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 Dear Mr Brown,
As I said in the faxes that I sent to your Downing Street Office today: We are not going away!
We will not be ignored!
Nor will we continue to suffer in silence! We demand to seek an audience with you, and for you and your advisors to listen to us. The current persecution of medicinal cannabis users in this country is appaling. Your government has been literally killing people. I will add to this thread all attempts that Humedi members have made to contact you. Please consider any correspondence between us to be considered open letters, and they will be released immediately to the public domain for all to see. Transparency is what New Labour was meant to be about. We will tell the country our story, giving facts, not fiction. Truth, not spin. And if you thought that by hiding behind closed doors and telephone operators would make me go away, then I am sorry to inform you that you were very mistaken. [UPDATED Sunday 22/7] [This form of activism is currently on hold, whilst the country copes with the serious floods. The "Smoke-in" has also been postponed]
----- I have tried on numerous occasions to phone the Houses of Parliament, and also Downing Street and ask to be put through to Gordon Browns' office. On each occasion, I have been met with brick walls. I know that I will be unlikley to speak to hm on the telephone in person, but he has aides, advisors and people who work in the office. I just wanted to speak to a human being! I called the House of Commons switchboard today to see if I could speak to anyone in his office there, but there was no answer. The operator did not have the means to take a message, but gave me the telephone number to the Downing Street switchboard. 
0207 276 3000 I dialled the number, and asked the operator there for the office of Gordon Brown. The operator asked if my call was expected. I said no, stating that unless my call was expected, or I had the name of the person who I wanted to speak to, he could not transfer my call. "Ok, I'd like to speak to Gordon Brown please.".... I asked.... He refused. Why? I knew his name... I mentioned something about the government is meant to be there for its citizens, and that they are servants to the people... why wont they speak to us? After realising that I would not hang up, he did ask me to email. I told him that I already had emailed the office. He then gave me a magic fax number to Gordons office. 020 7925 0918 This fax number will create a printout, directly in his office!! So, I resent the original email that I sent him: Dear Mr Brown,
I have heard on the news with interest, your plans to reclassify cannabis to a grade B drug. I have also read the replies to the online petitions regarding your planned 'crack-down' on cannabis use.
I am a medicinal user, who has tried all the NHS medication that your government has to offer, and it almost killed me last year. It drove me insane.
I currently use cannabis, and only cannabis to control the symptoms of my illness - which is yet to be fully diagnosed by your health service after 2 years! It looks like it might be MS.
I am the founder of Humanitarian Medicinal Distribution ([url]http://humedi.org.uk[/url]). Humedi is a growing self-help network of medicinal users, who help each other source clean medication.
In this unregulated world of black market cannabis, medicinal users (who have NO CHOICE but to take cannabis) often have to run the gauntlet of being 'ripped off', or worse, buying dangerously contaminated cannabis.
This needs to change. Scientific FACT proves the medicinal properties of cannabis, and many health professionals agree with this. In 2001, the House of Lords, in the strongest possible words, advised your government to stop persecuting medicinal cannabis users, and to make cannabis medicine available to them. Yet we see you prosecute 70 year old sick grandmothers... why?
Humedi are planning to visit London to meet you in person. There are many members who wish to take part... We have been ignored and persecuted for so long, but we are not going to go away. For every one person you prosecute, many are standing up to take their place.
I am aware that you may be just blind to the truth, but there is also talk that party donations from pharmacutical companies (the ones who will lose out if cannabis becomes legalised) are the only reason it is being denied to us.
I can be contacted on [removed], or [removed]. I will allow a few days for you to read this (as I know you are a busy man), then I will be phoning your office every couple of hours, every day, until you arrange a time to meet with us, and spend at least half an hour listening to our points of view.
If you fail to agree to meet with us, we will come en-masse to your front door, and camp there until you do listen to us.
I'm not threatening you, Im just trying to make you aware of how strongly we feel about this situation.
Please have a look at http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=9203959819698334782 - it is a documentary featuring myself, Pat Tabram (the 70 year old grandmother who was prosecuted) and Lezley Gibson (who ran THC4MS until it was stamped out by the government).
I look forward to a speedy reply,
Yours sincerely,
Stuart Denzil Wyatt
I then sent a followup fax: Dear Mr Brown,
I would also like to inform you that I have tried for the past couple of days to actually speak to a human being in your Downing Street and Parliament offices, so that I can discuss the outline of our arguments regarding medicinal cannabis prohibition.
Unless our call is expected, we are denied be put through. Unless we know of a name of the person who we wish to speak to, again, they will not put us through. I did ask to speak to you, but they refused (Why - I knew your name). I asked to leave a message. Again, they refused. It doesn't look good does it?
May I remind you that we are meant to be living in a democracy, and that you are (believe it or not) employed by the nation as our servant. When an employer wishes to speak to an employee, it is the norm for the employee to respect the wishes of the employer. I would like to state in the strongest words, that we will not go away, nor will we be continued to be persecuted and ignored.
We are currently searching on the internet for the names of the people who work in your Downing Street office. Once these names have been sourced, we will telephone you, en-masse, until we manage to speak to someone who is prepared to listen to us.
Already, there are plans afoot to set up a permanent camp in central London as early as next week, where we will stay until your government sorts out the ridiculous situation regarding cannabis prohibition.
I have passed on your fax number to other Humedi members, and posted it on a number of pro-cannabis internet forums. I expect that other cannabis users will also pen their views and send them to your office.
I would like to ask, in the strongest possible way, for you to have the courtesy to get in contact with me asap.
Yours sincerely.
Stuart Wyatt
Humanitarian Medicinal Distribution (http://humedi.org.uk) Since the faxes were sent, the telephones at Downing Street have been set to answer only (Sarah Martin tried this afternoon). No human being has offered to listen to me, or take down my details, or offered to get someone to call me back. So please Mr Brown, I urge you to do the decent thing, and talk to us. This article will be updated as and when events happen. 
UPDATE: Sunday 22/7 2:38pm Myself and Neil Morgan took it in turns to call the switchboard at No.10, and are refusing to hang up until we get to speak to a human being who can take our details to call us back (they even refuse that courtesy!). I lasted 7 minutes in my last telephone call. Neil lasted 3 minutes in his last one, but he phoned back to make up for lost time :) The telephone number has been listed on a few pro-cannabis forums, and people are going to be taking it in shifts to tie up the system until someone actually speaks to us. Eventually, we are put through to an answering machine, which states that Mr Brown does not accept telephone calls to his office, and that the only contact is via email or fax. This is not good enough... so we will keep phoning him until he decides to change the ridiculous closed-door policy in Downing Street. All we want is to speak to a human being!.... |
