Pubdate: Mon, 29 Oct 2007
Source: Daily Post (UK)
Copyright: 2007 Trinity Mirror North West & North Wales Limited
Contact:  http://www.dailypost.co.uk
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4288
Author: Gareth Hughes, Daily Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

RHYL MAN VOWS TO CONTINUE SMOKING CANNABIS

A 61-YEAR-OLD man convicted of possessing cannabis said he would 
rather go to prison than stop smoking the drug to ease his pain.

Last week Ron Bloom pleaded guilty at Prestatyn magistrates court to 
three charges of possessing small amounts of cannabis.

Some of the drug was found at his home in Lynton Walk, Rhyl, in 
January this year.

One charge of cultivating the drug was dropped.

But he insisted smoking cannabis helped ease his sciatica.

He was given a 12-month conditional discharge by District Judge 
Andrew Shaw and ordered to pay costs of UKP150.

"It's wrong that I have been criminalised for taking something which 
should be prescribed," he said.

Mr Bloom told the Judge: "If you are prepared to give people 
methadone, a really addictive drug, why can't I have cannabis?"

The 61-year-old, who moved to Rhyl from London in 1997, later 
admitted he first experimented with cannabis socially in the 1960s.

But a specialist at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital suggested in 
the '80s he take it for stomach ulcers.

In the 1990s he began suffering from sciatica and the pain travelled 
from his leg to his back.

"The pain got worse, and at times I have to lie on the floor and 
can't get up to go to bed," he said.

He had to give up his job as a mobile engineer travelling around supermarkets.

Traditional painkillers prescribed by his GP caused severe headaches 
and other side-effects, and in 1999 he decided to start taking 
cannabis for pain relief.

He now smokes it at least once every day.

For a while Mr Bloom cultivated his own plants at home, growing just 
enough for himself, but stopped doing that last year.

He sealed up his attic where he had grown them, but remains were 
found by the police.

"But the police who had visited my home when my wife died suddenly 
hadn't wanted to know when I told them that I was growing cannabis 
for medicinal reasons," he said.

Mr Bloom, who has a 16-year-old daughter, says he knows of hundreds 
of people of similar age to himself who rely on the drug for relief.

And during his court appearance he handed to the District Judge the 
results of a study published in the Journal of Clinical Therapeutics 
which showed that extracts from cannabis provided effective long-term 
treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Sentencing him, Mr Shaw said: "You are not the first person to make 
these points but unfortunately I do not make the law."

Mr Bloom, who says he is sometimes in excruciating pain when he walks 
any distance, said he felt that the reclassification of drugs was inevitable.

"The one thing I want to see before I die is that cannabis is 
decriminalised," he said.

"I have no choice but to carry on taking it because of my condition 
and have to ignore the conditional discharge.

"If I get sent down for it then so be it, but it will cost the 
government far more to keep me in prison," he added. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake