A PENSIONER who has fought a 30 year campaign to be allowed to use cannabis as a medicine has received a suspended prison sentence on Tuesday (Dec 9). The retired oil refinery supervisor, has previously served two prison sentences while taking on the government in a bid for those suffering chronic pain to be allowed to take cannabis for pain relief. Eric Mann, aged 71, who believes cannabis can be used to treat even cancer, admitted producing the drug and to supplying it sick people.

Mann, of Harbour Way, Pembroke Dock, had earlier told the court he would fight the charges on the grounds that it was his human right to be free of pain. But on the day his trial was due to begin at Swansea Crown Court he changed his pleas to guilty to charges of producing cannabis and to supplying cannabis oil. Judge Paul Thomas told Mann that, like everyone else, the law of the land had to be obeyed and no-one could pick and choose which ones to abide by. Ian Ibrahim, representing Mann, said he had been a coal miner and a construction site supervisor until he was forced to retire because of severe arthritis.

He self medicated himself and began to take cannabis, which, he said, relieved the pain. Mr Ibrahim said police found 21 small cannabis plants and five jars of cannabis oil at the defendant’s home last year and in another raid this summer found he been producing cannabis again. “The defendant regards himself as a care giver and looks upon cannabis as a medicine allowing him to break the law,” added Mr Ibrahim. Mann had claimed to have developed a way of removing the psycho-active element of cannabis so users would get the benefit but not get “high.”

The court heard Mann had numerous previous convictions relating to cannabis. He told the court personally, “I worked all my life and when I got ill I tried conventional drugs but they didn’t work. One drug I was using was withdrawn because people were killing themselves after becoming suicidal on it. “When you’re in pain all the time and you can’t even put your socks on or make a cup of tea or anything life isn’t worth living but I found I could function through the use of cannabis as a medicine.” Mann was jailed for 12 months, suspended for 12 months, and placed under supervision.

Judge Thomas told him, “Week in, week out in these courts see the effects cannabis has on people, particularly on their mental state. Whatever your views, cannabis does effect people’s minds, that is my experience and there is very good medical opinion as to why people should not take cannabis. “I think you genuinely consider you are helping yourself and can do a service to others and that cannabis can cure or at least have a beneficial effect on cancer sufferers. But the vast proportion of medical opinion is that you are misguided in that and you are deluding yourself and others.” The judge added he hoped Mann would now look at alternative methods of pain relief.