War vet’s drug fight
Ex-soldier pleads to have criminal charges waived
ARMY veteran Lee James Donnollan could go to prison for illegally growing the medicine he said he’ll be allowed to use if he’s behind bars.
The Townsville resident was in Canberra yesterday to ask politicians to waive his charges after Queensland police caught him growing cannabis.
Advocates and Greens leader Richard Di Natale called for the Government to grant an amnesty for those charged for obtaining medicinal cannabis and to set up a new process to access the drug.
Medically discharged in 2013 after eight years of service, including eight months in Afghanistan, Mr Donnollan uses medicinal cannabis to treat symptoms of his post traumatic stress disorder.
At the time, he was so emotionally fragile, he cried at kid’s cartoons. “I just couldn’t deal anymore and then I just started getting worse,” Mr Donnollan said.
Not wanting to take multiple medications, he started using medicinal cannabis after he was discharged but was caught growing it in 2016.
Placed on a good behaviour bond just as using it became legal federally, Mr Donnollan went through an 18-month approval process to use the drug. When he finally got the green light, he was told medicinal cannabis oil treatment would cost him over $1000 a month. Unable to afford it, he returned to cultivating it before he was caught and charged again in March this year. “They took my medicine and told me I should be in jail for it,” Mr Donnollan said.
Since then, Mr Donnollan has been told he can now claim it on his veteran’s benefits.
“It would then be a situation where the Government would be paying for my weed while I’m in jail for weed,” Mr Donnollan said.
Lucy Haslam, the founder of the medicinal cannabis advocacy group United in Compassion, said the current system for medicinal cannabis was not fit for purpose.
She said the majority of patients still used the black market because of the cost and the struggle to access the drug.
Doctors aren’t able to directly prescribe the drug and must get federal permission on their patient’s behalf. Some state health agencies may also get a say on the approval.
Ms Haslam said there was no political desire to fix the system. Greens leader and the party’s health spokesperson Richard Di Natale said the situation Mr Donnollan faced was “ridiculous”.
He said as a GP, he could prescribe legalised drugs that had the potential to kill people if taken in excess, but he couldn’t prescribe medicinal cannabis.