Legalise some drugs, outlaw others?

[DB008]

Marijuana Gate-Way Drug myth debunked

="http://www.mpp.org/assets/pdfs/li...p.org/assets/pdfs/library/GatewayDebunked.pdf

Predictors of Marijuana Use in Adolescents Before and After Licit Drug Use: Examination of the Gateway Hypothesis Tarter, et al. American Journal of Psychiatry (2006)

In fact, some researchers believe that it is marijuana’s illegal status that is the real gateway. Because marijuana is illegal, those who seek to buy it must obtain it from criminal drug dealers who often maintain an inventory of other drugs and have an incentive to expand their market to new users. This exposure to the illicit market ”” and peer groups that are willing to engage in drug use ”” can lead individuals to use of more dangerous drugs. Researchers also identified socio-economic factors like employment and educational attainment influence the likelihood of substance abuse. Marijuana’s illegal status means that an arrest for marijuana possession, and the collateral educational and employment consequences that come with it, could lead to later substance use.


Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
Joy, et al. for the Institute of Medicine, part of American Academy of Sciences,
National Academies Press (1999)

“In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation of other illicit drug use, it is indeed a ‘gateway’ drug. But because underage smoking and alcohol use typically precede marijuana use, marijuana is not the most common, and is rarely the first ‘gateway’” to illicit drug use. There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."...It does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association. There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone on the basis of its particular physiological effect…Instead, the legal status of marijuana makes it a gateway drug.”

Marijuana: The illegal medicine

A former drug squad detective has spoken out about acquiring marijuana for his terminally ill son and fighting the government to legalise the drug.

I won't be voting for any political party that has these members in them....

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=816136168397299&set=a.199212560089666.52207.198416696835919&type=1

https://au.news.yahoo.com/sunday-night/features/a/24234836/marijuana-the-illegal-medicine/

Radio DJ Alan Jones regarding the Sunday Night program and his input. Well done. A right-wing radio shock jock sees the light. Wow.

http://www.2gb.com/audioplayer/49136#.U560R42SyYl

2.8 million people voted 'Yes'. It's only a matter of time before the laws change.

 

[sydboy007]

2.8 million people voted 'Yes'. It's only a matter of time before the laws change.

Shame we don't have democracy like the Swiss. We could have a referendum on these kinds of issues and have them resolved quick smart. Alas we're stuck with politicians who rarely represent the will of the people.

 

[DB008]

Shame we don't have democracy like the Swiss. We could have a referendum on these kinds of issues and have them resolved quick smart. Alas we're stuck with politicians who rarely represent the will of the people.

I agree with you 100% on this issue.

Once the pollies see the $$$$ - it won't be long before legalization.

Cannabis goes corporate: Dot-bong boom explodes as Big Marijuana flexes its muscles

Decades of marijuana prohibition are coming to an end, on the back of a sea change in public opinion. Twenty states have now voted to make the drug legal in one form or another.

Next month, Washington State will be the second state to fully legalise cannabis. New brands and products are flooding the market, for anyone over the age of 21 to buy and consume.

Legal cannabis markets are expected to grow by 64 per cent across the United States in the next year.

Now, Wall Street is moving in. The $40 billion black market in cannabis is going mainstream.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-17/cannabis-becomes-big-business-in-us/5526006

Texas will legalize medical marijuana in 2015 and regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol in 2017

Baker Institute Blog
Insight and analysis from the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University
​

Following the legalization of retail marijuana sales in Colorado and Washington, and medical marijuana in 22 states with more to follow, marijuana legalization appears inevitable ”” even in “law and order” states such as Texas. The question is no longer if Texas will legalize, but when? This question has important policy implications for incarceration costs, civil liberties and medical marijuana patients. In this Baker Institute Viewpoints series, five leading experts on marijuana reform examine the question, “When will Texas legalize marijuana?”

For medical marijuana, I predict Texas will pass legislation in 2015, though it will be very limited. A recent Kinder Institute poll found that 72 percent of Houston-area residents think we should fine instead of incarcerate people for possessing small amounts of the drug, and 65 percent think medical marijuana should be legalized. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN special report “Weed” brought attention to the benefits of medical marijuana, especially regarding children who use medical marijuana for epilepsy and other debilitating conditions. This was definitely an eye-opener for Americans ”” the public can no longer be told that marijuana has no medical value and be expected to believe it.

Foreign Correspondent on ABC tonight...


http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2014/s4024788.htm

Cannabis Inc.​

Very soon in America marijuana will be slickly branded and sold by men in suits - or at least the multi-million dollar companies they’re setting up to cash in on the state-by-state legalization of dope.

It’s happening in states that have long embraced a system enabling the dispensing of medical marijuana. Colorado’s gone legal. Next month Washington State will become the second state to fully legalise marijuana.

Just like alcohol, if you’re over 21 you’ll be able to buy it.

In anticipation of the new laws, big businesses are jockeying for the jump in this booming market. New products and gadgets are being developed and refined. They’re polishing marketing and sales strategies and defining their brands, much like cigarettes, for retail release.

A report commissioned for the White House says the medical and illicit cannabis industry is worth $40B per year. Cannabis Inc. is busily convincing state legislatures and the federal Government as well that $40B is better off out of the black market and in the sight of the taxman.

America’s new-wave of pot entrepreneurs couldn’t be more different to those of the past. They’ve ditched the hippy-clothes, rasta-plaits and pony-tails for thousand-dollar suits, business plans and MBA’s.

 

[Julia]

The Foreign Correspondent program this evening threw a quite different light on this.

Seems entirely likely that demand has been less driven by desperately sick 'medical marijuana' users, and perhaps more by Big Money. Corporate America has, as one would expect, seen a wonderful opportunity to create ever more addicts and make billions in the process.

In their ideal world, anyone with the slightest pain or discomfort will become a candidate for their neatly packaged, totally legal product. Whacko! Just what we need. A whole new generation of addicts.

 

[prawn_86]

The Foreign Correspondent program this evening threw a quite different light on this.

Seems entirely likely that demand has been less driven by desperately sick 'medical marijuana' users, and perhaps more by Big Money. Corporate America has, as one would expect, seen a wonderful opportunity to create ever more addicts and make billions in the process.

In their ideal world, anyone with the slightest pain or discomfort will become a candidate for their neatly packaged, totally legal product. Whacko! Just what we need. A whole new generation of addicts.

While I agree with legalization of drugs (the war on drugs is a proven failure) I am a little uncomfortable with designing new products and marketing them. I am unsure on the marketing rule sin Colorado and Washington, but I do not think they should be allowed to advertise (although cigarette co's still can here in the US)

 

[Tink]

Agree, Julia.

Seems to be a lot of depressed people in this country, all turning to drugs, and I am not just talking about marijuana, ice is a big problem also.

We had a shocking case in the courts last week, a 21 year old, Harley Hicks. He got life for killing a baby in a burglary, with a 32 year minimum. He was on marijuana and ice. The most evil crime committed with no remorse whatsoever.

With this entitlement mentality, no responsibility, its a worry.

 

[Julia]

Equally, I was stunned to hear a researcher recently endorsing the use of Ketamine as an anti depressant.

She said (paraphrasing) 'rather than waiting some weeks for commonly used antidepressants to work, ketamine actually makes the depressed person feel better immediately'.

Well, duh! Might as well just give them a hit of heroin or morphine! Of course it will make them feel better.

Ketamine hydrochloride is an anaesthetic drug used by veterinarians and medical professionals.

The drug has hallucinogenic effects, which means that it changes thinking, perception of time and emotions, and seeing or hearing things that are distorted, or that do not exist at all. - See more at: http://www.druginfo.adf.org.au/drug-facts/ketamine#sthash.P95JZLlY.dpuf

Its 'value' is apparently well recognised on the street.

 

[McLovin]

The Foreign Correspondent program this evening threw a quite different light on this.

Seems entirely likely that demand has been less driven by desperately sick 'medical marijuana' users, and perhaps more by Big Money. Corporate America has, as one would expect, seen a wonderful opportunity to create ever more addicts and make billions in the process.

In their ideal world, anyone with the slightest pain or discomfort will become a candidate for their neatly packaged, totally legal product. Whacko! Just what we need. A whole new generation of addicts.

Americans are addicted to prescription drugs already. Some of them far worse than weed. Their whole health system is **** backward. Doctors are motivated by drug companies with free golf days and expensive holidays when they can move large amounts of certain drugs. Heck, as John Hempton pointed out, Fentanyl is agressively marketed in the US.

I think I have found a new low in the pharmaceutical industry: giving away a month's free supply of potentially lethal high-grade opiods.

This ambitious marketing strategy allows more than enough time and supply to create addicts.

The company is Galena Biopharma and their product, under the marketing name of Abstral is sublingual Fentanyl.

Fentanyl according to Wikipedia is a potent, synthetic opioid analgesic with a rapid onset and short duration of action. In other words you get really high, really fast and it doesn't last long. Also according to Wikipedia it is "one of a small number of drugs that may be especially harmful, and in some cases fatal, with just one dose".

Fentanyl has a legitimate use - for intense "breakthrough" pain spasms for someone already being treated around the clock with a heavy opiod like morphine. The legitimate user is probably a terminal cancer patient with bursts of pain so intense that morphine just doesn't cut it. In that case the seriously addicting properties of the drug are not particularly relevant and the benefit of use is indisputable.

Outside that it is hard to think of a good use for this drug.

The drug has killed plenty of people including a few notable rock-n-rollers. Read Wikipedia for the gory details.

Galena's hot new product is a sublingual version of an old drug. The marketing (on their website) argues this drug is really fast. To quote: "Patients preferred Abstral for speed".

http://brontecapital.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/get-your-opiates-for-free-capitalism.html

Given the choice between alcohol and marijuana. I'd argue marijuana is far safer. For one thing, no one has ever died of marijuana overdose. I'd have no issue with it being legally available, but sold by the government.

 

[DB008]

Ulverstone mum's cancer battle 'helped' by cannabis oil

TERMINALLY ill mother of three Natalie Daley uses cannabis oil to relieve her acute pain.

Not as a drug but as medicine, the Ulverstone woman believed the oil shrunk a tumour half the size in her lungs.

She said doctors were amazed to see her hair grow back and her local GP supported her decision in taking the drug.

Mrs Daley started taking the illegal drug, due to its THCA element, a week into her second round of chemotherapy in February this year, after being diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma.

The disease is caused by a cancerous growth in the adrenal cortex, which is the outer layer of the adrenal glands.

Mrs Daley has dubbed the cancer as affecting one in a million people.

http://www.theadvocate.com.au/story/2381128/ulverstone-mums-cancer-battle-helped-by-cannabis-oil/?cs=86

 

[boofhead]

Natalie was interviewed on 7:30 Tasmania in the last half hour. I don't know how long ago it was recorded but she had no hair on her head.

Tight controls like with various other drugs should be managable. A Tasmanian company wants to have trials and are advocating it as a secondary pain relief, that is use more traditional painkillers before moving on to it if needed.

 

[prawn_86]

While I agree with legalization of drugs (the war on drugs is a proven failure) I am a little uncomfortable with designing new products and marketing them. I am unsure on the marketing rules in Colorado and Washington, but I do not think they should be allowed to advertise (although cigarette co's still can here in the US)

Stuff like this is worrying to me:

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-sack-marijuana-children-dangers-20140627-story.html

 

[DB008]

Legalise medicinal cannabis for terminal, chronic conditions: WA Opposition leader Mark McGowan

WA Opposition leader Mark McGowan has told the Labor Party's state conference that cannabis should be legalised for medicinal purposes.

Mr McGowan said people with terminal or chronic illnesses should be able to access medicinal cannabis in the form of tablets or sprays to ease their pain.

He said he did not support the softening of laws surrounding recreational drug use but would like to give doctors the power to prescribe cannabis when other medications had failed.

"Why should anyone have to suffer in agony if there's another way to relieve their pain?" he said.

"Why should they be treated as criminals?"

Mr McGowan's call comes less than a week after Tasmania's Legislative Council announced it would hold an inquiry into the medicinal use of cannabis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-06/wa-opposition-leader-calls-for-cannabis-for-medicinal-use/5575330

 

[sptrawler]

Legalise medicinal cannabis for terminal, chronic conditions: WA Opposition leader Mark McGowan





http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-06/wa-opposition-leader-calls-for-cannabis-for-medicinal-use/5575330

He will say anything to try and get votes.

Of my four kids, there is only one that is always harping on about legalising mull, funilly enough he is the only one using it.

 

[Julia]

Ok, so let's say we legalise cannabis for medical use. What is then to stop every pothead in the country availing themselves of it, perhaps even on the PBS, by claiming that their intractable pain has failed to respond to all known currently legitimate analgesia, and therefore they must qualify for access to prescribed cannabis?

Already in the USA, in the States where it's legalised, the advertising and pharmaceutical firms have been busy with their rampant advertising on this wonderful new pain relief.

 

[McLovin]

Ok, so let's say we legalise cannabis for medical use. What is then to stop every pothead in the country availing themselves of it, perhaps even on the PBS, by claiming that their intractable pain has failed to respond to all known currently legitimate analgesia, and therefore they must qualify for access to prescribed cannabis?

There's nothing stopping every pothead in the country availing themselves of it today.Every week there seems to be a media conference with a new shipping container of <insert your favourite drug> and yet the price of every illegal drug hasn't changed in about ten years. The Netherlands has had pot freely available for years and has a fairly low rate of cannabis use.

Already in the USA, in the States where it's legalised, the advertising and pharmaceutical firms have been busy with their rampant advertising on this wonderful new pain relief.

But Australian regulations around medical advertising are far stricter than in the US. A few pages back I gave the example of fentanyl, an extremely dangerous that has been killing heroin addicts on the East Coast of the US for the last year or so, and addictive drug that is marketed with free samples in the US. I don't see why legalising medical cannabis (and I will admit it is defacto legalisation because there will always be a doctor who will write out a scrip) would change the laws around advertising?

 

[banco]

Ok, so let's say we legalise cannabis for medical use. What is then to stop every pothead in the country availing themselves of it, perhaps even on the PBS, by claiming that their intractable pain has failed to respond to all known currently legitimate analgesia, and therefore they must qualify for access to prescribed cannabis?

Already in the USA, in the States where it's legalised, the advertising and pharmaceutical firms have been busy with their rampant advertising on this wonderful new pain relief.

As long as the taxpayer isn't funding it who gives a ****?

 

[drsmith]

In the context of this discussion,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-...-calls-for-cannabis-for-medicinal-use/5575330

I would have thought the WA Labor opposition would have had greater policy areas to chew over given that the Barnett Government's ride hasn't exactly been smooth since the last state election.

 

[sptrawler]

In the context of this discussion,

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-...-calls-for-cannabis-for-medicinal-use/5575330

I would have thought the WA Labor opposition would have had greater policy areas to chew over given that the Barnett Government's ride hasn't exactly been smooth since the last state election.

Absolutelly, he is obviously trying the Rudd theory of appeal to everyone, even if you haven't any substance. He is an absolute goose, but then again with media backing he may well gain traction. But I doubt it.

 

[boofhead]

I haven't done much research but for controlling seizures etc. it isn't THC but a different component. That means strains can be developed that have THC low enough to not be desired by potheads. Such strains could be grown for medicinal uses and regulated.

 

[Julia]

There's nothing stopping every pothead in the country availing themselves of it today.Every week there seems to be a media conference with a new shipping container of <insert your favourite drug> and yet the price of every illegal drug hasn't changed in about ten years. The Netherlands has had pot freely available for years and has a fairly low rate of cannabis use.

As long as the taxpayer isn't funding it who gives a ****?

You miss the point, or perhaps just decline to see it. If the TGA were to approve cannabis for medical use, making it available via prescription on the PBS, that would likely inspire sudden, intractable back or other difficult to disprove pain on the part of so called recreational users, thus providing the taxpayer with the wonderful opportunity to fund their drug use.

If people are stupid enough to use a substance which has been clearly shown to have the capacity to potentiate latent schizophrenia and/or exacerbate that and other mental illnesses, then I suppose that's their business.
After all, if they become psychotic, the taxpayer will pay for that medication too.

But Australian regulations around medical advertising are far stricter than in the US.

Of course they are and so they should be. I didn't suggest the laws re advertising in Australia would be changed. I said

Already in the USA, in the States where it's legalised, the advertising and pharmaceutical firms have been busy with their rampant advertising on this wonderful new pain relief.

Who exactly is 'giving out free samples of fentanyl'? It's an opioid much more potent than morphine.