Sunday Independent August 16 2009
A Irishman suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS) can’t come home because his medication includes cannabis-based drugs.
Noel McCullagh, originally from Ballinasloe, Co Galway, has been told by the Irish authorities that he will be arrested if he attempts to bring his legally prescribed medication, Bediol and Bedrocan, prescribed in Holland, into Ireland.
The social inclusion unit of the HSE have told the 33-year-old that he will be arrested if he attempts to come home to his family for a visit with the medication.
But Noel McCullagh is adamant that he is not making a ‘political football’ of the issue; his life is at stake. Without the medication he is crippled with pain, at risk of convulsive seizures, and in danger of a deadly bout of encephalitis, which took the life of his baby sister Carmen.
Mr McCullough, a journalist who lives in Holland, previously required a walking stick to get around, but thanks to his medication he now cycles everywhere, and he swims 2km a day.
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