“THE region is getting covered," says the founder of the Teesside Cannabis Club (TCC). It’s just a matter of time, from the Angel of the North to Middlesbrough police station. We’re not going to back down and we’re not just one voice, we’re hundreds, thousands of voices from all different walks of life – there is no stereotype. We want to take cannabis from the top and the bottom, from the dealers who make our streets a nightmare to the pharmaceutical companies working with the government to hold sick people to ransom.”
The campaigner is speaking exclusively to The Northern Echo in a bid to highlight an illegal plot to establish wild cannabis grows at public sites around the North-East. The Teesside father-of-three founded the organisation following the death of his father from cancer. His father’s painful struggle and his own battle to control a crippling stomach condition inspired his work to promote the benefits of medicinal cannabis and he is now committed to campaigning for the legalisation and regulation of the class B drug. His own GP recommended he turn to cannabis after a serious stomach complaint left him taking seven types of prescription drugs a day. A mild strain of the cannabis taken once a day – enough to ease symptoms but not enough to provide a “head high” – has now replaced a once spiralling reliance on the cocktail of prescription drugs.
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