PRESS RELEASE - 26 AUGUST 2003

Edition 1.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

CANADIAN POLICE SAY:
ROADSIDE MARIJUANA TESTING DIFFICULT:

Canadian Police are concerned it will be difficult to prove motorists were driving under the influence of marijuana should it be decriminalized. "How are we going to evaluate whether the person has THC in their system?" said city police Sgt. Rob Hotston. "I am not aware of any scientifically approved test for evaluating THC in a person's system other than drawing blood. We can't do blood tests on the side of the road." Both city police and Peterborough County OPP said without a reliable roadside test it's also difficult to determine if a driver is impaired by marijuana or lack of sleep, he said. Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is the chemical in marijuana that produces psychoactive, mind-altering, reactions to the drug. According to the Canada Safety Council (CSC), drivers under the influence of THC can have impaired psychomotor skills and shorter attention spans, making it more difficult to drive accurately and steer. Under the Criminal Code, drivers can be charged with impaired driving for using both alcohol and drugs. The CSC recently released a report urging the provincial and federal governments to consider new legislation for impaired laws, zero-tolerance and 12-hour driver licence suspensions should small amounts of marijuana be decriminalized. Hotston said an officer can apply for a blood warrant when a person is unable to provide a breath sample at the scene - such as in an accident - and if alcohol is suspected. If drugs are detected, the evidence is admissible but officers cannot lay an impaired drug charge on scent alone, he said. "The courts have held that the odour of marijuana is insufficient," Hotston said. "Coupled with other things it could be grounds for a search but the sure fire way is through a blood test. I imagine that would pose a number of constitutional issues." Director of the OPP's drug enforcement unit, Det. Supt. Jim Hutchison, said the decriminalization of marijuana and its possible spinoff effect on impaired driving has been an ongoing policing concern. Hutchison said three OPP officers from Toronto recently joined 17 officers from across Ontario in the Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) program. The DRE program in Vancouver, B.C., trained and certified officers to recognize the physical signs associated with different kinds of drugs, Hutchison said. But the training is costly and officers need to recertify every year. Hutchison said there is currently no plan to offer the program again.

NOELLE BUSH GRADUATES FROM DRUG COURT
8/14/2003

Saying it was "quite a challenge," Noelle Bush, daughter of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, has successfully completed her drug-court program, the Orlando Sentinel reported Aug. 9. Bush, 26, agreed to attend a drug-rehabilitation program in lieu of a prison sentence. She was in the Orange Circuit drug-court program for 16 months. Bush was transferred to the Orlando program in January 2002 after she was arrested by Tallahassee police for trying to obtain the anti-anxiety drug Xanax using a fake prescription. During her recovery attempt, Bush relapsed and served time in the Orange County Jail. She was first sent to jail for two days in July 2002 after unauthorized prescription drugs were found in her possession at the Center for Drug-Free Living. Bush went back to jail a second time for 10 days last fall, when police found crack cocaine in her shoe at the Mercy Drive women's residential center. As a result of her drug-court graduation, Bush will not face any other charges stemming from her January 2002 arrest. Orange County's drug court has a 76-percent successful completion rate.

US CUSTOMS SEIZES CANADIAN VANLOAD OF LEGAL HEMP SEED!

Aug. 8, 2003

Toronto, Canada.

Free Hemphry!
Pure Hemp promotional vehicle gets impounded at US Border for 8 pounds of roasted, seasoned hemp seed and driver charged with attempt to import 8 pounds of Marijuana. Hemphry, a 1971 VW van painted in a hemp field motif and sporting "PURE HEMP" license plates was impounded at US Customs in Madawaska Maine last weekend for attempting to enter the United States with eight pounds of roasted, seasoned hemp seed. "I purchased three kilos of toasted and salted hempseeds in Montreal" said Hemphry's driver Johannes (Yo) Chapman. "The owner advised me not to bring hempseeds over the border, reminding me of America's 'zero tolerance'" and I said "hempseeds are not banned in America." A recent (June 30, 2003) U.S. Court of Appeals ruling invalidated the Drug Enforcement Administration's October 2001 "Interpretive Rule" that would have construed the Controlled Substances Act to ban edible hemp seed, oil and oil and seed products. The hemp seeds in question, being roasted hence unviable) and salted are clearly a food product and as such are in no way prohibited from entry into the United States. Using a "field test" the customs officers purportedly found that the seeds tested positive for THC and were therefore considered a narcotic. "The validity of this field test is questionable to say the least" commented David Marcus, president of Natural Emphasis, Ltd., the owner of Hemphry and exclusive North American distributor of Pure Hemp cigarette papers. "An official THC test of the seed in question has been obtained from a Canadian lab accredited by Health Canada showing that the seed contains no THC." Furthermore, the field test indicated that both the Pure Hemp cigarette papers and hemp twine in the van's cargo also contained THC, yet both are made from the stalk fibres of the hemp plant which don't contain THC. According to Johannes Chapman "a guy in a Dead shirt, who turned out to be DEA with another partner, had me sign a paper. When I signed, he said this is not an admission of guilt, it just says that I'll show up at Court in Maine on Sept. 9th. I am charged with an attempt to import Eight pounds of Marijuana into Maine. That is why Hemphry was detained, the papers seized and why we were turned back to Canada." Hemphry is currently in limbo, awaiting the findings of the DEA's testing of the seeds in Boston. If they test positive to THC, he will be seized. If the tests come back negative, Hemphry, it is hoped, will be returned. Johannes is currently back in Ontario waiting to be reunited with Hemphry.

CANNABIS SPRAY PAINKILLER TO BE IN USE WITHIN MONTHS

Multiple Sclerosis sufferers are set to get painkillers made with cannabis on the NHS by the end of the year, "Scotland on Sunday" Political Correspondent MURDO MacLEOD says. Tests on an oral spray called Sativex have been completed and are being reviewed by regulators. If, as expected, they rule the painkiller should be approved, the law will be changed to allow the cannabis-based drug - the first of its kind - to be prescribed by doctors. The developers of the drug, GW Pharmaceuticals, claim trials have shown that the spray eases pain, gives MS sufferers control over their muscles and allows them to sleep. Its effects on other people who suffer severe, chronic pain are also being examined. However, cannabis campaigner and MS sufferer Biz Ivol, last night claimed the drug was a distraction, and urged ministers to allow MS sufferers to use cannabis freely. Hugh Henry, the Scottish deputy health minister, has told MSPs that ministers are waiting for a go-ahead from the Medicines and Health Care Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which is reviewing the evidence from trials of the new drug. If the agency gives the drug the all-clear the law will have to be amended by Westminster to allow cannabis to be processed, and the products derived from the drug to be prescribed without fear of prosecution. The UK government has pledged to change the law quickly if the drug is approved by the MHRA. The trials, which involved 350 people for up to two years, showed that those who used the new drug, as opposed to a placebo, experienced significantly less pain, along with better sleep and fewer muscle spasms. It proved so popular that some of those on the trials have asked to continue taking the new drug. Scientists have been working on isolating the key pain-relieving ingredients in cannabis in order to allow them to develop painkilling drugs without the mind-altering effects of cannabis. They managed to isolate two chemicals for use in Sativex - tetrahydrocannabinol or THC and cannabidiol, known as CBD. In addition to asking the MHRA for permission to market the drug, the company has also begun trials to examine whether Sativex could aid the pain of sufferers of cancer and spinal cord injury. A spokesman for the company said: "We are preparing to act very quickly if the drug is approved. We would plan to have it available by the end of the year. It will be part of a transformation in the lives of many people who suffer from MS." However, Ivol gave the plans only lukewarm support. She became an icon for the campaign to allow MS sufferers to be allowed to use cannabis when she was prosecuted for alleged drug supply. Ivol was accused of supplying cannabis by baking chocolates laced with the drug and sending them to fellow MS suffers to help them cope with the pain of the disease. Last month the Crown decided to drop the case against her because she was too unwell to face trial. However, she attempted suicide as a protest against the fact that she had been prosecuted in the first place. Speaking from her home in Orkney, she said: "While it is good to see that the authorities are finally admitting that cannabis is wonderful pain reliever, it seems very grudging, and to have been organised for the good of the drug companies." A spokesman for the MS Society said: "If this treatment is found to be safe and effective then we would want to see it made widely available as quickly as possible. It will be a great help to many people. Unfortunately, it is not a cure and it is only part of the picture. Studies have shown that cannabis, just like other drugs, are only effective for some people." Brian Adam, the SNP MSP for Aberdeen North, who raised the issue with ministers, said: "I welcome the fact that this product is making progress. I certainly hope it will be available by the end of the year. "I believe that this will clarify the issues on whether cannabis should be legalised by removing the medical issue from the argument. Many of those who have argued for the legalisation of the drug have sought to hide behind the medical arguments." Adam also highlighted worries that the drug might not be equally available to all sufferers. Another MS treatment, beta-interferon - which also eases the pain caused by the disease - was at the centre of a furious controversy in 2001 when it emerged that people in certain areas were refused the drug by their local health board on cost grounds. The cases led to a furore over prescribing. MS is the most common disabling neurological condition affecting young adults, with around 85,000 sufferers in the UK. Scotland has the highest prevalence of MS in the world, with about 10,000 people affected. It results from damage to myelin - a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system - which then interferes with messages between the brain and other body parts, causing debilitating pain.

NEW ZEALAND DRUG LAWS UNLIKELY TO CHANGE SOON

Another day and another parliamentary committee somewhere in the world struggles to find data or arguments to preserve cannabis supply as a monopoly for criminals and corrupt police. This NZ report is no exception. There will be no change in policy because two political parties did a deal to form a coalition agreeing that there would be no change in policy. But the thing about unsustainable policies is that they do not last forever. The square wheel sooner or later gives way to round ones. Costly and ineffective policies are sooner or later replaced by less expensive and more effective policies.

CANNABIS MIGRAINE TREATMENT

Dr. Ethan Russo, noted expert in headaches and the clinical use of cannabis, was OPN's guest at the August Patient Forum Thursday evening which was participated in by about two dozen patients. Dr. Russo answered questions on a wide range of cannabis as medicine topics. The forum is now available as a low bandwidth RealAudio file at: http://drugpolicycentral.com/real/opn/opn7aug.rm
Dr. Russo is editor of the Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics (see http://www.haworthpressinc.com/store/product.asp?sku=J175).
He also conducted the "Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program: An Examination of Benefits and Adverse Effects of Legal Clinical Cannabis," which examined the overall health status of four of the seven remaining patients in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) program of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). One of Dr. Russo's principle areas of interest lies in headaches, particularly migraine headaches. He has submitted several protocols to the FDA to study the effectiveness of cannabis-based treatments in migraine headaches and was finally approved to conduct a clinical study in 1999. He has also authored a historical review of cannabis therapy in obstetrics and gynecology. The Ohio Patient Network is a non-profit coalition of patients, caregivers, medical professionals, concerned citizens, and organizations who support the compassionate use of cannabis for various medicinal purposes. Information about OPN can be found at http://www.ohiopatient.net

MEDICAL MARIJUANA TO SELL FOR $5 PER GRAM

Website: http://www.cmaj.ca/

Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/754

Author: Barbara Sibbald

There is no question physicians will play a crucial role in implementing Canada's new interim policy for providing medical marijuana, but many questions remain about how they will do it.

Under the interim policy, announced July 9, the 582 Canadian patients who have met requirements of the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations (MMAR) will be allowed to buy 30 marijuana seeds for $20, and then grow them for medical purposes. They will also be able to buy dried marijuana for $5 per gram, or about $140 an ounce. (Black-market marijuana costs $300 to $750 an ounce, according to the RCMP.) Health Canada currently has 370 kg of marijuana with a THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) content of 10% ready for distribution. Physician approval is required before patients can receive it.

The seeds and marijuana will be provided by Prairie Plant Systems Inc. in Flin Flon, Man., which is under contract with Health Canada to produce marijuana for clinical trials. The marijuana will be sent to participating physicians for distribution purposes; only doctors who have signed a patient's MMAR form will be asked to do this. Cindy Cripps-Prawak, director of the Office of Cannabis Medical Access, said MDs "are acting as an intermediary for Health Canada" in the distribution.

She said the amount provided "will be based on the dosage recommended by the physician," and this could be as much as 4.2 g per day (about 6 cigarettes). There are no clinical guidelines. Setting the exact dosage is a "challenge Health Canada and doctors share," Cripps-Prawak added. For health reasons, patients will be encouraged to use the drug as a tea or in baked goods instead of smoking it.

Ottawa was forced to put an interim policy in place after the Ontario Superior Court ruled that the federal regulations were unconstitutional because they did not provide a distribution method. The court gave the government 6 months to act. If it had not, the 582 exemptions allowing medicinal use of the drug would have become invalid.

Although Ottawa tried to put a positive spin on the policy, CMA President Dana Hanson was less than impressed. "Our unease over use of medical marijuana has been ignored in this new policy," he said.

However, Hanson also acknowledged that despite physicians' displeasure over their unsought role in the medical marijuana debate, they must continue to participate in it. "The government needs to get it right, so we continue to be willing to work with them," he said.

THE SHIFTING MEDICAL VIEW ON MARIJUANA

Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/

Author: Lester Grinspoon

Note: Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is author of "Marihuana Reconsidered" and coauthor of "Marijuana, the Forbidden Medicine."

IN A RECENT poll conducted by Medscape, a website directed at health care providers, 76 percent of physicians and 89 percent of nurses said they thought marijuana should be available as a medicine. That's a big change from the attitude in the medical community a decade ago, when few health providers believed (or would acknowledge) that cannabis had any medical utility. That was not surprising; physicians receive most of their new drug education from journal articles or from drug company advertisements and promotions, and neither of these sources provides information about medical marijuana.

The dramatic change of view is the result of clinical experience. Doctors and nurses have seen that for many patients cannabis is more useful, less toxic, and less expensive than the conventional medicines prescribed for diverse syndromes and symptoms, including multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, migraine headaches, severe nausea and vomiting, convulsive disorders, the AIDS wasting syndrome, chronic pain, and many others.

A mountain of anecdotal evidence speaks to marijuana's medical versatility and striking lack of toxicity. Even the federally sponsored Institute of Medicine has grudgingly acknowledged that marijuana has medical uses.

However, the government itself refuses to learn. Its official position, as stated recently by the new DEA administrator, is that "marijuana is not a medicine."

When it is at last obliged to acknowledge the medical value of marijuana, the government will be faced with the problem its present attitude has allowed it to avoid. How can it grant access to marijuana for medical purposes while prohibiting its use for other, disapproved purposes? One solution is what I would call "pharmaceuticalization": the development of prescription medicines derived from the therapeutically active components of cannabis and synthetic variants of these molecules.

This process has already begun in a small way. The Food and Drug Administration, under pressure from a growing number of physicians and patients, approved Marinol for the treatment of the nausea and vomiting of cancer chemotherapy. Marinol is synthetic tetrahydrocannabinol, the primary active cannabinoid in marijuana, packed in a capsule with sesame oil so that it cannot be smoked.

But relatively few patients have found Marinol useful. It is less effective than marijuana for several reasons. Because it must be taken orally, the effect appears only after an hour or more. That eliminates one of the main advantages of smoked or vaporized inhaled cannabis, which works so quickly that the patient can adjust the dose with remarkable precision. Furthermore, Marinol is more expensive than marijuana, even with the prohibition tariff that raises the price of illicit cannabis.

Several other products, including extracts of marijuana, are in the pipeline, but they are unlikely to be any more useful or less expensive than plant marijuana. Even if pharmaceutical companies invest the many millions of dollars it will take to develop useful cannabinoid products, they will not displace natural marijuana for most purposes. And because the primary, and for many the only, advantage of these drugs will be legality, their manufacturers will have an interest in vigorously enforced prohibition that raises the price of the competitive product, street marijuana.

The realities of human need are incompatible with the demand for a legally enforceable distinction between medicine and all other uses of cannabis. Marijuana not only has many potential medical uses, but can also safely enhance many pleasures and ease many discomforts of everyday life. In many cases what lay people do in prescribing marijuana for themselves is not very different from what physicians do when they provide prescriptions for psychoactive or other drugs.

The only workable way of realizing the full potential of this remarkable substance, including its full medical potential, is to free it from a dual set of regulations -- the laws that control prescription drugs, and the often cruel and self-defeating criminal laws that control psychoactive substances used to for nonmedical purposes. These mutually reinforcing laws strangle marijuana's uniquely multifaceted potential. The only way to liberate the potential is to give marijuana the same legal status as alcohol, a far more dangerous substance.

Marijuana should be removed from the medical and criminal control systems. It should be legalized for adults for all uses.

POT SALES ON HOLD FOR LONDON'S HIPPY CAFE

Website: http://www.lfpress.com

Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243

Author: Joe Belanger

The owner of London's first cafe for pot smokers is delaying plans to sell marijuana for medicinal use. "The (London) police just left and they advised me that if I sold pot at the compassion centre, I'd be charged with trafficking," said Michael McDowell, owner of The Hippy Cafe on Oxford Street East.

McDowell said yesterday police were polite, but insistent that he would be criminally charged.

However, he said he'll explore other options, including an affiliation with another legally operating compassion centre.

"I'm hoping another compassion centre will take us under their wing," he said.

"It's going to take a bit of time (to get approvals), but I'm not giving up. I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it right to help these people."

The Hippy Cafe quietly opened late last month, providing a safe refuge for pot smokers to light up, with a fenced patio.

However, McDowell also planned to open a compassion centre Monday to sell marijuana to people who have been legally and medically cleared to smoke it as part of their treatment to ease chronic pain and discomfort.

Sufferers of arthritis, glaucoma and AIDS use the substance to alleviate pain and discomfort from drug treatments.

The Hippy Cafe is located at the rear of The Plant Doctor at 944 Oxford St. E.

IF SEIZURES ARE UP, WHY ISN'T THE PRICE?

http://repositories.cdlib.org/csls/fwp/9/

On the link above, two respected economists try to explain why prices of drugs in the US fell 70-80% even though the US kept on throwing more and more law enforcement dollars at drug supply. The authors decided that "maybe the drug dealers are irrational " was the most plausible explanation.

Whatever the explanation for this paradox, the observation is that drug prices have now been falling steadily in the US for some decades even though spending on supply control keeps rising.

(Has anyone ever suggested to these idiots that supply might be exceeding demand in spite of record seizures, or that some of these seizures might be making it back onto the market?)

WELSH HEROIN DEALER GOES TOO FAR, WINNING BRAVERY AWARD?

By Richard Savill

(Filed: 19/08/2003)

Anti-drug campaigners, including a senior police officer, have criticised a decision to give a convicted heroin dealer a bravery award while he is in prison.

Paul Parry, 32, will be the first prison inmate in Britain to be presented with a Royal Humane Society medal and a certificate, signed by its president, Princess Alexandra.

He saved the life of a 15-year-old girl being swept out to sea during storms at Aberystwyth, mid-Wales, in January last year.

However, earlier this year, he was jailed for five and a half years for being the ringleader of a gang which was dealing heroin in the university and seaside town.

The award was criticised yesterday by a police officer leading a drugs crackdown and by the parents of Rachel Whitear, 21, who died as a result of her heroin addiction.

Chief Insp Paul Cannon, who is trying to reduce the number of heroin deaths in south Wales, said: "There is no way this man should be given a humane society award. Instead, he should be reviled for his part in this evil trade."

Photographs of Miss Whitear lying dead with a syringe in her hand at her bedsit in Exmouth, Devon, were published in newspapers and used in an anti-drugs video.

Her mother, Pauline, and stepfather, Michael Holcroft, released the pictures to warn of the dangers of drugs.

Mr Holcroft, 54, of Ledbury, Herefordshire, said of Parry: "He should not be looked up to by anyone because as a drug supplier he has been peddling in evil."

Parry, who will get a bronze award, and his father David, 54, braved gale force winds and 10 ft waves to save the schoolgirl who plunged 30 feet on to rocks from the harbour jetty.

She was badly hurt and needed hospital treatment for broken bones.

The Royal Humane Society secretary, retired Maj Gen Christopher Tyler, defended the award. He said: "The girl was seconds away from being swept to sea by the rising tide.

"Without this brave father and son's intervention she would not have survived."

BHAGAVAN RAMANA MAHARSHI'S OPINION OF CANNABIS

I went to Bhagavan's bathroom to help him with his morning bath. Madhava Swami and I gave him the usual oil bath and massage. When the bath was over Madhava Swami asked a question:

"Bhagavan, the people who take ganja lehiyam (an ayurvedic preparation whose principal ingredient is cannabis) experience some kind of ananda (bliss). What is the nature of this ananda ? Is it the same ananda that the scriptures speak of ?"

"Eating this ganja is a very bad habit," replied Bhagavan. Then, laughing loudly, he came over to me, hugged me and called out, "Ananda! Ananda! . . . This is how these ganja-taking people behave!"

It was not a brief hug. Madhava Swami told me later that he held me tightly for about two minutes. After the first few seconds I completely lost awareness of my body and the world. Initially, there was a feeling of happiness and bliss, but this soon gave way to a state in which there were no feelings and no experiences.

I did not lose consciousness, I just ceased to be aware of anything that was going on around me. I remained in this state for about fifteen minutes.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!