Court: Patients May Not Use Pot Legally?

US: WASHINGTON - People who smoke marijuana because their doctors recommend it to ease pain can be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, overriding medical marijuana statutes in 10 states.

The court's 6-3 decision was filled with sympathy for two seriously ill California women who brought the case, but the majority agreed that federal agents may arrest even sick people who use the drug as well as the people who grow pot for them.

Justice John Paul Stevens, an 85-year-old cancer survivor, said the court was not passing judgment on the potential medical benefits of marijuana, and he noted ``the troubling facts'' in the case. However, he said the Constitution allows federal regulation of homegrown marijuana as interstate commerce.

The Bush administration has taken a hard stand against state medical marijuana laws, but it was unclear how it would respond to the new prosecutorial power. Justice Department spokesman John Nowacki would not say whether prosecutors would pursue cases against individual users.

In a dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said the court's "overreaching stifles an express choice by some states, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently.''

The women who brought the case expressed defiance.

"I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing. I don't really have a choice but to, because if I stop using cannabis, I would die,'' said Angel Raich of Oakland, Calif., who suffers from ailments including scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea, fatigue and pain. She says she smokes marijuana every few hours.

Diane Monson, an accountant who lives near Oroville, Calif., has degenerative spine disease and grows her own marijuana plants. "I'm going to have to be prepared to be arrested,'' she said.

The ruling does not strike down California's law, or similar ones in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. However, it may hurt efforts to pass laws in other states because the federal government's prosecution authority trumps states' wishes.

John Walters, director of national drug control policy, defended the government's ban. "Science and research have not determined that smoking marijuana is safe or effective,'' he said.

California's law, passed by voters in 1996, allows people to grow, smoke or obtain marijuana for medical needs with a doctor's recommendation. Monson and Raich contend that traditional medicines do not provide the relief that marijuana does.

California has been the battleground state for medical marijuana. In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled in a California case that the federal government could prosecute distributors despite their claim that the activity was protected by medical necessity.

Two years later the justices rejected a Bush administration appeal that sought power to punish doctors for recommending the drug to sick patients. That case, too, was from California.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer said Monday that "people shouldn't panic ... there aren't going to be many changes.''

Local and state officers handle nearly all marijuana prosecutions and must still follow any state laws that protect patients.

"I think it would look bad if the federal government focused its prosecution authority on a sick person,'' said Daniel Abrahamson, with the Drug Policy Alliance. "Individual patients growing for their own purposes have not been the targets of the federal authorities. We hope that it stays that way.''

The government has arrested more than 60 people in medical marijuana raids since September 2001, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Congress could be the next stop for the debate.

While there are other legal options for patients, Stevens wrote, 'perhaps even more important than these legal avenues is the democratic process, in which the voices of voters allied with these (California women) may one day be heard in the halls of Congress.''

Still, even supporters say it is unlikely Congress would pass a law allowing physicians to prescribe marijuana.

O'Connor was joined in her dissent by two other states' rights advocates: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas. While conservatives may not necessarily support medical marijuana, they have pushed to broaden states' rights in recent years.

O'Connor, who like Rehnquist has had cancer, said she would have opposed California's medical marijuana law if she were a voter or a legislator. But she said the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use.''

Thomas said the ruling was so broad "the federal government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives and potluck suppers throughout the 50 states.''

The case was hatched when Monson's backyard crop of six marijuana plants was seized by federal agents in 2002. She and Raich sued then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, asking for a court order letting them smoke, grow or obtain marijuana without fear of arrest, home raids or other intrusion by federal authorities.

They claimed protection under the Constitution, which says Congress may pass laws regulating a state's economic activity so long as it involves ``interstate commerce'' that crosses state borders.

The case is Gonzales v. Raich, 03-1454.

By GINA HOLLAND 8 June 05

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Grandma's cooking pot

Marrakesh Chicken (Recipe Below)

Patricia Tabram last week became a convicted drug dealer for serving casseroles and cakes laced with cannabis to her friends. But, as she tells Laura Barton, she's unrepentant - the drug has solved her health problems.

UK: 'There is a new strain of very strong cannabis called organic skunk," Patricia Tabram explains of the crucial ingredient in her controversial cookery range. "Before I had the privilege of being able to obtain the organic skunk, I used one quarter of a level teaspoon of powdered fresh cannabis bud. Now I only use five-eighths of a level teaspoon of the organic skunk - that's half of what you'd put in a cannabis cigarette, so I have no way of getting high and it keeps me pain-free for 24 hours."

On Friday, the 66-year-old from Hunshaugh, Northumberland, was given a six-month suspended prison sentence for cooking an array of cannabis-laced culinary delights for her friends, four elderly MS sufferers.

She was rumbled, she says, by a police informer on her street and remains utterly unrepentant.

"Cannabis lifts depression! Queen Victoria used it for her period pains!" Now she is hoping to tackle the secretary of state for Wales, Peter Hain, on the electoral battleground of his Neath constituency, on a platform denouncing most mainstream medicine. (She is standing in Wales for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, which is targeting the principality as a key battleground.)

"Since I started medicating with cannabis I don't use my walking stick any more, I don't wear my neck collar, I don't wear my hearing aid."

Tabram recalls quite vividly the first time she tried cannabis. "Originally, I suffered terrible depression after the death of my son when he was 14," she says. "And my husband had died and I had nursed my mother till she died, and I was placed on medication for the depression. Then I started to develop arthritis in my knees, and was placed on another kind of medication for that. And I developed - from the combination of medication - a lumpy red rash around my face, tinnitus, lost the hair from the top of my head and had very bad bruising on my arms and legs, blood in my stools and bleeding from my waterworks area. When you get up close to my face I look like an ugly old fossil.

"A year gone February, I was lying in bed and I was very depressed. And I said, how can I kill myself easy and quick? And I thought about alcohol and I thought about pills. But then I remembered a film called Thelma and Louise and I thought, that's what I'll do: I'll drive to South Shields where I was born; I'll drive along the coast road and I'll rev my car up and I'll drive off the cliff, and no one will get hurt because it's February and there'll be no one on the beach."

Before she could do so, however, a neighbour called round, concerned that she hadn't seen Tabram for a while. Worried by the physical and mental state in which she found her, the neighbour sought out a cannabis cigarette to calm her down. "I took one puff," she says, "and you know Tweety Pie? How her head is bigger than her body? I felt like that, and I started giggling and singing." Though she didn't enjoy smoking or being high, she did note that it improved her sleep, lifted the fug of her depression and significantly reduced her physical pain. She asked her friend whether there was any other way of taking it and was told that she might try cooking with it. Soon afterwards she found two cannabis recipe books in a shop in Newcastle. The problem was that they were recipes for people who wanted to get stoned.

"I started with scrambled egg, and I put in one teaspoon of cannabis and of course I threw it all up straight away. I never made that mistake again."

She has made other mistakes, too, in what she describes as her "voyage" of cannabis investigation.

In October, she spent two days in London, the first time in months that she had been without her "medicated" meals. and without her pain relief, Tabram noticed she had something of a toothache. The cannabis had so successfully masked the extent of her dental problem, that she had to have all of her bottom teeth removed. Consequently, she now uses cannabis only five days a week, "because I think if I have an appendix that wants to go off it will tell me on a weekend, won't it?"

And yet Tabram's habit has the unfortunate complication of being very explicitly illegal. Doesn't she worry about the fact that she now has a criminal record for supply? Tabram prefers not to engage herself with all that, repeating instead her assurance that conventional medicine has countless ghastly side- effects, and citing eye-popping figures of the many thousands it supposedly kills each year. "The government are so silly about cannabis - I believe it's because the pharmaceutical companies would go bankrupt if they legalised it."

As for her recipes, her best one, she says, is chocolate-chip cake, but her culinary repertoire extends to starters, main courses, biscuits, cakes and desserts. Meanwhile, her new-found fame has meant she has not had to actually buy any cannabis for two and a half months."You know," she insists, "that NHS medication has up to 85 side-effects? That is why Grandma eats cannabis."

Cannabis cuisine ... Tabram's recipes

Leek & potato soup with cannabis

4 medium-sized leeks
2oz butter
4 small potatoes
1 pint of water
1 pint of chicken stock
Salt & pepper
1 pint of double cream to which add 1 level tsp of powdered cannabis

1. Wash and trim the leeks and chop into small pieces using both white and green parts.

2. Melt the butter in a pan and add the leeks. Cover the pan and reduce heat so that the leeks cook slowly without browning, for about five minutes. Shake the pan occasionally.

3. At the same time, peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes, then add to the leeks with the water and stock. Add salt and pepper.

4. Bring the soup to the boil, cover the pan and simmer for 25 minutes.

5. Liquidise the soup and return it to the pan.

6. Add cream and heat, but do not allow the soup to boil.

Serves 4

Chicken Maryland with cannabis

2lb of roasting chicken in portions Salt & pepper
Plain flour
1 egg
2-3oz fresh breadcrumbs
2-3oz butter to which add half a level tsp of powdered cannabis
Oil for frying

Garnish:
2-3 bananas
1oz butter
1tin of creamed sweetcorn

1. Place the cannabis butter between the flesh and skin of each portion of chicken, then carefully replace skin.

2. Season the outside of the chicken with salt and pepper, then dust with flour.

3. Beat the egg, and dip in the chicken portions, followed by dusting with the flour.

4. Fry in the just-hot oil, until golden brown.

5. Peel and quarter the bananas and fry in butter.

6. Heat creamed sweetcorn and serve as sauce.

Serves 4

Picture: Marrakesh Chicken

3 tbsp butter 45 ml
1 tbsp oil 15 ml
2 chicken breasts 2
2 onions, sliced 2
1 can (19 oz/540 ml) chickpeas 1
4 cups chicken or vegetable stock 1L
2 tbsp browned cannabis 30 ml
1/2 tsp pepper 2 ml
1/2 tsp turmeric 2 ml
1/4 tsp ground ginger 1 ml
1/8 tsp saffron .5 ml
3 cups peeled turnips, in 1 1/2 inch chunks 750 ml
2 cups chopped turnip greens (or spinach) 500 ml
1/4 cup lemon juice 60 ml
1/4 cup chopped parsley 60 ml

By Medicinal Herb posted 15 April 05

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Medical trials of cannabis show positive results

UK: Call for further drug research on multiple sclerosis

Research could soon show that cannabis could be a helpful long-term treatment for multiple sclerosis sufferers. Patients who took part in a 15-week study - published in the Lancet last year - went on to try the effectiveness of the banned drug, [herb], for a 52-week course, John Zajicek of the Peninsula medical school told the British Association science festival which ended in Exeter.

"Initial results of the longer-term study are positive and will be published in the near future. In the short-term study, there was some evidence of cannabinoids alleviating symptoms of multiple sclerosis; in the longer term there is a suggestion of a more useful beneficial effect, which was not clear at the initial stage," he said in a statement.

"I hope these results will encourage support of further studies of cannabinoids in multiple sclerosis and, potentially, other diseases."

Cannabis has been used as a medical treatment for at least as long as it has been a recreational drug, [herb.]

Queen Victoria is supposed to have used it for period pains. It was sometimes used in childbirth and a poignant archaeological discovery in the Middle East revealed cannabis remnants near the body of a young woman who probably died in childbirth 5,000 years ago.

Cancer patients have claimed that cannabis could help suppress nausea after chemotherapy. Glaucoma sufferers have claimed it relieves pressure on the eyeball and delays the onset of blindness. Animal experiments have suggested the drug slows nerve cell death. And many multiple sclerosis sufferers have been using it, illegally, to relieve the pain and stiffness of their slow progression towards helplessness.

Once it became clear that cannabis-like chemicals were produced naturally in the human nervous system to control appetite and facilitate nerve cell communication, researchers began to understand why a folk remedy could be medically effective. But clinical evidence in randomised double-blind trials has been rare. "We set out to establish whether there was any scientific truth behind that," Dr Zajicek said.

A total of 667 patients took part in a short-term study. More than 500 agreed to go on to longer trials. The patients were given either capsules containing cannabis extract, an active component of the drug called THC, or sugar pills. The chief aim had been relief of muscle stiffness.

"But we also wanted to look at the other symptoms, including pain, bladder disturbance and measures of disability," he said. "From the patient's symptomatic point of view there was beneficial effect but we couldn't prove that from an independent assessment by a physiotherapist of muscle stiffness."

So they continued the trials: the results could be published in a few weeks' time. Researchers are notoriously unwilling to discuss results before they have been reviewed by their peers and published formally in a scientific journal. "What I can say at the moment is that there does seem to be evidence of some beneficial effect in the longer term that we didn't anticipate in the short term study."

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Between moments of pungent humour, The Barbarian Invasions is a confronting movie. Facing a painful death to cancer, Remy, a self-described "socialist, hedonist lecher", accepts Montreal's crumbling, cramped public health system as his left-wing fate.

Until his estranged son, a rich investment banker - a "capitalist, ambitious prude", says Remy - jets in from London to make his father's last days more comfortable.

Sebastien learns from a doctor friend that heroin will be "800 per cent more powerful" than morphine - the standard fare dispensed by doctors to cancer patients. And so he seeks out the dealers and users necessary to secure heroin for Remy.

When it comes to helping those with painful terminal illness, the story will be sadly familiar to many in Australia. My father died of cancer, like more than 35,000 Australians each year. And like many others, he died in pain. It is hard to know what hurt him most. The pain that grew in his spine and, in the end, seemed to rack his entire body. The pain that he would never see his family again. Or the knowledge that we would watch his painful demise.

Like Remy, doctors only offered my father morphine to relieve his pain. Different sorts with different names, my family and I administered it to him in ever increasing doses, doubling, sometimes tripling what doctors advised. Morphine chased his pain. And sometimes caught it. When it didn't, it was dreadful. If minutes were like hours for us, I cannot imagine how it was for him. I know one thing: he needed more than what doctors offered him. Watching The Barbarian Invasions, I felt I had failed him for not traipsing the streets for heroin. If it could have relieved his physical pain or stoic mental suffering, that would have been a godsend.

Australia has an irrational history when it comes to using heroin for those dying in pain. In May 1953, the Menzies government prohibited its importation after pressure from the World Health Organisation, in turn under pressure from the US, where a burgeoning drug problem was emerging. Yet in Australia there was no drug problem to speak of; instead heroin was used to manage serious pain, especially for the terminally ill.

The ban went ahead despite objections from the director-general of health in NSW that "heroin ... is quite effectively controlled in this state and ... I see no justification to enforce absolute prohibition". And despite similar protests by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the predecessor to the Australian Medical Association, then the Australian Federal Council of the British Medical Association.

Ever since, heroin has been lost to the moral battlefield of illicit drugs.

Once banned, it was a drug with no legitimate role, one that junkies use and drug criminals deal in. What strikes me as more criminal is that, in 2004, the terminally ill still die in pain. Irrational responses get in the way of treating their pain. On the one hand, politicians parade their massive heroin hauls, piles of white bricks, as wins in the tough war on drugs. On the other, they help drug addicts on the street shoot up, providing them with clean needles and clean rooms. Those left out in the cold are the terminally ill.

It does not require much nuance to understand that allowing doctors to administer heroin to the dying is not a slippery slope to its legalisation. Nor will it lead to a nation of addicts. Doctors prescribe prohibited substances by the hundreds. Why is heroin different? A stubborn, unthinking abstinence lobby. That is the difference.

It does not require much compassion to understand that a fear that someone you love, dying of cancer, may become addicted to heroin is less important than ensuring they are relieved of terrible pain.

Why the irrational fear? Addiction as a moral evil has little resonance for those in pain.

It does not require much political courage to suggest that if British doctors can use heroin for those dying in pain, why shouldn't Australians facing a similar fate have the same choice? Granted, prominent doctors in both Australia and Britain point to doubts about whether heroin provides better pain relief than morphine. Nurses who have given heroin to the dying have fewer doubts. I am with the nurses. They are at the coalface of suffering.

It is true that morphine is a derivative of heroin, otherwise known as diacetyl-morphine. But heroin is more soluble, entering the body faster, absorbed quickly into fatty tissue like the brain. Heroin users talk about feeling a "rush". After that initial euphoria, heroin causes an alternately wakeful and drowsy state.

I don't want junkies determining drug policy but that they favour heroin over morphine suggests that the terminally ill might also prefer it. Euphoria is the wrong word for those dying of cancer, but if heroin can offer any kind of relief, mental or physical, why not offer it?

If we do more to ease the pain of the terminally ill, it may take much of the heat out of the euthanasia debate. That too is a good thing. In the end, Remy dies at home surrounded by those who love him most, and free from pain. My father was less fortunate. His family was there. But so was that unwelcome intruder, pain. With an ounce of common sense, compassion and political pluck, perhaps it need not have ended that way.

By JANET ALBRECHTSEN 16 June 04

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Poison Ivy: Drugs and Substances
Everything is a drug love, money, vegemite, and honey so why the hang up on coke? Things go better with Coke. at least that's what we're told each and every day by advertising. [?] So why the big hang up on alcohol, amphetamines, cigarettes, marijuana, speed, ecstasy and cocaine?

Police selling drugs? Bikies selling drugs? Pharmacies prescribing drugs Of course there will be criticism when you cross that thin blue line! You have to realise how the government itself has been corrupted because of the drug scene and the money involved.

Drug rehabilitation: Threats, threats and more threats!
But a spokesperson for Citizens Against Being Forced Mr Ihave Amind Ofmyown said, "Major Watters is John Howard's adviser because he's a bully. Citizens make their own decisions about what is best for them and if you don't like that step down."

MPs told of police corruption
Corruption and mismanagement are still entrenched in the NSW Police, and problems at the highest levels are "whitewashed", according to evidence given yesterday to a federal parliamentary committee.

Alcohol is just the beginning
People who start using alcohol by their mid teens are more than twice as likely as others to experiment with different drugs and to become dependent on drugs a major Australian study has found.

Tobacco, alcohol top the drug abuse toll
Tobacco and alcohol accounted for 83 per cent of the cost of drug abuse in Australia, dwarfing the financial impact of illegal drugs, a Commonwealth Government report has found.

NSW police cracked up on antisocial behaviour
Hundreds of extra police will be on the streets of Sydney from this afternoon as part of a major blitz on crime and activities as "antisocial behaviour" says the ABC online last Fri 24 May 2002.

Alcohol pickles your brain
The only two social drugs the Government sanction are cigarettes and alcohol as legal, yet they cause the most damage." He said.

Medicinal cannabis trial approved or not marijuana still remains a big hit!

THE nation's first trial of cannabis for medical relief will begin in NSW by the end of the year, a move that Premier Bob Carr said yesterday would stop decent people feeling like criminals.

Cannabis is a herb that came from the Universe and that seed was planted on this earth for medicinal purposes, for all the people who enjoy a freedom of choice about what herbs they like to consume.

Why did and why does the government make all decent people who choose to take this herb not only feel like criminals but make them pay fines and penalties?

Carr seized on the pleas from a 62-year-old bowel cancer sufferer and an 80-year-old prostate cancer sufferer, who used the drug to relieve pain and nausea, to push the scheme in parliament.

"No decent government can stand by while fellow Australians suffer like that, while ordinary people feel like criminals for simply medicating themselves," he said during question time.

And so say all of us said Mr Bill Joint from Not Enough Isn't Enough.

"We are old enough to make the choice. Some of us middle aged and some of us towards the end of our life on this earth. Suffering like dogs because of some hypocrites who smoke behind closed doors and stand up in the house knocking the herb like it caused more problems than alcohol", he said.

Under the four-year plan, the Government will establish a new Office of Medicinal Cannabis within the Health Department.

Patients would have to register annually and would need a doctor's certificate advising that conventional treatment would not relieve their suffering.

People with minor convictions for personal drug use would be eligible to apply. But those with more serious drug convictions, or who are on parole, pregnant or under 18, would be banned.

People suffering from cancer and AIDS, nausea from chemotherapy, severe and chronic pain, spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis would be eligible.

But the questions of who will pay for the drug, and its form of distribution, are yet to be finalised. A draft bill will be presented to parliament within weeks.

Options include tablets and a special cannabis inhaler being trialed in Britain.

In authorising medicinal cannabis use, NSW will be joining countries such as the US, Canada and The Netherlands.

The plan, which follows a working party on the issue in 2000, was approved by cabinet on Monday and is understood to have received the broad approval of caucus yesterday.

It also drew in-principle support from Liberal leader John Brodgen and National Party leader Andrew Stoner, with strict conditions. The NSW Greens wanted the trial to be expanded to include children dying of degenerative disease and for non-hallucinogenic varieties to be used.

The announcement had the support of HIV sufferer Justin Brash, who began using cannabis in 1988 after his infection was diagnosed, in the hope of ending his nausea and restoring his appetite.

"I was down to 58kg and I was vomiting about six times a day," he said yesterday. "Then a friend suggested I try some marijuana. Soon after I had a smoke, the nausea was gone and I ate two bowls of noodles within about 20 minutes.

"I'm now up to a healthy 75kg and I believe that's because I'm smoking cannabis, but I'm not happy about having to use the black market to make me feel less ill."

Mr Brash, 47, said he was relieved the NSW Government had recognised the plight of sufferers of serious and terminal illnesses by offering them medicinal cannabis for pain and nausea relief.

The Greens went one step further, asking for the trial to be extended to include children with degenerative diseases and the development of non-hallucinogenic varieties.

"It is time to move beyond drug hysteria and allow sick people access to cannabis as it is the best treatment for their pain," Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said.

By Joe Bud 21 May 03

KOALA BEAR: Why discriminate about who can make a choice by the time they are 18? Why should a sick or dying person who has been convicted of a drug offence be banned from treatment if they have a history of a drug conviction? That is discrimination!

What if you happen to be in a position to be allergic to alcohol? Alcohol gives me a migraine headache, yet cannabis agrees with me and gives me a free high, that is if I don't pay $50 for it. Of course cannabis can give me a headache but only when I am in the police cells and look like getting a criminal conviction.

Related:

CWA wants pot legalised
PERCEIVED as the height of conservatism, the Country Women's Association has had a reputation for baking and handicrafts until now. The organisation yesterday confirmed it is seeking to have cannabis legalised for health reasons. A recommendation to be put forward to the annual meeting in May calls for the legalisation of the drug for the treatment of terminally ill patients.

Drunks propel rise in violent crimes! But who promotes drinking really?
Every day NSW police deal with more than 300 violent offences committed by people who are drunk and they say the number is rising. But they don't say because the government promotes alcohol and only alcohol.

Another lethal party drug article...
This is another lethal party drug article by the Daily Telegraph's (DT)'s Super Crime Buster Division, but I'll try to straighten it out a bit so you can understand it.

Poison Ivy: Drugs and Substances
Everything is a drug love, money, vegemite, and honey so why the hang up on coke? Things go better with Coke. at least that's what we're told each and every day by advertising. [?] So why the big hang up on alcohol, amphetamines, cigarettes, marijuana, speed, ecstasy and cocaine?

Police selling drugs? Bikies selling drugs? Pharmacies prescribing drugs Of course there will be criticism when you cross that thin blue line! You have to realise how the government itself has been corrupted because of the drug scene and the money involved.

Drug rehabilitation: Threats, threats and more threats!
But a spokesperson for Citizens Against Being Forced Mr Ihave Amind Ofmyown said, "Major Watters is John Howard's adviser because he's a bully. Citizens make their own decisions about what is best for them and if you don't like that step down."

MPs told of police corruption
Corruption and mismanagement are still entrenched in the NSW Police, and problems at the highest levels are "whitewashed", according to evidence given yesterday to a federal parliamentary committee.

Alcohol is just the beginning
People who start using alcohol by their mid teens are more than twice as likely as others to experiment with different drugs and to become dependent on drugs a major Australian study has found.

Tobacco, alcohol top the drug abuse toll
Tobacco and alcohol accounted for 83 per cent of the cost of drug abuse in Australia, dwarfing the financial impact of illegal drugs, a Commonwealth Government report has found.

NSW police cracked up on antisocial behaviour
Hundreds of extra police will be on the streets of Sydney from this afternoon as part of a major blitz on crime and activities as "antisocial behaviour" says the ABC online last Fri 24 May 2002.

Alcohol pickles your brain
The only two social drugs the Government sanction are cigarettes and alcohol as legal, yet they cause the most damage." He said.

CWA wants pot legalised

PERCEIVED as the height of conservatism, the Country Women's Association has had a reputation for baking and handicrafts until now. The organisation yesterday confirmed it is seeking to have cannabis legalised for health reasons. A recommendation to be put forward to the annual meeting in May calls for the legalisation of the drug for the treatment of terminally ill patients.

The CWA, keen to reinvent itself and become more attractive to new members, is seeking to change its identity. This year saw the first appointment of a man as its head, with Colin Coakley appointed as general secretary.

While the CWA has long been seen as conservative, Mr Coakley said the perception was incorrect, with the organisation advocating heroin use for the same reason in the past. "This will go to the conference and if accepted will become policy," he said. "It's specific, this isn't a statement on cannabis generally, but for medicinal purposes only.

What they are looking at is cases where it can assist people that are terminally ill." A long-standing relationship with cancer sufferers has led to the proposal, with money raised from craft sales going to related charities and organisations.

Hemp advocate Phil Warner said the plant was severely underutilised in Australia, because of the negative connotations associated with the drug.

Managing Director of Ecofibre, he said the company was about to begin exporting hemp based ice cream and muesli, which is legal in most western countries and made from plants which do not contain drug properties.

There were enormous benefits for cannabis use in the medicinal arena, he said, and in the United Kingdom scientists have perfected a technique to use cannabis as a pain killer, without the euphoric effects. The Australian company has begun work in conjunction with Southern Cross University mapping the DNA of the plant.

A State Government report into cannabis use for medicinal purposes called for greater trials of the drug before it was approved. A spokesman for Premier Bob Carr yesterday said the State Government would address the use of cannabis as a health drug in the next three months, following the developments in the UK and the report.

The NSW Council of churches rejected increased use of the drug under the report's recommendations, fearful it would lead to wider community acceptance. However, nothing was said in relation to the overburdening alcohol problem that kills up to 4000 people a year legally. Actual deaths recorded from 1989-99 4,286 from alcohol.

Ray Roach President of Where Old Enough to Vote said, "Enough was known about cannabis effects on people, with fears it could lead to schizophrenia in one percent of the population.

Those people who are allergic to it have to choose herbs that agree with them like parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme when they're dieing of cancer."

He said. "Enough is known about alcohol, which leads to madness causing 4000 deaths a year.

Alcohol is a man made drug that pickles your brain. So now its time to see what it is about herb's that are so inviting. Perhaps its because God put them there and the fact that its not man made? Medicinal purposes of course. Isn't that why we take herbs?"

By Dr Herb Bud 15 April 03

KOALA BEAR: It's really all about variety. Just think of yourself as a tree climber getting rained on and perhaps with the wind blowing through your fur. From extreme to extreme slowly breaking down as you get older. Now suck a gum leave because of its remedy. Instead of getting uptight about life, just lay on a branch and go to sleep. See the problem is fixed.

Related:

Drunks propel rise in violent crimes! But who promotes drinking really?
Every day NSW police deal with more than 300 violent offences committed by people who are drunk and they say the number is rising. But they don't say because the government promotes alcohol and only alcohol.

Another lethal party drug article...
This is another lethal party drug article by the Daily Telegraph's (DT)'s Super Crime Buster Division, but I'll try to straighten it out a bit so you can understand it.

Poison Ivy: Drugs and Substances
Everything is a drug love, money, vegemite, and honey so why the hang up on coke? Things go better with Coke. at least that's what we're told each and every day by advertising. [?] So why the big hang up on alcohol, amphetamines, cigarettes, marijuana, speed, ecstasy and cocaine?

Police selling drugs? Bikies selling drugs? Pharmacies prescribing drugs Of course there will be criticism when you cross that thin blue line! You have to realise how the government itself has been corrupted because of the drug scene and the money involved.

Drug rehabilitation: Threats, threats and more threats!
But a spokesperson for Citizens Against Being Forced Mr Ihave Amind Ofmyown said, "Major Watters is John Howard's adviser because he's a bully. Citizens make their own decisions about what is best for them and if you don't like that step down."

MPs told of police corruption
Corruption and mismanagement are still entrenched in the NSW Police, and problems at the highest levels are "whitewashed", according to evidence given yesterday to a federal parliamentary committee.

Alcohol is just the beginning
People who start using alcohol by their mid teens are more than twice as likely as others to experiment with different drugs and to become dependent on drugs a major Australian study has found.

Tobacco, alcohol top the drug abuse toll
Tobacco and alcohol accounted for 83 per cent of the cost of drug abuse in Australia, dwarfing the financial impact of illegal drugs, a Commonwealth Government report has found.

NSW police cracked up on antisocial behaviour
Hundreds of extra police will be on the streets of Sydney from this afternoon as part of a major blitz on crime and activities as "antisocial behaviour" says the ABC online last Fri 24 May 2002.

Alcohol pickles your brain
The only two social drugs the Government sanction are cigarettes and alcohol as legal, yet they cause the most damage." He said.