By Greg de Hoedt
A medicinal cannabis consumer has been handed a 12 month suspended sentence after it was discovered that he was growing 100 plants in his St Anne’s home.
Neil Holmes, 49 – who uses cannabis for his dyspraxia, was growing it for his own personal use but it “would have taken him a long time to smoke it all.” Original article found here.
Det Con Matt Haylett, from Blackpool CID, said it was a large amount of cannabis for personal use adding: “Anonymous information came in and police executed a warrant at his address and a cannabis farm was found at the location.
“There was no evidence he was dealing the cannabis.”
In an outhouse the police found 25 “well established” plants with another 73 plants in earlier stages of growth.
Officers also found a bag of cannabis bush with a street value of £184, presumably fan leaves. The cannabis plants were estimated to have a street value of between £3,685 and £5,528.
Preston Crown Court heard how Holmes readily accepted the drugs were his own, and claimed he used them for dyspraxia.
Holmes must also serve a three-month curfew. We are not sure how this curfew serves the community any service as he was not involved in any antisocial behaviour.
Many people may think that 25 plants may be a large number to need to be growing for personal or medical use but if you take into consideration that people require a range of different strains, especially for medicinal use it starts to seem more reasonable.
In the US state of California patients with a Medical Marijuana Card can grow up to 99 plants for personal use and if they go in to a collective with a group of patients they can even get raised plant limits.
Cannabis is not just for smoking either, many patients prefer to make edibles which are infused cannabis foods. This requires more cannabis and again if it is being used medicinally it will increase the amount needed as the ‘high’ feeling is not mainly what the patient is looking for, it is symptom relief.
The fact that Mr Holmes has walked away without a custodial sentence is encouraging. It means that some courts are willing to accept that patients use and grow their own cannabis, therefore not involving them or contributing to organised crime and see that it is not really a crime.
The unfortunate unjust problem with the justice system is that despite Mr Holmes freedom to walk away – technically a free man – he still has a criminal record for treating his medical condition with a plant that appears to be causing no harm to his life other than the law deciding to breach the peace at his property after someone snitched him up. The courts have not gained from this, justice has not prevailed and yet another patient has had his life turned upside down, his medicine stolen and the humiliation of being labelled a drug criminal.
Being a drug criminal prevents you from getting certain jobs, being denied further education, travel restrictions and being subject to stop and searches and vehicle checks more than your average spied on citizen. As if having a handicap in life was not hard enough, treating yourself and being self sufficient and less reliant on the NHS is obviously cause for more impediment to your existence.
Thank you Government, for allowing this pain, suffering, waste of resources and tax payers money to go on.
Who in their right mind would grow 100 plants just for personal use?
It is an outrage he had his medicine stolen from him and taken to court, though I’m glad they didn’t send the poor fellow to prison.
fantastic news, such a shame the poor soul was dragged through the legal system when he had done nothing immoral.
It should be free. all over the world…
Surprised they let him off for that many plants, that’s a massive haul for personal use. I live in hope this is a sign things are changing
Aggravated harassment against the ass-wipes who arrested him in the first place.
Also another point to make is, there is less risk growing lost of plants in one year, than a few over many.
Fan leaves have no value hahahaha
Neither do the Police.
This is another thing which really winds me up, when they value a plant they give a value (slightly less than the bud) to the leaves etc. I’ve been purchasing cannabis for over 30 years and I’ve never been offered the leaves for sale.
Fan leaves are actually valued by the CPS at something like £3 per g. This is how my sack of trim waiting to be bubblesacked was valued by the CPS at over £1,500… lol…
Reading this refocused my thinking. At first I was happy because they avoided prison, then I realised the absolute absurdity of my initial reaction. This person has done absolutely nothing to hurt or harm anyone, there should be no criminal investigation whatsoever.
its a joke we can only hope we get some where soon with it
Well said! Why should I have to realy on addictive and potentaly dangerious drugs when cannabis is nither of those things! Yet if i grow my own for myself, i am some how a criminal!?! It is ridiculious!
Fan leaves worth £184?
i think there on to the bubble bag hash from leaf chris
I ‘walked free’ from my court experience where I admitted possession, supply, growing, importing and exporting over an 18 month period. I had a 1 year prison sentence suspended for 2 years, no fine or any silly probation thing. I didn’t feel free, and it has put some serious barriers up in my life. I can’t get home insurance for example without paying through the earth, as I’m a nasty criminal, and won’t have ‘normal’ insurance for another 10 years or so. I can’t help out at a music charity up the road either… and that hurts the most.
While I celebrate the fact that he didn’t get a custodial sentence, he didn’t walk free from the courtroom… he just walked from the courtroom, and the conviction will burden him for the rest of his life.
Well said!
i thought you couldnt use fan leaves for bubble??
Kin ell … remind me why i was thrown in Prison for 26 plants ? … ohhhhhh yeah, the judge didnt like the fact that i stood up for misen’ …. what a Jip ;0(
“Preston Crown Court heard how Holmes readily accepted the drugs were his own,”
There’s his problem right there. He “accepted” the lie that a plant is a drug. No living organism can be defined as a drug.
You and I contain some of the most powerful drugs that the human species has ever come across; Adrenaline, Testosterone, Oestrogen, DMT, for example.
Are WE drugs, just because we contain drugs?
That is a very important question and goes to the heart of this matter; especially when attempting to Patent a drug. Can Nature be Patented?
Apples contain Cyanide, and thusly, are a registered poisonous plant. But when you buy a bushel of apples you’re not claiming to be buying cyanide, or even in possession of cyanide; are you?
The USA Government holds a Patent on THC, but only the version they create in a lab can be sold via the Patent. Thus, their THC is unnatural; (Marinol) If they have the Patent, then why don’t they merely extract it from the Cannabis Plant?
This is not a flippant matter and one that has been side-skirted for far too long, in order to hood-wink the general population into “accepting” a lie and, thusly, accepting the State’s/Court’s authority over someone; by deception.
Cannabis is Not a Drug. Stop accepting the lie that it is.
thankyou all for your kind and understanding comments god bless x