Campaigners for the use of medicinal cannabis are outraged over a one year jail sentence given to a prominent north coast grower of the herb when he appeared in Kempsey Court yesterday.
Supporters of Tony Bower, 56, who is being held in custody despite lodging an appeal against the sentence, which carries a nine month non-parole period, say they will continue his work dispensing medicinal cannabis to cancer sufferers and others with terminal or debilitating illnesses.
Mr Bower was charged after a police raid on his Mullaway property last year, which netted around 200 hemp plants that he had earmarked for production of medical tincture to distribute, free, to sufferers.
His partner Julie told Echonetdaily that she and others attending the court in solidarity were shocked he was not given bail after magistrate Wayne Evans said Mr Bower was not remorseful and would continue to give away the tincture.
http://echonetdaily.echo.net.au/medicine-man-jailed/
From the comments underneath the article re the Today Tonight story
The child featured above is my daughter.
Also in that video is young Molly who sadly lost her battle with dravet syndrome last yr. in the last 12months too many dravet children have died.
We have no other options – they don’t work, good seizure control for a child with dravet is still uncontrolled to everyone else.
These kids deserve a chance. My Tara deserves to live.
Today I am sad to be an Australian. Whilst Tony sits in a jail cell wondering what he is going to do, I sit here wondering if my 7 year old daughter will now live to see Christmas.
In December last year we were told 2013 would most likely be her last year on earth. We didn’t give up quite so easily. We were not willing to say goodbye yet.
Tara has such a rare disorder that officially it doesn’t have a name, the closest known disorder is Dravet Syndrome (this is similar but Tara is progressing much quicker) Between October 2012 and January 2013 Tara was resuscitated 3 times, twice by me, her mum.
Most likely she would not survive the next time. By this time Tara was taking 5 different medications (18 tablets a day), she was dying. That was until we found Tony Bower.
Tony is NOT a criminal to me; he is a crusader, my hero. Without a doubt he has saved my child’s life. But now with Tony sitting in Jail we have no further supply of medical cannabis coming in, this means without a doubt Tara will die. Medical cannabis is all that is keeping her alive.
So what was it doing? In January Tara was having 10major seizures a day, and half hourly absence seizures and 5 nocturnal seizures.
For the record YES that is over 23000 seizures a year!!!! No drug was working, she always had seizures day in day out from when she was just six weeks old.
We were told her IQ was now too low to score dropping from 82 four years earlier and her brain had begun to shut down. We were on the home stretch she simply could not continue like this.
Within a day of starting Medical cannabis Tara’s seizures had halved. By 10 days she was seizure free. Now four months on she has only had one 90 second seizure since February.
She has started to learn again, she can write her name, she can memorise a basic text. She is no longer using her walking frame and has begun toilet training.
Without Tony and crusaders like him we will lose too many children way too soon.
By denying Tara her medical cannabis the government has effectively signed her death certificate.
Please have legislation changed before it is too late, children and adults around this country will die without Tony Bowers Medical Cannabis, he MUST be released as I fear if he isn’t there is simply no option left for my child.
I plea to you please do not allow my child or others like her to die, simply because our laws here have not caught up with the rest of the world.
Please shout this message through social media, talk with friends ring/email your MP. Until Tony is not only freed but is free to continue his work!
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