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Court of Appeal of New ZealandLast Updated: 19 September 2007
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND
CA246/06
THE QUEEN
Hearing:
Court:
Counsel:
PHILIP NOEL ROBINSON
21 May 2007
William Young P, Baragwanath and Heath JJ
Appellant in person
D La Hood for Crown
Judgment: 7 August 2007 at 3.00 pm
JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
The appeal is dismissed.
REASONS OF THE COURT
(Given by Baragwanath J)
R V ROBINSON CA CA246/06 [7 August 2007]
Table of Contents
Para No
Introduction [1]
Background [2]
The issues [11]
First issue: was it open to the jury to find that the appellant caused or
was party to the despatch of the pamphlets to potential jurors? [13]
Second issue (actus reus/wrongful act): whether it was open to the jury
to
find that sending the pamphlets tended to pervert the course of
justice [16]
Third issue: whether the issue of actus reus (wrongful act) was
properly left to the jury [24]
Fourth issue: mens rea (guilty mind): whether it was open to the
jury
to find that the accused intended that the pamphlets should
pervert
the course of justice (mens rea (guilty mind)) [33]
Sentence [37]
Decision [38]
Introduction
[1] Appearing without counsel, the appellant was convicted by a District Court jury of attempting to pervert the course of justice. He appeals against conviction on the grounds that the verdict was not open on the evidence and that Judge Callaghan erred in his directions to the jury. He appeals also against the sentence of 200 hours community work.
Background
[2] The appellant was due to be tried on 15 March 2004 before a jury in the District Court at Greymouth on a count of cultivating cannabis. On 9 March the Registrar had faxed a jury list to the appellant's work fax at his workplace at Bealey, Arthur's Pass. It did not have attached the customary note as to limitation of the use to which the information contained in it might properly be put. The effect of any such note was not argued and we make no comment upon it.
[3] On 11 March the Crown prosecutor for the appellant's trial received from him a 200 page book by KEA and JR d'Oudney called "The Report. Cannabis: the facts, human rights and the law ...". On several occasions between 8 and 12 March the appellant was helped by an employee of Paper Plus, Greymouth, to photocopy passages from a book that was said to resemble "The Report".
[4] On Saturday 13 March the appellant wrote to the Court an "open letter" disputing a ruling of 12 March that "The Report" was inadmissible.
[5] Also on Saturday 13 March and the following Monday 15 March, day one of the trial, persons named in the jury list received envelopes post-marked 12 and 14 March by the Christchurch Mail Centre. Those dates were consistent with their being posted from Arthur's Pass on 11 or 12 March or, as the Crown alleged, from Christchurch. The Crown does not contend that the materials sent to jurors were sent in response to and in defiance of the ruling of 12 March.
[6] The envelopes contained a pamphlet containing plaudits for "The Report" from Professor Milton Friedman, Sir Jonathon Porritt and unnamed judges from the UK and the USA together with accounts of the judgment of Chief Justice Vaughan in Bushell's case [1826] EngR 98; (1670) 1 Freeman 2; 89 ER 2 (KB), granting habeas corpus to the jurors who, having acquitted William Penn and William Mead, had been fined and committed for returning verdicts contrary to the evidence. There was also a statement attributed to Chief Justice Stone of the United States Supreme Court in 1946 that:
If a juror feels that the statute involved in any criminal offences unfair, or that it infringes upon the defendant's natural god-given unalienable or Constitutional rights, then it is his duty to affirm that the offending statute is really no law at all and that the violation of it is no crime at all - for no one is bound to obey an unjust law.
[7] Beside it in large bold type appeared the words:
True
or
False?
When you sit on a jury, you have a Right and Duty to find the Verdict according to your judgement on whether the law is
Just. True.
[8] On its back was a page of further assertions as to the role and rights of the jury which we reproduce as Appendix A. Another document containing assertions as to the supposed benefits of cannabis appears in Appendix B.
[9] A document examiner's report did not establish any link between samples of the appellant's hand-writing and writing on the envelopes sent to jurors.
[10] On 15 March, the first day of the trial, the Court and the prosecutor became aware of the jurors' receipt of the pamphlets and the trial was aborted. Three days later the appellant was seen photocopying pages from the report at the Greymouth Paper Plus.
The issues
[11] The elements of the offence of perverting the course of justice were stated by this Court in R v Meyrick CA513/04 14 June 2005 at [41] citing R v Rogerson [1992] HCA 25; (1992) 174 CLR 268 at 279:
(a) conduct which tends to pervert the course of justice (the actus reus
or
wrongful act); and
(b) intention to pervert the course of justice (the mens rea).
[12]
Four issues were argued:
(a) whether it was open to the jury to find that the appellant caused or was party to the despatch of the pamphlets to potential jurors; if so
(b) whether it was open to the jury to find that sending the pamphlets
tended to pervert the course of justice (the actus reus (wrongful act));
if so
(c) whether the issue of actus reus (wrongful act) was properly left to the
jury;if so
(d) whether it was open to the jury to find that the accused intended that
the pamphlets should pervert the course of justice (the mens rea
(guilty mind)).
First issue: was it open to the jury to find that the appellant caused or was party to the despatch of the pamphlets to potential jurors?
[13] The appellant elected not to give evidence, but the tenor of his address to the jury may be inferred from a jury question:
Mr Robinson faxed or mailed the jury list to members of his group "FCDAA" without instructing them, but knowing what the group members are likely to do with the list i.e. mail pamphlets to the potential jury members - does this constitute an intent to pervert the course of justice? Mr Robinson stated that he had sent all correspondence from Greymouth District Court which he had received on to his group in his closing statement.
[14] The Judge answered the jury's question by directing them that what the appellant said in his closing address was not evidence and the jury would have to base their decision on evidence given during the course of the trial. He then gave an accurate parties direction, recounting the need for some positive or active step together with an intention that what he did should assist or encourage the committing of a crime.
[15] The handwriting evidence must at least have raised reasonable doubt whether the envelopes were addressed by the appellant. But we are satisfied that in terms of time, place and circumstances it was open to the jury to conclude that the appellant was actively implicated in causing the material to be sent to the jurors. The evidence was that he had received the jury list relating to his forthcoming trial and was seen photocopying passages first from a book that resembled "The Report" and later from
the book itself. That was material from which it was open to the jury to find that the accused's denial to a police officer that he sent material to jury members or asked anyone to send them on his behalf was untrue.
Second issue: whether it was open to the jury to find that sending the pamphlets tended to pervert the course of justice (actus reus/wrongful act)
[16] This issue concerns the interface between the right of the accused to freedom of expression under s 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (the Bill of Rights) and the common law, and the right of the Crown to a fair trial.
[17] Section 14 provides:
14 Freedom of expression
Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form.
[18] Section 117 of the Crimes Act 1961 provides:
117 Corrupting juries and witnesses
Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who—
(e) wilfully attempts... to obstruct, prevent, pervert, or defeat the course of justice in New Zealand or the course of justice in an overseas jurisdiction.
[19] The indictment alleged:
... that PHILIP NOEL ROBINSON between 11 March 2004 and 16 March 2004 at Greymouth wilfully attempted to obstruct, prevent, pervert or defeat the course of justice by sending or causing to be sent unauthorised written information to potential jury members for his trial in the week commencing the 15 March 2004.
[20] The importance accorded to freedom of expression is seen in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada in Attorney General of Canada v JTI-Macdonald Corp 2007 SCC 30 delivered on 28 June 2007. But we find it unnecessary to examine in any detail the inter-relationship between freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial. That is because the latter is absolute: R v A (No 2) [2002] 1 AC 45 (HL). It
does of course embrace to a very large extent the interest in freedom of expression, not least in the accused's right to challenge the Crown case and to advance that of the defence.
[21] Statements to the effect that the right to a fair trial must prevail over the principles of free speech (as in R v Burns (Travis) [2002] 1 NZLR 387 at 404 (CA) and R v A (No 2)) usually relate to the right to fair trial of the accused rather than that of the Crown. Section 25(a) of the Bill of Rights specifically requires the position of the accused to be safeguarded. But the Bill of Rights does not pretend to be a comprehensive codification of constitutional basics. In particular, it says nothing of the right of the community and indeed of victims that the trial should be fair to the Crown as well as to the accused (while when the two are in conflict the former must give way, that is not the present case). But that also is fundamental.
[22] The point is illustrated by numerous contempt of court cases cited in Solicitor-General v Smith [2004] 2 NZLR 540 (HC) and Progressive Enterprises Ltd v North Shore City Council [2006] 2 NZLR 262 (HC). In particular, action which has a substantial tendency to induce jurors not to comply with legal directions that will be given by a judge must fall within the actus reus of the offence. We take the law as sufficiently stated in s 117(e) of the Crimes Act: if in fact the nature of the communication may reasonably tend to lead to a false verdict, the actus reus element of the count will be satisfied. And if an accused intends that it will have that effect the mens rea is equally established.
[23] Informing the jury of well-known assertions of cannabis advocates might be thought unlikely to affect a body of 12 New Zealanders drawn from the community to serve as jurors. The research performed by Professor Young and his colleagues for the New Zealand Law Commission provides grounds for confidence that jurors will give responsible effect to directions to disregard inadmissible information: see New Zealand Law Commission Juries in Criminal Trials (NZLC R69 2001). Overall any risk to a fair trial might indeed be by way of reaction against the unconventional approach to which the jury at the s 117 trial found the appellant was party. But parts of the pamphlets can only be read as an invitation to jurors to acquit
in defiance of judicial direction as to the law. We are satisfied that it was open to a properly directed jury to find the second element proved.
Third issue: whether the issue of actus reus (wrongful act) was properly left to the jury
[24] A summing up must maintain the balance struck by the law that it is for the judge to direct the jury as to the principles of law and for the jury to determine how those principles apply.
[25] For convenience we have numbered certain passages from the summing up. On the issue of actus reus the Judge correctly directed the jury:
[1] ... the Crown must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the act or acts complained of, that is the sending of the material, that seems to have been done on two occasions had the tendency to affect the proper course of justice, so just had the tendency to affect the proper course of justice, whether or not the act or the acts in fact had that effect.
But shortly before he had stated:
[2] Let me just say this, that it is not proper and it is quite inappropriate to send information, anybody to send information to a judge or a jury when a case is coming on for trial. So regardless of who sent it in this case, you can I think quite properly come to the conclusion that the type of information that was sent was unauthorised. So I do not think that will need to trouble you, that is just in the second to last line, so I think you could properly come to a view that that type of information, regardless of whoever sent it, that it was certainly not authorised by the Court or by a judge and I echo what Mr Hall said, which is quite right, that jury members and judges need to be impartial and should not be influenced by outside contact.
(Emphasis added) He later further directed the jury correctly as to actus reus:
[3] ... you need to be sure, and this comes down really to the attempt part, that these actions of sending this material had the tendency to obstruct, prevent or pervert or defeat the course of justice. So did the sending of this information to potential jurors have the tendency to do what the Crown alleges.
He added the comment:
[4] As I intimated earlier, judges and juries must deal with cases on evidence and any action like this, sending this information to potential jurors you might think would only have really one outcome, and that may possibly to be to unduly influence the juror or jurors, that would be to undermine the system of impartiality of both sides.
[26] The remarks in [1] and [3] contained an acceptable direction on the issue of actus reus. Nor can there be any legitimate criticism of [4], which although expressed emphatically made clear that the decision on the point was a matter for the jury and was thus consistent with [1] and [3].
[27] The remarks in [2] require careful consideration. In Leuluaialii v R CA122/06 22 November 2006 at [20] this Court cited R v Wang [2005] 1 WLR 661, where the House of Lords held that all factual issues are a matter for the jury alone, and R v Coutts [2006] 4 All ER 353, where the House of Lords directed a retrial when the trial judge failed to leave to the jury the option of manslaughter which had been disavowed by both Crown and defence and it was not open to apply the proviso. The distinction between the roles of jury and judge was fundamental to DPP v Stonehouse [1978] AC 55 (HL) on which those cases turned and to the Privy Council's decision in Bain v R [2007] UKPC 33; (2007) 23 CRNZ 71 at [115].
[28] It is both common and sensible for judges to give a clear steer to juries on issues that simply cannot be disputed. If challenged on appeal the point will be met by the proviso to s 385(1) of the Crimes Act. We do not doubt that the italicised part of [2] was given in response to the part of the indictment that alleged "sending or causing to be sent unauthorised written information ...". That is plain from the reference in [2] to "the second to last line". But absence of authority to send the material was not itself an element of the offence alleged.
[29] Like the common law rules as to contempt, s 117 of the Crimes Act contains a prohibition that is couched in terms of contact having a particular tendency. But whether it has that tendency is a matter for the judgment not of the judge but of the jury.
[30] We have therefore considered whether the statement:
... it is quite inappropriate to send information, anybody to send information to a judge or a jury when a case is coming on for trial... jury members and judges... should not be influenced by outside contact.
could have been understood by the jury as a direction which they must accept, rather than that the issue of actus reus - whether the act was wrongful - was a matter of fact for them to determine. We have also considered whether the later correct direction in [3], accompanied by the comment in [4] which, of itself unexceptionable, could have reminded the jury inappropriately of the passage in [2].
[31] We are however satisfied that they were a mere comment on a non-essential passage in the indictment rather than a legal direction as to an element. We do not consider that, heard in context, they risked distorting his correct directions in [1] and [3] as to the actus reus element.
[32] It follows that the third ground fails.
Fourth issue: whether it was open to the jury to find that the accused intended that the pamphlets should pervert the course of justice (mens rea (guilty mind))
[33] We have recorded our conclusion that it was open to the jury to find that the pamphlets had a tendency to pervert the course of justice. It was necessary for the Crown to exclude as a reasonable possibility that the appellant simply intended to provide information to the jury in advance of the trial which he would be providing for them at the trial in any event, rather than that he intended to pervert the course of justice by having the trial aborted.
[34] The importance attributed by the jury to the element of intent is apparent from their question (at [13] above). But the Judge had properly directed the jury:
Not only did he do it deliberately, you have to decide ... whether or not he did it with the intention to do any one of the things set out in the indictment, that is to obstruct, prevent, defeat or pervert the course of justice.
[35] We are satisfied that it was open to the jury to conclude that the accused intended that the pamphlets should be read in the sense which we have held was
open on a fair reading. Indeed the pamphlets may be said to have had the effect of perverting the course of justice because the trial was aborted.
[36] It is true that in answering the jury's question the Judge did not offer to them for consideration the logical option that, rather than intending to persuade them to act contrary to their oaths, he was sending them material which he believed would assist them in their task in the honest, but mistaken, belief that they were entitled to disregard the criminalisation of conduct by statute. But such a contention was never advanced at trial, or indeed on appeal. It was no function of the trial judge, nor is it of this Court, to invent fine arguments that were never put to the jury.
Sentence
[37] Attempting to pervert the course of justice will commonly result in a prison sentence. The term of 200 hours community work was moderate.
Decision
[38] The appeals against conviction and sentence are dismissed.
Solicitors:
Crown Law Office, Wellington
i ne {auznenuc) Inaj Dy Jury JBntish Justice System is revered at home and respected abroad as the finest, most democratic form of law enforcement ever devised. Worldwide honour derived from One phenomenon: Constitutional Law Magna Carta, the Great Charter of English Liberties, first passed in 1215; for this emplaces the definitive Trial by Jury. This Trial by Jury is also enshrined within the U.S. Constitution, reaffirmed by every president by oath at inauguration. Magna Carta is law throughout Britain, being ratified over thirty times, including by Head of State Queen Elizabeth II, and applies in perpetuity.
Our Constitutions emplace Trial by Jury as the sole system for all civil, criminal and fiscal lawsuits; and institute the Right and Duty of Jurors to acquit as Not Guilty, according to the Juror's conscience, citizens tried under law which the Juror judges to be oppressive or unfair; and, the Jury (not judges) are required to review all evidence to decide on its admissibility. Jurors decide the Verdict not simply on whether evidence indicates a defendant broke the law: in Trial by Jury, Jurors have the Duty to decide the Verdict by judging also whether the law under which the defendant is tried, is Just,
However complicated the facts of a case (and it is for the plaintiff to make his cause clear), it is axiomatic that, literate or not, all sane adult men and women can recognise injustice: it takes no special learning for an adult to know when a law is jfust. This is the special virtue of Magna Carta: it is emplaced to protect Citizens for all time from unjust laws and arbitrary government. Neither in Britain nor in the U.S. have legislatures ever been invested by the People with authority to remove the Right of the accused to a Trial by Jury, to impair the powers, to change the oaths, or abridge the jurisdiction of jurors.
Trial by Jury is so-named, for in democratic societies trial of a Citizen is by fellow Citizens who comprise the Jury. Trial is not "trial by government" which could never be seen to be fair where the government is also one of the contesting parties. Prosecutors, judges, police and prison service are employed to enforce governments' laws and should never be asked, nor relied on, to decide impartially whether laws are just, for they must fulfil their task or face the fury of the government, their employer. Trial by Jury takes a person out of the government's hands and places the accused under the protection of his or her equals (the jury) and the,Common Law: government and judiciary are incompetent to require conviction or punishment
of any person for any offence whatever. Trial by Jury allows no man or woman to be punished unless the indiscriminately chosen equals of the accused consent to it, following Trial in which Jurors try: the facts, die law, and decide on the admissibilitv of evidence. Definitively, anything less is not Trial by Jury, but trial by someone else.
Other nations, such as the United States of America when independent, adopted Trial by Jury. Second President. John Adams, lawyer, pronounced about the Juror: "It is not only his Right but his Duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." (Yale Law Journal.) Viz. the Principle: "If a juror accepts as the law that which the judge states then that juror has accepted the exercise of absolute authority of a government employee and has surrendered a power and right that was once the Citizen's safeguard of liberty" Elliot's Debates; 94, Bancroft, History of The Constitution, 267.
, Viz. U.S. Chief Justice Samuel Chase, signatory to the Declaration,of Independence: "The Jury has the Right to determine both the law and facts." In this matter, good men and women who stand up against tyranny are of one mind. Viz. Thomas Jefferson. Democratic Party Founder & Third U.S. President: "/ consider Trial by. Jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the-principles of its constitution." More recently, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: "The Juiy has the power to bring a verdict in the teeth of both law and fact." Viz. U.S. Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone. "7J&e law itself is cm trial quite as much as the case which is to be decided." In 1972. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled: the jury has " unreviewable and irreversible power to acquit in disregard of the instruction on the law given by the trial judge. The pages of history shine upon instances of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard instructions of the judge."
A cause for Repeal of the infamous crime-producing U.S. Alcohol Prohibition law was that prosecutions failed to obtain guilty verdicts. Out of a large alcohol-using population, juries nullified, unjust prosecutions of producers', stockists' and traders' normal traditional commercial activities, by pronouncing the Not Guilty Verdict. In the last four years of Alcohol Prohibition, circa half of all such trials resulted in acquittal or hung juries, though defendants invariably had broken the law, often being apprehended red-handed.
WHY is the Citizen-Juror's judgement on the law so important a part of
any fair and competenl Justice System ? See THE REPORT OF THE VCDA
EUROPE, endorsed by academics and US & UK judges:
"All
governments are capable of passing oppressive i.e. illegal laws, and organising
enforcement of such laws. Juries limited to deciding
innocence or guih only on
evidence produced by the state prosecutor oi whether the accused has broken a
law, would not bt able to
protect good Citizens from oppressions of tht state.
Juries instructed to judge on the justice of law and its enforcement can
be relied upon to protect people from the state, when the state breaches correct
behaviour in attempting to enforce injustices."
Today, a government-contrived legal obligation ban; lawyers/barristers from presenting evidence whici exonerates defendants, if it "disputes the law."Judges forbid the accused likewise. Judges exclude exonerative evidence, and tell jurors to consider only that evidence which he or she allows. As a juror, expect the judge tc forbid you to judge on justice. Judges instruct jurors to 'uphold the law' regardless; not to allow conscience their opinion of the law, or a defendant's motives, tc affect their decision: thus, judges' tampering inevitably produces innumerable false guilty 'verdicts'. WHY do judges not instruct Jurors of their Duty to judge the law ? and, WHY do judges deny juries their righl to see and decide which evidence is admissible ? -^— disrespect for Citizens' ability to make fail judgements ?
— the judge is the willing servant of undemocratic
oppressive government ?
— unwillingness to part with his or her power tc
prejudice the verdict ?
Whatever the judge's motives, the judge is wrone noi to inform jurors of their Right and Duty to do justice e.g., State of Georgia v. Brailsford, a supreme courl forfeiture trial, the facts having been ascertained U.S. Chief Justice John Jay instructed jurors that il remained only for them to judge the law itself, saying "The Jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy."
Removal of justice/equity issues from jurors transforms the Trial by Jury into the inherently unlawful (mis-^ trial-by-government, by which Nazi, Stalinist, fascist, and communist systems all operate, &. tyranny thrives. This uncivilised system is now in place in the former democracies of the West, to enable enforcement of every persecution, stealth-tax, oppression, money-motivated subterfuge and injustice the state introduces, and which judges then lawlessly claim is 'the law'.
COMPARISON OF CANNAJBIS
TO OTHER SUBSTANCES BY
OFFICIAL MORTALITY STATISTICS.
U. S. Federal government Bureau of Mortality Statistics '.
SUBSTANCE
TOBACCO
OF
DEATHS PER YEAR. 340,000 to 425,000
ALCOHOL 150,000
(Not including 50% of all highway deaths and 65% of all murders)
ASPIRIN 180 to 1,000
Including deliberate overdose
CAFFKINK
1,000 to 10,000
fcEGAL DRUG
OVERDOSE 14,000 to 27,000
Deliberate or accidental, from
legal, prescribed or patent medicines and/or mixing with alcohol — e.g.
Valium +Alcohol.
ILLICIT DRUG
OVLiRDOSE 3,800 to 5,200
Deliberate or accidental from all illegal drugs.
TIIEOPHYLLINE 50
Pharmaceutical drug prescribed for asthma: Theophylline
is also responsible for 6,500 Emergency Room admissions, and 1,000 cases of
permanent brain damage each year.
CANNABIS 0
CANNABIS IS A NON-TOXIC SUHSfANCE, INCAPABLE OF INDUCING
MORTALITY IN HUMANS AND ANIMALS. 1 Also rtf. U.S. Judicial Review Findings
of
Fact on Safety; yuotcd verbatim in THE REPORT, ISBN: 1-902848-15-2. TfIC
is noi "caifnGhis": TIIC is a pharmaceutical laboratory-mrtdc,
unnatural TOXIC chemical compound. Il is unscientific and perjurious to
infiltrate; the numerous TIIC studies' (indiiiRSi m lilt place of the
PincJini?s of Empirical Fact of the ifcfjuitjvu Clinical
Studies Into actual lonu-lcrin human use of canoabis herb-hash, which exonerate
c;inn;ilns from all 'harm' allegations.
CLINICAL FINDINGS.
Findings ' of the U. S. Judicial Review &. Official Government-Funded Clinical Studies show:
a.) medical scrutiny of long-term cannabis smoking dismisses the publicised speculations of carcinosis, nntl concludes pure caunabts (i.e. witlioul tobacco) has no adverse effect on lungs and does not cause cancer. The Empirical Studies [i.e. test subjects' actual long-term use] confirm cannabis smokc-tars are benign; and have dilative effects on bronchi and bronchia, assisting breathing (notably helping asthmatics);
b.) Cannabis Relegalised (i.e. all controls abolished) has unique life-saving potential safely to replace or reduce use of addictive pathogens alcohol and tobacco. Cannabis as Preventive Measure/Medicine comprises the benign altcrnalive 2. (Ref. Mart. Stats.) Cannabis use thus is health-enhancing whether used by sick or hale, i.e. all use is medical. The arbitrary fictitious 'distinction' between 'medical' and 'recreational' use is a fallacious anil damaging deception;
c.) cannabis has unique life-saving, but prohibited, uses in Curative Medicine;
d.) cannabis smoking is the only reliable countermeasure to glaucoma known, consistently reducing infra-ocular pressure, dispelling symptoms, and saving eyesight;
e.) cauuabis is a phenomenon Preventive of, and therapeutic in, numerous adverse conditions: e.g. menstruation pain & tension, headaches <& migraine, asthma, back p;iin, pain from various disorders, pruritis, dermatitis, eczema, multiple sclerosis, rheumatism, arthritis, fits, spasm from trauma or epilepsy, etc. (the list is extremely long 3); the herb ingested as smoke or eaten as part of a normal healthy diet is prophylaxis, i.e. Preventive Medicine, preventing degeneration of the health of the hale.
f.) restoring appetite to anorexic, crucially wasting patients is another of many ways in which cannabis smoking saves lives; ihe mild effect upJifts the spirit, and is of greatest assistance in convalescence 4.
FINDINGS OF FACT from the official Empirical Studies; Cannabis...
Where canoabis is concerned, iht legislation of its control (Prohibition):
THE RE FOR'I' quotes constitutional
and law references, and
lists attribution of technical/scientific source
materials far the
above HULJULj;i of Fact.
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