Bertrand Rambaud grows and smokes cannabis to relieve the side effects of his treatment for HIV and hepatitis C. He was sentenced Monday for drug use.
On his Facebook page, he posted a converting photo: “Our struggles have built our rights. Our resignations will destroy them. Let’s mobilize! This is the credo of Bertrand Rambaud, an AIDS patient suffering from hepatitis C. President of the main association for therapeutic cannabis and organizer of conferences devoted to cannabinoids in medicine, he was arrested on April 2, 2014 and placed in custody for one day and deprived of his treatment, thus causing violent vomiting. The patient was indicted for possession of cannabis. Despite a petition on the site of change.org who collected 3,700 signatures, Bertrand Rambaud failed to convince the courts of the merits of his request.
Sentenced but exempted from punishment
This fifty-year-old, who chairs the French-speaking Union for cannabinoids in medicine (UFCM-I-Care), was indeed sentenced on Monday before the Strasbourg Criminal Court for use of narcotics, but exempted from punishment.
A lenient judgment, however, since the representative of the prosecution, Sébastien Hauger, had requested three months suspended prison sentence against the defendant, stressing that the role of the courts was not “to expand the pharmacopoeia.” “The latter had thus pleaded against a dispensation of sentence, considering that such a decision would send the message of a” de facto decriminalization. “
A call to ask again for a release
So, in a way, the arguments of both parties have been heard by the courts. Even Me Joseph Bréham, who indicated that “without cannabis, the accused” cannot take the drugs that keep him alive “, thus pleading the release in the name of” the state of necessity. “For his part, the main person said at the bar:” I respect the law of my country, except that which puts me in danger. ”
In the end, so far, only three courts in France have granted discharge to patients tried for similar facts, but “there is no case law from the Court of Cassation,” said Bertrand Rambaud. And the latter concludes by indicating that “we want to obtain a decision in principle saying that in France, when you are sick, you can consume cannabis. For this reason, he and his lawyer decided to appeal this symbolic sentence by asking for a new release.
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