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Simpson sentenced to eight days in jail for believing marijuana is a miracle cure
By Hempology | March 26, 2008
Tue, 18 Mar 2008
Chronicle Herald (CN NS)
Tom McCoag
HEMP OIL SUPPLIER SLAMS LAWS
AMHERST – A Maccan-area man who says his hemp oil cures cancer was sentenced Monday to eight days in jail after he pleaded guilty in provincial court to trafficking the drug.
But Ricky Simpson, 58, won’t spend any time behind bars because Judge Carole Beaton said the time he spent in custody after his November arrest was enough of a deterrent.
“If he and others do not get the message, after spending the equivalent of eight days in jail, that trafficking is against the law, I’m doubtful that adding 20 more days as suggested by the Crown would be any more of a deterrent,” Judge Beaton said Monday as she sentenced Mr. Simpson on one charge of trafficking marijuana oil.
Outside court after his sentencing, Mr. Simpson reiterated his intention to leave Canada. He said he can’t live in a country that persecutes and prosecutes him for believing that marijuana is a miracle cure.
“I’m heading for South America,” he said. “I’m looking at moving to either Ecuador, Peru or Brazil. Those are countries where the government won’t prosecute me and where I can be free to make the ( marijuana ) medication I require.”
He said he will move as soon as he can sell his two properties.
The trafficking charge was laid after a woman complained to Amherst police that Mr. Simpson had dropped off a syringe full of hemp oil at her home and asked her to give it to a relative who was using the drug for medicinal purposes. The syringe was found to contain about five millilitres of marijuana oil, the equivalent of a teaspoon.
His arrest came as he was awaiting sentencing on earlier charges of producing marijuana and possessing less than three kilograms of tetrahydrocannabinol for the purpose of trafficking. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the main active ingredient in marijuana.
A Nova Scotia Supreme Court jury found Mr. Simpson guilty of those charges in September and Justice Felix Cacchione sentenced him in February to a $2,000 fine and one day in jail, considered served by his appearance in court that day.
Mr. Simpson maintained during his Supreme Court trial that he grew the marijuana on his property and turned it into hemp oil to give to more than 300 patients who he strongly maintains were cured from a variety of diseases ranging from cankers to cancer.
“Mr. Simpson is in an unusual position, because unlike other people engaged in the drug trade, he was not engaged in trafficking for financial gain,” Judge Beaton said Monday. “He was engaged in an altruistic activity and was firm in his belief that he was helping others.”
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