I see now a pike in the door.
My name is George Hutchings. I'm 45 years old and I live on the Isle of Wight. I'm
married to my wife Rachel. I've got three lovely children and I've got a condition
called Charcot Marie, type 2. Life on the island to me is lovely. It's so laid back.
When we go over to the mainland we can't wait to get back over here because of the rat race
over on the mainland. It's just the cars, the volume of people, just everything.
Everyday life for me with my condition is trying to do as best as I can.
I wake up in the morning, come downstairs, make a cup of tea, say morning to the kids
before they go to school. I go out to my shed, have a little marijuana cigarette and then
after that the day is as it comes. It really gets me down. Sometimes it really gets me down
and depressed because it's all been sort of taken away from me. It's only been the last
five years that it's really hit me hard. Whereas I've been born with it. So it's been in my
body all my life. It's just suddenly come out now. It gets progressively worse and it's
a muscle wasting disease. It's affected my legs first and I've got a blatant foot drop
in both of my feet. As you can see my feet are purple. From the poor circulation it's
absolutely cold. I've also got intense muscle wasting on my calves and my upper thighs.
They say if it wastes above the knee, which it is, I'm going to be in a wheelchair.
It takes 27 seconds to get up here. When you're bursting through a pee, it's terrible hangar.
I've got to wear a leg splint on both of my legs. That's a foot plate to stop my feet
from dropping. I've got to do this every single day and I keep them on until I go to bed.
I still hate being like this. I absolutely hate it but you get on. You get on with it
and that's why they call me Smiler because I've always got a smile on my face.
This is a week's worth of prescription tablets that my doctors and GP have prescribed me
which is like the legal route of my pain. Tramadol which is a very strong opiate.
Quinine bisulfate which is the help of my cramps. Pregalabatin which is these ones
which is the help of nerve damage. Zoccalins which is a sleeping tablet.
So each day I woke up after taking a cocktail of prescription drugs, I would be just a
zombie really, just unable to cope and the stress and harm it does to my liver and kidneys
and other internal organs so I decided to stop all my prescription tablets and go smoke in cannabis.
My damn knees are haze. This is what I smoke during the day. This is what gets me going
like yesterday. I sort of overdone it a bit and ended up cleaning the house, hoovering
up, dusting, washing. The wife says to me, slow down, slow down and I says, nah. I do
as much as I can while I can because once I'm in a wheelchair I won't be able to do nothing.
People say that marijuana makes you lazy. It doesn't. It just depends on the strains
and it just depends on the person that's smoking it. It's brilliant. I find it absolutely brilliant.
A wonder drug. It helps with my cramps in my muscles. It helps with my cramps in my hamstrings.
It helps with my spasticity in my legs. It helps me with my diet. It helps me sleep at
night. It helps me with my depression because I'll get quite down sometimes. It helps me
go to the toilet. I find it the best laxative in the world. I find it helps me with my sex
drive. I don't have to take different tablets to get an erection. I find it more beneficial
than any of the tablets that I'm prescribed that my doctors want me to take that is legal.
Under the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 they class cannabis, cannabinoids, cannabis resin,
cannabis oil, cannabis in a raw form as there's no medicinal value at all in it. If you get
caught with it, cultivation with the supplier you're looking at up to 14 years.
I grow my own cannabis because a few reasons really. One is because I don't like the stuff
you buy off the street. You don't know what it's contaminated with. You don't know what
kind of strain it is. It's also very satisfying. It's like if you grow your own vegetables.
You plant the seeds, you grow the seed. You look after that plant until it's ready to
harvest, then you chop it down and there's nothing more satisfying than eating your
own grown product or smoking your own grown product. You stand there and you look at it
and you think, that's my medication. I grew that. I always grow nine or less because of
the sensors and guidelines and it's never enough. It's never enough. It always runs out
so I end up having to go out and get it on the streets which then I don't know what
I'm getting. I don't like to break the law. It's just a case of having to break the law
to get a medicine that I know works for me. EU residents are allowed to come into our
country with their prescribed medical marijuana but it's not OK for UK residents to do it.
I'd love to have an import-export licence so I can go over to Holland and pick it up
and legally bring it back. I would like my doctors to prescribe it so I could go to
my local pharmacy and pick it up. When I contacted the home office they'd said to me,
you do not need an import-export licence if it's under three months supply. You just
need a letter from your prescribing doctor. We've just flown in from UK to Amsterdam.
With my private prescription it's for 60 grams of bed robin. They've got the cameras on
there at the moment so we're getting really bad in a minute.
I've just picked up my medication today and when we fly back tonight I'm going to openly
declare it to Patreon Customs in the UK. The documents I'll be taking to the airports
with me are my private prescription for my UK doctor, a medical passport, another form
that the Dutch doctors give me so it can clear customs and all the doctors reports and diagnosis
of my condition. I'm hoping to get through. If that's the flip of a coin that's heads
or tails, heads you win, tails you lose, the worst they could do is confiscate the medication
and if they arrest me then they arrest me but I think that's the worst they can do.
It would be better if I could come through because then I can now let other people know
that they can go ahead and do this. So that's my motivation for coming over and doing this.
It's just for myself because I'm sick and ill and for the other sick people across the country.
I had to phone on the red channel
and then the customs officers from Southampton Airport come through, they searched my bag,
took all my paperwork, just kept just waiting and waiting. After about two hours they've
come out and said they're confiscating it because it's illegal in this country, it's
a class B drug. Even though it's for medical matters and not a criminal matter, I've just
spent a whole week in Amsterdam trying to get this medication. It cost me 500 euros to
get the medication. I've come back on the plane, I've cleared all the other customs
but when I come back into the UK they just take it off me. I signed a few papers and
they said you're free to go but if it happens again we will arrest you and you'll be prosecuted.
I hope you've cleared it, I can't understand.
I'm hoping the outcome of all this, what I've done over the last few months regarding trying
to get my medication from Holland is that hopefully they will open their eyes to this
now and realise that we need this as a medication, we need this. It's barbaric the way the laws
are in this country regarding marijuana. They're lovely out here.
Thank you.
