Pubdate: Wed, 27 Apr 2005
Source: South Wales Evening Post (UK)
Contact:  2005 Northcliffe Electronic Publishing Ltd.
Website: http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3764
Cited: Legalise Cannabis Alliance http://www.lca-uk.org

SID WHITWORTH, LEGALISE CANNABIS

Sid Whitworth is the Legalise Cannabis Alliance candidate for Carmarthen
East and Dinefwr.

Sid, from Maesglas near Penygroes, is a 47-year-old businessman who has
lived and worked in Carmarthenshire for 16 years.

During his 25 years as a journalist he worked for weekly and daily
newspapers in Hertfordshire, Hong Kong and South Wales, and in 1984 won a
commendation in the national EMAP awards for a series of campaigning
articles.

Sid is a member of Dinefwr Green Group and believes passionately that
politics should be about protecting the environment and not in waging wars,
building huge bureaucratic empires and bowing to multi-national corporate
power.

Sid, a divorced father-of-one, does voluntary work once a week at the DGG's
fundraising shop in Llandeilo. He is a Buddhist who enjoys walking, cycling
and flute playing, and is a vegetarian and teetotal non-smoker of tobacco.

He has campaigned for the UK's withdrawal from the EU, and is currently
setting up a media recycling business in Ammanford.

Under his three-point manifesto, Sid said: "The legalisation of cannabis
would enable the NHS to prescribe it for the benefit of thousands of
patients - saving millions, even billions, of pounds by replacing expensive,
synthetic medicines.

"Once cannabis is legalised the Legalise Cannabis Alliance will embark on
other campaigns in order to regain people's human rights and liberalise
other areas of law many see as too harsh, such as the three point penalty
for speed camera offences.

"Hemp (the cannabis plant) can be grown almost anywhere. New industries
could be set up to manufacture cannabis products and farmers could make
money growing hemp for rope, paper, clothes, cosmetics. Methanol produced
from cannabis biomass could partially replace petrol and diesel. It is also
much less polluting than fossil fuels."
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MAP posted-by: Josh