Legalise some drugs, outlaw others?

[DB008]

Marijuana news: Pot sales continue to climb in Colorado

Colorado continues to see growth in state-regulated sales of recreational marijuana, with the latest figures showing sales totaling $34.1 million in August, The Washington Post reports.

The newspaper's Wonkblog crunched numbers from the Colorado Department of Revenue, finding that sales of recreational pot have begun to outpace medical cannabis.

And increased sales means more revenue for the state. Staff writer Christopher Ingraham, who has dug into Colorado's marijuana data before, reports that the state took in $7.5 million in revenue from the sales of medical and recreational cannabis in August -- and about $45 million so far this year.

http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2014/10/marijuana_news_revenue_from_po.html

 

[orr]

ABC's Radio Nationals 'BackGround Briefing' Expose' of the Medico' Politico' and societal crawl toward sanity as all the entrenched power bases attempt to protect their patch, to the extreme prejudice of the suffering in our community.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2014-10-19/5816112

 

[darkhorse70]

Ive been around marijuana since I was 14/15. Every one of my friends smokes pot, most also partake in other drugs like cocain,ectasy, acid, mushrooms.

Some smoke pot 5 times a day. Now we are 22. One of my friends who smokes daily got taken away 1 week ago to a mental hospital for the 2nd time. Id say if he never did drugs he would not be there but he also abused it.

I have only done pot 20 times through out my life and although I have nuthing against it and actually think its got heaps of benefits I do believe it comes down to the individual. If I did drugs no doubt id be a looney right now.

They should be legal. You can get whatever you want in this country. For example my uncle was addicted to oppium since he was young. He was clean for a long time but had been suffering from cancer for the last 10 years. When he came to visit us, he went to kings cross and bought 500$ worth of opium. He cant even speak english very well loll. Cancer killed him but my point is if your going to get drugs might as well be clean, and If you want drugs or your personality is fixed more towards that where your a risk taker in that sort of field then your going to get it legal or not. So legalise it.

 

[darkhorse70]

On another note, I know most people would not condone this act but this was a long time ago haha. Pics more so for the supporters

 

[Smurf1976]

Ive been around marijuana since I was 14/15. Every one of my friends smokes pot, most also partake in other drugs like cocain,ectasy, acid, mushrooms.

Some smoke pot 5 times a day. Now we are 22. One of my friends who smokes daily got taken away 1 week ago to a mental hospital for the 2nd time. Id say if he never did drugs he would not be there but he also abused it.

I can only speak from my own observations here, but from what I've seen pot fries the brain if you keep doing it past your mid-20's. I know plenty who have messed about with it, and it hasn't worked out well for those who did it long term. OK, they're still alive and functioning, but it's had an affect I'd say. It seems to make it rather hard for them to learn anything new, due to effects on the brain I assume.

I won't claim that to be based on any proper studies etc. It's just what I've observed people do over the years.

Medical use I have no real concerns about if it's prescribed by a doctor etc and properly regulated. But I'd rather we didn't end up with pot being sold like tobacco is at present. The last thing we need is to replace one form of smoking with another on a mass scale. That won't end well.

 

[darkhorse70]

Hmm smurf, joe rogan became a big pot advocate. He still is sharp as a whistle for now. If youve seen the podcast with him and graham hancock its awesome. Graham hancock stopped smoking after years... but he is still smart as.

 

[DB008]

The business of pot

It’s estimated thousands of Australians are risking arrest by using cannabis for medical reasons. A national clinical trial has been announced but legalisation could be many years away, and then for expensive pharmaceutical drugs only. Di Martin investigates the science and the politics of medical cannabis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/the-business-of-pot/5814010

 

[DB008]

How marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington is making the world a better place

No pressure, Colorado and Washington, but the world is scrutinizing your every move.

That was the take-home message of an event today at the Brookings Institution, discussing the international impact of the move toward marijuana legalization at the state-level in the U.S. Laws passed in Colorado and Washington, with other states presumably to come, create a tension with the U.S. obligations toward three major international treaties governing drug control. Historically the U.S. has been a strong advocate of all three conventions, which "commit the United States to punish and even criminalize activity related to recreational marijuana," according to Brookings' Wells Bennet.

The U.S. response to this tension has thusfar been to call for more "flexibility" in how countries interpret them. This policy was made explicit in recent remarks by Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield, who last week at the United Nations said that "we have to be tolerant of different countries, in response to their own national circumstances and conditions, exploring and using different national drug control policies." He went on: "How could I, a representative of the Government of the United States of America, be intolerant of a government that permits any experimentation with legalization of marijuana if two of the 50 states of the United States of America have chosen to walk down that road?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/17/how-marijuana-legalization-in-colorado-and-washington-is-making-the-world-a-better-place/

 

[DB008]

Catherine Zahn: Legalization is the best approach to cannabis control​

In spite of legal prohibition, Canada has one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the world. In Ontario, more than one in 10 adults and nearly one in four high school students used cannabis in the past year. In doing so, they become exposed to the health risks of cannabis and the risks of becoming criminalized by the act of procuring or possessing the substance. In addition, they are in danger of being introduced to other, more dangerous illicit drugs.

It seems obvious that our current approach is not reducing access to cannabis or the harms associated with its use. Young Canadians and other vulnerable groups bear a disproportionate burden of these risks, with adolescents, individuals with mental illness, and those with a pattern of heavy use being most susceptible to the negative impact of cannabis.

The question: “Does cannabis cause harm?” has a simple answer. Yes. The more important question assumes a public health approach: “What legal context most effectively mitigates the harm?” Bringing best evidence to inform an answer, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) recently released a cannabis policy framework. It recommends legalization – with strict regulation – as the optimal choice.

​

Dr. Catherine Zahn is the CEO of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/catherine-zahn-legalization-is-the-best-approach-to-cannabis-control

 

[DB008]

Eleven countries studied, one inescapable conclusion – the drug laws don’t work

Eight month study shows legalisation policies do not result in wider use, and the US should be watched with interest

The UK government’s comparison of international drug laws, published on Wednesday, represents the first official recognition since the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act that there is no direct link between being “tough on drugs” and tackling the problem.

The report, which has been signed off by both the Conservative home secretary, Theresa May, and the Liberal Democrat crime prevention minister, Norman Baker, is based on an in-depth study of drug laws in 11 countries ranging from the zero-tolerance of Japan to the legalisation of Uruguay.

The key finding of the report, written by Home Office civil servants, lies in a comparison of Portugal and the Czech Republic, both countries where personal use is decriminalised.

“We did not in our fact-finding observe any obvious relationship between the toughness of a country’s enforcement against drug possession, and levels of drug use in that country,” it says. “The Czech Republic and Portugal have similar approaches to possession, where possession of small amounts of any drug does not lead to criminal proceedings, but while levels of drug use in Portugal appear to be relatively low, reported levels of cannabis use in the Czech Republic are among the highest in Europe.

“Indicators of levels of drug use in Sweden, which has one of the toughest approaches we saw, point to relatively low levels of use, but not markedly lower than countries with different approaches.”

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/30/drug-laws-international-study-tough-policy-use-problem

 

[DB008]

Guam Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Voters in Guam approved a ballot initiative Tuesday that would legalize marijuana for "debilitating medical conditions" such as epilepsy, HIV, cancer and glaucoma. The bill, which passed by more than 56 percent, makes Guam the first U.S. territory to legalize medical pot.

The decision marks the first victory in a flurry of marijuana-related ballot measures this Election Day. Residents of Florida will also vote on medical marijuana legislation, and voters in Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C., will decide whether to legalize pot for recreational purposes. Two Maine cities are also voting on full-scale legalization, and two New Mexico counties are mulling decriminalization.

"This is just the beginning of a very big day," Tom Angell, chairman of the advocacy group Marijuana Majority, told HuffPost. "People all across the world are ready to move beyond failed prohibition laws, especially when seriously ill patients are criminalized just for following their doctors' recommendations."

Though the Guam initiative originally faced legal hurdles, the self-governing territory's Supreme Court ultimately pushed it through to the ballot in September. A government commission will establish the program's specific rules and regulations in the coming months.

As of Tuesday, 23 U.S. states and the District of Columbia have some sort of medical marijuana law on the books, and the country's support of both medical and recreational pot continues to grow. A recent poll showed 88 percent of Americans think patients should be allowed to use cannabis for medical purposes, and multiple surveys over the past year have revealed a clear majority of respondents back full-scale legalization.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/04/guam-medical-marijuana_n_6100972.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

 

[DB008]

Oregon just passed Marijuana bill.

https://twitter.com/OregonianPol/status/529852314782138368

http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/kptv/elex/index.html#111

Recreational Marijuana Just Became Legal in the Nation's Capital

Marijuana enthusiasts of America, rejoice: Residents of the nation's capital are voting yes on smoking pot for fun.

NPR reports that as of 9:09 pm ET, supporters of the Washington D.C.'s ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana have a 65-29.5 percent lead, and the measure is set to pass.

The measure will make it legal for people 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants.

In addition to D.C., three states had ballot initiatives on legalizing marijuana Tuesday ”” Alaska and Oregon for recreational purposes, and Florida for medical use. Florida voters rejected the amendment, which needed 60% approval to pass.

http://mic.com/articles/103402/recreational-marijuana-just-became-legal-in-the-nation-s-capital

 

[sydboy007]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-11-14/afghan-opium-crop-inflames-u-s-tensions-with-russia.html

Afghan land under poppy cultivation hit a record 224,000 hectares (554,000 acres) last year, according to the UN. Opium production rose about 17 percent to 6,400 tons while the number of fields eradicated by security forces plummeted 63 percent to 2,692 hectares.

Underlining the U.S. counter narcotics failure, opium production rose faster in the areas where the U.S. and U.K. targeted $56 million of aid to help farmers switch from growing poppies to pomegranates than it did in areas that received no money, the UN said.

 

[DB008]

Cannabis extract can have dramatic effect on brain cancer, says new research

Experts have shown that when certain parts of cannabis are used to treat cancer tumours alongside radiotherapy treatment the growths can virtually disappear

The new research by specialists at St George’s, University of London, studied the treatment of brain cancer tumours in the laboratory and discovered that the most effective treatment was to combine active chemical components of the cannabis plant which are called cannabinoids.

Two of these called tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD)were tested as part of the research into brain cancer which is particularly difficult to treat and claims the lives of about 5,200 each year. It also has a particularly poor prognosis as the rate of survival after five years of patients’ diagnosis is around 10%.

Cannabinoids are the active chemicals in cannabis and are also known more specifically as phytocannabinoids. There are 85 known cannabinoids in the cannabis plant.

The new research is the first to show a drastic effect when combining THC and CBD with irradiation. Tumours growing in the brains of mice were drastically slowed down when THC/CBD was used with irradiation.

Dr Wai Liu, Senior Research Fellow and lead researcher on the project, said: “The results are extremely exciting. The tumours were treated in a variety of ways, either with no treatment, the cannabinoids alone, and irradiation alone or with both the cannabinoids and irradiation at the same time.

“Those treated with both irradiation and the cannabinoids saw the most beneficial results and a drastic reduction in size. In some cases, the tumours effectively disappeared in the animals. This augurs well for further research in humans in the future. At the moment this is a mostly fatal disease.

“The benefits of the cannabis plant elements were known before but the drastic reduction of brain cancers if used with irradiation is something new and may well prove promising for patients who are in gravely serious situations with such cancers in the future.”

The research team are discussing the possibility of combining cannabinoids with irradiation in a human clinical trial.

The research has been published in the Molecular Cancer Therapeutics journal.

http://www.sgul.ac.uk/media/latest-news/cannabis-extract-can-have-dramatic-effect-on-brain-cancer-says-new-research

 

[Tink]

War on drugs

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailyteleg...raph/comments/we_are_losing_the_war_on_drugs/

 

[Tink]

Ice addiction: Children in Canberra as young as 13 abusing methamphetamine

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-...n-canberra-as-young-as-13-abusing-ice/5895770

This is disgusting.

As I posted yesterday, there needs to be changes.

AS they grieve the death of their beautiful, vivacious daughter Georgina last weekend, I hope the Bartter family isn’t harassed by the vultures of the drug legalisation lobby.

That’s what happened to the Wood family when their 15-year-old daughter Anna died in 1995 after taking an ecstasy pill. Tony and Angela Wood are still aghast that Dr Alex Wodak sent them a letter two weeks after Anna’s death, trying to recruit them for his campaign to legalise dangerous illegal drugs.

At the time, he was a pillar of the medical establishment at St Vincent’s Hospital as Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service as well as President of the radical Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation.

His two-page letter urged the Woods to “at least make something good come out of Anna’s death” by lobbying politicians to end “tough law enforcement policies”.

They ignored his disgusting, predatory opportunism and went on to make an enormous contribution by touring schools, telling Anna’s story to send the message that illegal drugs are never safe.

Their efforts, together with the courage of whistleblower police like Tim Priest and publicity about the psychosis-inducing potential of cannabis, pressured authorities to take the drug problem seriously.

John Howard’s successful Tough on Drugs regime was launched in 1997 and, for the first time in three decades drug use fell, fewer young people experimented and those who did were older.

Georgina Bartter was born the year Anna Wood died.

By the time she came of age the Tough on Drugs regime had been dismantled, lessons had been forgotten and the same old drug liberalisers were back in the ascendancy.

Bartter’s generation still had drug education, but the message had been cunningly transformed. They were taught that alcohol is just another drug. The only difference is that one is legal and the other is not ”” kind of.

The consequence of this seemingly innocuous shift in language was to erase the distinction between legal and illegal substances.

Young teens saw their parents using alcohol and thought, well, that’s a drug so I might try a more modern drug. Using that calculus, ecstasy makes sense.

Now we have a whole new younger cohort of generation Y who have been taught the harm minimisation doctrine that alcohol is worse, or at least as bad, as illicit drugs and, hey, if you must “use”, here’s how to do it safely. The message was heard loud and clear.

Despite an official panic about a teenage drinking “crisis” the fact is that Generation Y drink far less than their elders. Between 2002 and 2007 the Australian Secondary School Students’ (drugs and alcohol) Use survey found the proportion of 12-15 year olds who had drunk any alcohol in the week before the survey had dropped from 32 to 14 per cent. The proportion of 16 to 17-year-old drinkers went from 50 per cent to about 36 per cent. Alcohol was successfully demonised and drug use among young people started to rise again from 2008.

At the same time a renewed official permissiveness about illicit drugs emerged.

Now you can risk losing your licence for parking infringements, yet one in three drugged drivers get off scot free. This year one in 26 motorists stopped for new police random drug tests tested positive, yet magistrates dismissed charges, or applied no penalty to almost one in three drivers convicted of driving while high.

Drugs are ubiquitous and the ambivalence of authorities has rendered them powerless to protect young people like Georgina. The former Wenona student from Longueville started convulsing and died soon after taking one and a half pills of what her friends said was ecstasy at the Harbourlife music festival at Mrs Macquarie’s Chair on Saturday.

She was a good girl who did well at school and was studying accounting at UTS.

The tragedy could have happened to any family, Paramedics said they treat as many as 1400 young people in a day for the effects of drugs at these sorts of music festivals.

We have ended up in a situation when it is cheaper and easier for a 19-year-old to party on a $25 ecstasy tablet than on alcohol ”” minus the calories. What a sickening waste of a young life.

“Angela and I were devastated when we heard the news about Georgina,” Tony Wood said yesterday.

“The only way we are going to fix this is with zero tolerance … drug education without law enforcement is an absolute waste of money.”

But you can bet the Bartter’s tragedy will be twisted into a propaganda tool for drug liberalisers.

They claim we have lost the so-called war on drugs, but no one ever claimed it was a war that could be won.

What we have done before and can do again is make drugs harder to procure.

That starts with zero tolerance, not a nudge nudge wink wink.

 

[DB008]

Ice addiction: Children in Canberra as young as 13 abusing methamphetamine

This is disgusting.

But you can bet the Bartter’s tragedy will be twisted into a propaganda tool for drug liberalisers.

They claim we have lost the so-called war on drugs, but no one ever claimed it was a war that could be won.

What we have done before and can do again is make drugs harder to procure.

That starts with zero tolerance, not a nudge nudge wink wink.[/I]

I agree wholeheartedly.

What do you think about this Tink? This is also real world.

Misunderstood Medicine: 'I feel like a normal boy'


EUGENE, Ore. - A week after his eighth birthday, Forrest Smelser was diagnosed with epilepsy.

On bad days he would seize every 15 minutes."If he has a seizure that lasts longer than three minutes, we're venturing into brain damage territory," his mother Tanesha said.

After numerous trips to the emergency room and the doctor's office, Forrest was prescribed the anti-seizure drug Trileptal.

Tanesha said that's when things went from bad to worse.

"He would scream, he would fight, he would punch himself," said Tanesha.

She said the family reached a breaking point when Forrest became suicidal, something she believes was a side effect of the pharmaceuticals.That's when she decided to explore more unconventional methods to treat Forrest's seizures.

"Oil infused with CBD, medical marijuana," she said as she held a jar of medical cannabis pills from TJ's Organic Gardens, a Eugene-based medical marijuana farm with indoor operations in Oregon and Washington.

"I have my son again. He's not this fog of a child. He's not this angry child. He's my child exactly," said Tanesha.

"Now that I'm on this medication, I feel like a normal boy," said Forrest.

Forrest is not alone. According to the Oregon Health Authority, 195 of the 69,004 participants in the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program are under the age of 18.

Because of privacy concerns, a spokespoeson was not able to provide a further breakdown of the age group, but patients as young as 4 years old have been reported.

Tanesha said she sold their home and moved in with family in a small town outside Eugene to save money for the cost she expected to pay to have Forrest on medical cannabis, which is not covered by insurance.

Each one of the pills he takes three times a day would cost about $5 at a local medical marijuana dispensary.

That's when one of the owners of TJ's Organic Gardens stepped up, offering to donate Forrest's medication.

"To be part of the fix is pretty special," said Jim Murphy. "It's a payment within itself."

And Murphy said his company has enough medicine for about 500 more child patients - and they're looking to supply them at no charge."It would be wrong of us not to do so," said Murphy, who said his partners have started a separate company Kind Care to dispense the medical marijuana.

TJ's Organic Gardens does not charge their direct patients but makes money from selling surplus medical marijuana to licensed dispensaries like Cannadaddys and Oregon's Finest.

Oregon law requires that medical marijuana sold in licensed dispensaries be tested for molds and pesticides and labeled for potency.

An Oregon Health Authority spokeswoman said the law is silent on marijuana grown for private use by patients.

Murphy said the plant grown for seizure patients like Forrest is special. He said unlike most medical marijuana plants grown with a high THC level in mind, Forrest's plant has less than 1 percent of the active cannabinoid known for its psychoactive properties.

"So, we're not getting children high. We're just giving them medicine, and that's what makes this plant special. It's literally the opposite of what makes all these other plants special," he said.

"A high THC, this one does not," he said pointing to the plant used to make Forrest's medication. "It has a very low THC, and very high CBD."

Murphy said this plant has been given the name CBD, an acronym for another active cannabinoid in marijuana known as cannabidiol. CBD is the chemical believed to be treating seizure patients like Forrest.

From plant to pill form takes about a week and a half, according to a TJ's Organic Gardens volunteer.

He said they use an organic ethyl alcohol extraction process to make a cannabis oil from the medical marijuana plant matter. The oil is then heated up and mixed with another edible oil to and put into a pill capsule.


http://www.katu.com/news/local/Medical-marijuana-growers-donate-product-for-8-year-old-boys-treatment-283115851.html

 

[Value Collector]

The libertarian side of my brain and the conservative side are at odds when it comes to this question.

I don't want to infringe on the rights of others to use drugs, But I don't want to support it either. I also don't want hard drugs readily available on the streets.

Perhaps this sums up my position.

 

[SirRumpole]

The libertarian side of my brain and the conservative side are at odds when it comes to this question.

I don't want to infringe on the rights of others to use drugs, But I don't want to support it either. I also don't want hard drugs readily available on the streets.

Perhaps this sums up my position.

Yeah, but when people start committing crimes to feed their habit, the it starts to become a problem for the rest of us.

Self grown marijuana ? In non commercial quantities I have no problem with. Too much taxpayers money wasted tracking down and prosecuting an essentially harmless activity.

Ice and ecstasy , no way. Too addictive and deadly.

 

[Tisme]

I'm sure I'm not the only one that has endured the agony of seeing one of their kids slide into drug addiction and become mentally ill in the process? My boy's choice was hooch and you can imagine how uncomfortable I am listening to people brand it as innocuous and beneficial.

I have to give it to whoever the people are that have inculcated large swathes of the population into believing we somehow took an evolutionary step up when the minute hand swept past midnight 2000 and everything our ancestoral wise made taboo from experience became open for debate again.

I will never support legalising drugs. I hate that the courts just kept slapping convictions and fines, with a requirement to watch a video for punishment; they should have refrained from destroying any hope of a decent job and be allowed to impose a worthwhile rehab programme as early intervention, without a stain forevermore. The fallout on the rest of the family was and still is devastating