He said cannabis was the only drug that eased his pain without unpleasant side effects. Court accepted his argument he needed cannabis to ease his pain and cleared him.
Law needs to be changed so that people can use cannabis for medicine purposes.
Sally Freeman, prosecuting, told the jury that necessity is not a defence to the production of an illegal drug. Mr Yates will in due course, I anticipate, be saying he had no option but to do what he did. It is the Crown's case that is not a defence. We will argue that what Mr Yates did is against the law and if that if that law need to be changed it needs to be changed elsewhere. He said he had been prescribed a variety of medications by doctors including morphine, sleeping tablets and anti-depression tablets.