed notepaper, confirming they had MS. Lezley says the notes showed that almost all their patients were over 40: "It's not people looking for a cheap thrill; it's middle-aged people who are ill."
Curtains began to twitch as Mark strolled across the street to Alston post office every day with jiffy bags of cannabis chocolate. Small-town gossips reckoned the 4x4-driving couple must be raking it in. Mark was summoned to meet a senior Cumbria police officer in 2002. He was warned: open a cannabis cafe and you'll be shut down. But police advice about their chocolate operation was more ambiguous. Mark told the court it was suggested he should not be "quite so blatant" about it. "He didn't tell me to stop," says Gibson. "To this very day nobody has told us to stop."
Nevertheless, heeding police warnings, the couple reduced their media profile and began using a regional post office instead of their local one. Davies, an associate from Cambridgeshire, built a website for their new not-for-profit scheme, Therapeutic Help from Cannabis for Multiple Sclerosis (THC4MS). He also provided them with a PO box address in Huntingdon; it meant the couple's home address was no longer publicised. When their local bank refused to let them open an account for THC4MS, Davies, who is registered disabled and grew his own cannabis to treat his severe diabetes and epilepsy, agreed to cash donor cheques for the Gibsons.
Internal police documents read out in court showed that Cumbria police decided it would be "oppressive and vindictive" to mount a surveillance operation on the couple after Lezley was acquitted in 2000. Early one morning in February last year, however, the police knocked on the Gibsons' purple door. Bars of Canna-Biz had spilled out of a jiffy bag at the Post Office and the police were called. Along with Davies, they were charged with conspiracy to supply cannabis.
Legal arguments dragged on for nearly two years - destroying Gibson's gift shop business - before their case finally opened in court two weeks ago. Jeremy Grout-Smith, for the prosecution, argued that while the couple were not conventional drug dealers, there was no defence in law. "To supply cannabis, even if you believe it is doing good, is not a defence," he said. Police found details of three bank accounts at Davies' home into which more than £39,000 worth of cheques had been paid between March 2003 and March 2005. "So this seems to be distribution on quite a large scale and, to some extent at least, the defendants may have benefited financially - although the Crown does not claim this was their main motivation," he said.
The Gibsons and Davies claimed that most of the sum was the income from other members of Davies' family. Even if some was money from donations, they said it was all ploughed back into the not-for-profit Canna-Biz operation. In six years they have supplied more than 33,000 bars and calculate they have given away cannabis with a street value of £500,000. The pair are not visibly wealthy. "We're not very good 'drug dealers', are we?" says Lezley. "If I'd sold it, I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd be in Spain with the rest of 'em."
As the arguments were trotted out during nine days in court, little indignities struck home. On one morning proceedings were delayed because the prosecution barrister had a medical complaint. Lezley, who struggled to walk into court and found it painful to sit down for more than 10 minutes, was on time every day. She believes her previous court battle advanced her MS by five years. "At the moment I don't know if I'm able to move when I wake up," she said two days before the verdict. "I'm not sleeping, I'm constantly in pain across my shoulders. I'm not taking as much cannabis as I should because I'm stuck in court."
The couple struggled to retain their composure when faced with legal professionals who required correcting on several basic facts about medicinal cannabis and the law. When Grout-Smith asserted that no one had been acquitted of supplying cannabis on grounds of medical necessity, he was put right by Mark. The judge struggled to understand how a commercial medical cannabis treatment for MS users in Britain, called Sativex, could be unlicensed yet still be legal in the UK. Mark, again, was on hand to explain: in a government fudge, it was denied a licence in Britain but for the past 12 months has been made available on a "named patient" prescription basis. A doctor must get a licence from the Home Office to prescribe it to individuals. A survey by Disability Now found few patients have been able to get it because the process is so bureaucratic and expensive. Lezley is now licensed to carry a Sativex spray but finds smoking cannabis better. The spray is "very, very strong" and, she says, more likely to incapacitate her than smoking.
The Gibsons are not the sort of campaigners who crave courtroom publicity. But their case made public some interesting facts. The couple kept 1,036 letters from doctors confirming patients had MS. Of those, 65 made specific reference to cannabis chocolate, showing that some doctors had full knowledge of what they were writing the letter for. One MS sufferer, Helen Wallace, gave evidence from her wheelchair in court that she had told her doctor precisely why she needed the note. In this way, many of the letters from the medical profession were de facto prescriptions.
Despite such support, the political climate has shifted. The government is determined not to be seen as "soft" on the drug since it was downgraded from class B to C. (Paradoxically, downgrading cannabis has damaged the Gibsons because recreational users who once donated money or campaigned for their medical cause have dropped away, content that they can smoke a spliff in peace.) As well as a growing body of research showing its medicinal applications, there is, equally, more scientific evidence linking cannabis to mental illnesses such as psychosis and schizophrenia. The studies agree on one thing: cannabis affects different people in different ways.
Three months after the Gibsons were arrested, legal opinion also turned against them. While several cannabis suppliers successfully evoked the defence of medical "necessity", the court of appeal ruled in May 2005 that necessity could not be a defence in six test cases of supplying cannabis. Removing this common-law defence has, in effect, recriminalised the medicinal use of cannabis. Lawrence Wood, chief executive of the Multiple Sclerosis Resource Centre charity, says the law is "an ass" and society is hypocritical to allow possession for personal use without explaining where it can be obtained safely. "If the government had licensed Sativex, and made it easily available, then these people would not have needed to supply it in this way," he says.
Since the verdict, the couple have received emails from recipients of their chocolate. "I shall miss it very much," says one woman with MS. "I have tried gradually using less each day but was in so much pain I started back on a full dose. Don't know what I shall do when this bar has finished."
Lezley is defiant. "The prosecutor told me what I did was wrong but the law is wrong. It's evil and cruel and totally unfair. As a person who is ill, why am I in court? It can't be a crime to want to be well. If it was paint stripper, I'd take it. It's just unfortunate it's illegal. I'm sorry that cannabis makes me well and I'm sorry I'm going to keep taking it, because I don't want to be in a wheelchair and I don't want to be incontinent."
The maximum penalty for the unauthorised supply of cannabis is 14 years in jail but the pair, who will be sentenced in January, have been told they will not face a prison term. They know, however, they must pour away the last Canna-Biz and pack up their pans. They have no defence in law; MS sufferers will no longer receive cannabis chocolate pain relief through the post. "I want the judge to send a letter to all those people saying why they will no longer receive our medication," says Lezley. "I can't do that".
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veggie
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6402942 - 12/27/06 04:57 PM (5 years, 4 months ago) |
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I sold drugs to help the sick, not get rich
December 26, 2006 - cambridge-news.co.uk
AN EPILEPTIC man who helped supply cannabis-laced chocolate bars for medicinal purposes has slammed the courts for treating him like a common drug dealer.
Marcus Davies, of St Ives, has been convicted of conspiracy to supply cannabis after helping supply the chocolate to MS sufferers, taking orders and passing them to friends Mark and Lezley Gibson, of Alston, Cumbria, who made the bars.
However, the 37-year-old claims the enterprise was not for profit, and insists the courts should not be treating him like the "scumbag drug dealers" he despises.
He said the cannabis he and his co-defendants used had been grown for medicinal use, not by criminal gangs, and had been given away to help seriously ill people.
Between them the trio, who are due to be sentenced next month, sent out 36,000 bars of CannaBiz chocolate to MS sufferers across the country, in return for donations which were ploughed back into the enterprise.
Carlisle Crown Court heard the three had been involved in a cottage industry, producing 150g bars containing 3.5g of the drug.
Mr Davies, who uses cannabis himself to control the symptoms of epilepsy, said he had been "shaken to the core" by his conviction last Friday.
He said: "We had a defence during the time that we allegedly committed this crime, and it was a well-used defence which I believe applied to common sense and common law - a defence of medical necessity.
"When an ambulance is rushing to a job it is allowed to skip a red light because it is deemed necessary, but despite everything we know about the wonderful medical benefits of cannabis the drug laws over-ride everything else.
"My faith in British justice has been shaken to its core, because even an idiot could understand our argument, and I am sure the jury could understand it too.
"But the judge directed them to find us guilty, 12 good and honest people were told: 'You have to return a guilty verdict and you have no alternative'.
"I have helped thousands of people over the last five years, and every night I sleep well knowing I have helped them.
"I have not gained financially from any of this, but I do have a warm feeling inside which is better than any amount of money.
"This case has left me feeling the court and legal system are warped and corrupt. The Magna Carta itself says the punishment must not be greater than the crime, but the only victim here is me.
"The case has cost me £7,500 to fight, and the punishment for the crime should be a cheque for £7,500, not the prospect of time in prison."
Davies, who has not worked for 15 years because of his own ill health, said the cannabis they used would have been worth a fortune if sold on the street, but he and his co-defendants had not been motivated by greed.
He said: "Each bar of chocolate, and remember we sent out 36,000 of them, had 3.5 grams of cannabis in it, which scumbag drug dealers would sell on the street for £15.
"That is about half a million pounds worth of cannabis we gave away, and if we were doing this for money we would be somewhere nice and tropical now, not freezing to death in England.
"We received £40,000 in donations over the three years from people who used the product, but that was ploughed back in.
"Mark and Lezley, my co-accused, have been around the world lecturing to doctors and pharmacists on the benefits of this medicine.
"If it was rhododendron leaves we would have OBEs for our work, instead we're facing prison.
"I can't divulge exactly where we got the cannabis from, but we have a network of growers who grow for their own, medicinal use, and supply us with any surplus. We always avoided scumbag drug dealers.
"Drug dealers' only concern is money, our concern is providing a quality, organically grown product which helps people who are suffering a great deal."
As an epilepsy sufferer and diabetic himself, Davies said he had first-hand knowledge of how effective cannabis could be in controlling distressing symptoms and pain linked to certain medical conditions.
He said: "I have epilepsy, and cannabis stops me break-dancing - when I use it I don't have any convulsions at all.
"I am not talking about taking cannabis on a recreational level, I don't get stoned, I am talking about medicinal amounts. As little as 0.1 of a gram of cannabis cures the problem. I also have diabetes, with complications including pain in my legs, kidney disease and blistering of my retinas - cannabis works a treat helping me cope with the pain. It is a really wonderful medicine.
"Our clients suffered from MS and they often wrote to tell us how we had changed their lives.
"I have a letter in front of me which says: 'I slept for the first time in seven years for four-and-a-half hours without waking in painful spasms. The change since taking your chocolate has been wonderful, and I am slowly cutting down on my morphine.'
"The problem, of course, is that anyone can grow this wonderful medicine in their back garden, and if that is the case how are the pharmaceutical companies going to make any money?
"The reason cannabis has not been developed as a medicine is that it will not help the rich get richer.
"We are planning an appeal, but I am worried about what will happen when we are sentenced - after seeing what I saw in court my faith in British justice has deteriorated to a fantastic extent.
"We have not hurt anyone or damaged anything, we have done nothing but help, so I would like a letter of thanks from the Department of Health - but I don't think that is going to happen.
"I am fearful about what will happen. I am also fearful for the hundreds of MS sufferers we helped, who now have the knowledge of what this herb can do for them.
"Their only choice now is to go to drug dealing scumbags, and that is not acceptable for anyone let alone an MS sufferer, so British justice has failed them too."
The trio are due to be sentenced on January 26. The maximum jail term they could face is 14 years.
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white_noise
below the water
Registered: 08/18/05
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: veggie]
#6403075 - 12/27/06 05:51 PM (5 years, 4 months ago) |
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That's fucking terrible. Thought laws were supposed to be ethical and fair.... Keep us updated veggie!
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MustNotBe
HPPDer
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Re: Possible 14 years for helping MS Sufferers [UK] [Re: white_noise]
#6404448 - 12/28/06 09:25 AM (5 years, 4 months ago) |
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I can really understand that the government doesnt want us to smoke weed recreationally because of how our society looks at drugs, but to deny people that actually need the drug to make themselves feel better because thier entire lives they just feel pain is just fucking wrong, and denying that it has any medical use is bullshit too and they know it.
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Junkies United we stand , Devided we're sick as fuck.
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"Hallucinations are something heroin users are not at all accustomed to," said Const. Conor King, Victoria police drug expert. "They react like you or I would react if we took Aspirin and all of a sudden the TV got up and started walking across the room."
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Make drugs legal, or alcohol and tobacco illegal. Either way it's more fair.
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