Judge Gives Man Who Suffers From Bone Disease Probation For Possessing $5 Worth Of Weed

An Irish man who only had roughly $5 worth of marijuana has pleaded guilty in court after police searched his home.

According to Newsweek, 54-year-old Paul Lee of County Cork, Ireland, has osteoporosis. The bone disease can cause a person to experience a considerable amount of pain, and in Lee’s case, he opted to use small amounts of cannabis to alleviate some of it.

The news outlet reports Lee moved to Ireland several years ago to escape a heroin addiction he developed when he was younger. While a doctor did prescribe Lee painkillers, the medication was “of an opiate-based nature,” explained Lee’s lawyer Eamonn Fleming during a court hearing regarding the matter of Lee possessing marijuana.

During court, Lee mentioned that he is currently waiting on the results of an MRI he had done because of the pain he was suffering from due to bone disease. Because of the prescribed medication’s “opiate-based nature,” Lee explained that he was afraid of using it because of his past heroin addiction, which the medication could trigger. “He is afraid of that, and so he doesn’t take it,” the lawyer added. Lee said that he was in a “Catch-22” situation.

Lee told the court that he’d been using CBD oils with “a small amount of illegal drugs,” seemingly referring to the marijuana he was using. Newsweek reports that CBD oil, when combined with THC, is often more effective at alleviating pain.

Despite scientific evidence and Lee’s evidence, the judge, John King, said that he would not consider community service as a punishment until he knows Lee “is clean.” Lee’s attorney proposed community services. Lee has five convictions on his record related to cannabis. Instead, King ordered Lee to go through probation with two random urine tests scheduled later in the year. According to Newsweek, Ireland still defines cannabis as an “illicit drug,” however, it was recently made available for limited medical use.