According to Ian Malley, news editor at The Canna Zine , (http://cannazine.co.uk), the Roderick Cotton case was the natural beginning.

An ideal opening for communications regarding the decriminalisation of cannabis for medical use.

"If you remove medical cannabis users from the illicit world market-place, you could free up a third of the worlds enforcement agencies, which may help tackle the "class A" drug epidemic we are witnessing in Europe at the moment."

"In Ireland, cocaine use is higher than its ever been before, a statistic which was rubber-stamped recently when the worlds press reported the unrelated death's of three young adults from the Republic, all within days of each other, and all as a result of a bad batch of cocaine."

"In South Wales, children as young as 13 years are being treated for heroin addiction, and Italy was recently named as the country which achieved the impossible and received more shipments of cocaine from Columbia, than the United States received, and that takes some doing."

In the meantime the Dutch medical marijuana program continues to go from strength to strength after recently receiving a 5 year extension which was agreed by the Dutch government toward the end of 2007. In Germany the first medical marijuana patients have already received their licences to use marijuana, as a treatment for the chronic and debilitating pain caused by a variety of treatments which the German medical authorities agree, will react well to treatment with pure, unadulterated cannabis.

And according to editor Malley, this is the kicker;

"If the German and Dutch government's can agree that cannabis can and does help improve the lives of a large number of medical patients, who have in common the fact they all suffer from debilatating and painfull diseases including Aids/HIV, Cancer, MS, Glaucoma to name only 5, what on earth is holding up the UK government?"

"What gives the UK government the right to forbid a substance a neighbouring government openly allows the use of, and on what grounds do they forbid it?"

"Not such a European "Union" when you look at it like that is it?"

"Over the last twelve months the Canna Zine has reported on numerous recommendations from Doctors in the US as well as further afield, that cannabis is helping their patients. Life is improving, at least to a degree, and isn't that what medical drugs are meant to do?  Improve the patients life?.

"The beauty of consuming cannabis in dealing with pain is its low toxicity. No one is going to "overdose", or become dependent on cannabis.

Also you can take "just enough" to do the job-in-hand and using the new generation of cannabis vaporizer's such as the Volcano Vaporizer, means using cannabis does not have to mean harming health anymore."

"In the meantime, the government procrastinates on cannabis whilst giving off the smell of an organisation who simply don't know how to deal with the issue in hand. So rather than attempt to make a difference to the lives of thousands of sufferers, they simply do nothing!"

"Apart from imprison people like Roderick Cotton, whose only crime was the desire to help sick people, which is a crime without a victim from where I'm sitting."