PRESS RELEASE - 1st OCTOBER, 2003

Edition 12.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

Dis-United States drug policies

Scores of laws and voter initiatives since 1996 have turned states away from "get tough" drug policies that emphasize the penalties for drug offenses, according to a report released Tuesday by an advocacy group.

States approved measures that stress treatment instead of incarceration, restore voting rights and welfare benefits for offenders and allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Overall, states were cobbling together policies that treat addiction more like an illness than a crime, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports such an approach.

More than 150 laws have been passed and, increasingly, support has come from both Democrats and Republicans, according to the report's authors and state lawmakers who spoke in a teleconference Tuesday.

"There was a great deal of dissatisfaction with the way the war on drugs has been pursued" from conservatives and liberals, said Washington state Sen. Adam Kline, a Democrat who spoke about efforts to reduce recidivism in his state.

Dissatisfied or not, many of the new anti-drug efforts also have been driven by financial worries, as most states struggle with budget deficits. A state prison inmate, on average, costs $30,000 a year, the report said, citing federal studies.

The study found that voters in 17 states have approved drug-reform initiatives, often to allow marijuana use for medical purposes, to provide for treatment instead of incarceration for some drug offenses, or to ease laws on seizing assets in drug cases.

Overall, 46 states passed laws to ease tough laws on drug violations, including:

- Sentencing reforms in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

- Restoring some or all welfare eligibility to drug offenders in 29 states.

- Allowing marijuana use for medical needs in nine states and the District of Columbia.

Prosecutors across the country also see the change, said Bob Honecker, a Monmouth County, N.J., prosecutor and vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.

But Honecker cautioned that what is emerging is a mix-and-match approach, one that combines flexibility, creativity and harsh penalties to address a wide range of problems.

"The realization is that you need several different approaches to deal with drugs," Honecker said.

The study characterized the new approach as one of "harm reduction" - "the awareness that not just drug abuse, but also misguided drug policies, can cause grave harms to individuals and society."

Besides budget pressures, there has been a recognition that prison populations were rising too rapidly, and were affecting low-income people and minorities disproportionately, said Connecticut state Rep. Michael Lawlor, a Democrat.

Lawlor, a prosecutor, said he pushed for tougher laws for the first half of his 18 years in the state legislature, but then changed direction as he saw the results. "For the past eight or nine years I've been working with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to try and undo the unintended consequences," he said.

Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said that as state lawmakers embrace such changes without a backlash from voters, he hoped to see similar changes on the federal level.

According to a report released last month by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year.

ARREST MS, NOT PATIENTS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- A potential breakthrough in the treatment of multiple sclerosis could lie on the horizon, and it may come from an unlikely source: marijuana.

According to clinical findings published in the most recent issue of the journal Brain, cannabinoids (ingredients in marijuana) offer neuroprotection against allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS. After analyzing the findings, authors at London's Institute of Neurology concluded,
"In addition to symptom management, cannabis may also slow down the neurodegenerative processes that ultimately lead to chronic disability in multiple sclerosis and probably other diseases."

Their statement gives hope to the estimated 350,000 patients in the United States living with MS, a debilitating and sometimes fatal disorder of the central nervous system. Although previous human studies have indicated that pot may provide therapeutic relief to common symptoms of MS such as muscle spasms, tremor, and incontinence, the London study is one of the first to indicate that
cannabinoids may also potentially stave off the disease.

Unfortunately, far too many politicians remain in the dark about marijuana's medicinal value, with many in Congress opting to punish medicinal pot patients rather than support them. In an effort to change this view, dozens of MS patients who use marijuana therapeutically are descending on Washington this week to bring needed attention to the medicinal marijuana issue. Patients will
be holding a candlelight vigil in front of the Supreme Court in honor of Cheryl Miller -- a longtime medical marijuana activist who died of MS-related complications in June -- as well as a press conference with various members of Congress in support of House Bill 2233, the "States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act."

"Throughout much of her life, Cheryl risked arrest and jail to use the only medication that alleviated her suffering," remembers her husband Jim Miller, organizer of the patient march on Washington. "I hope that by bringing attention to the plight of my late wife Cheryl, I can hasten the day when
marijuana will be made available so that others are no longer needlessly forced to suffer with pain or risk arrest."

Further research on the use of marijuana as a medicine is forthcoming. Nevertheless, it appears that many MS sufferers have already learned what the scientific community is just now discovering. For example, a recent British survey of MS patients found that 43 percent of respondents used marijuana therapeutically. Among them, nearly three quarters said that pot mitigated their spasms, and more than half said it alleviated their pain.

Clinical data published in the spring edition of the journal Clinical Rehabilitation affirmed these perceptions. The study, performed by researchers at Oxford University, found that MS patients administered whole-plant marijuana extracts experienced improved pain relief, bladder control, and spasticity compared to placebo. As a result, these pot extracts are now being evaluated by
the UK's National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which is expected to make a decision regarding the drugs' legalization this fall.

Meanwhile, a survey published last month in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences reported that 96 percent of Canadian MS patients believe that marijuana is therapeutically useful for treating the disease. Of those who admitted using marijuana medicinally, the majority found it to be beneficial, particularly in the treatment of chronic pain, spasticity and depression.

With scientific evidence mounting and large numbers of MS sufferers already using marijuana medicinally, it's time to for Congress to acknowledge pot's emerging role as a therapeutic agent, and stand up for the rights of patients who ease their pain and suffering through the use of marijuana.

WA PASSES NEW CANNABIS BILL

Minor possession of cannabis in Western Australia is set to be decriminalised after legislation finally cleared state Parliament last night.

Labor's Cannabis Control Bill was passed on the Government's numbers, with amendments approved by the Legislative Council.

Under the reforms, possession of up to 30 grams of cannabis leaf, or two plants ,will no longer attract a criminal record, although a "three-strikes" clause will target people issued with repeat infringements.

The successful passage of the bill, first introduced in March by the former Health Minister, Bob Kucera, sees the major recommendation of the 2001 Community Drug Summit achieved.

ANTI-DRUG PITCH GOES WIDE

Pubdate: Mon, 22 Sep 2003
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Webpage: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-drugwar22sep22,1,4195735.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials
Copyright: 2003 Los Angeles Times
Contact: mailto:letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm (ONDCP Media Campaign)

ANTI-DRUG PITCH GOES WIDE

When Congress launched the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign five years ago, it explicitly tied future funding to hard evidence of success. Today, there is anything but that. Teenagers are increasingly using the illicit drugs the campaign has most often railed against, according to a recently released, congressionally mandated study.

The Pride Survey found that from 2001 to 2002, for instance, marijuana use was up among all grades studied (sixth through 12th) except for the 10th grade, which showed a 0.1% decline.

Marijuana use nearly doubled, from 2.9% to 5.2%, among sixth-graders and rose from 7.2% to 10.2% among eighth-graders.

Congress should at least cast a skeptical eye on the Bush administration's request to expand the media campaign with $170 million in funding next year, $20 million more than it received last year. The media campaign's concerns have often been legitimate. It is quite reasonably trying to reach the one in six high school seniors in the United States who report driving under the influence
of pot, more than half of whom say, alarmingly, that being stoned does not compromise their driving ability.

However, the way in which the campaign has tried to get its messages across is stodgy and unlikely to connect with kids. "There has always been a lot of talk about drunk driving, but another problem is Drugged Driving," one new ad reads. "Just like alcohol, if you are driving under the influence of drugs, your response times are slow and you could be distracted. Have you ever been in a car where someone wanted to drive drugged?

What did you do? What would you do?" Drug czar John P. Walters has mismanaged the media campaign in other ways - using taxpayer dollars to directly attack state medical marijuana programs and ballot initiatives, for instance. This spring, Walters boasted to Congress about a study conducted by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (which, in a blatant conflict of interest, helps produce the campaign's ads). The "good news," he said, was the study's conclusion that "40% of teens said that anti-drug advertising made them less likely to try or use drugs." A more independent study released by the University of Pennsylvania this year not only found "no evidence of a positive effect," it concluded that teens who saw the ads "tended to move more markedly in a 'pro-drug' direction in their attitudes over time." Sermons to teens can often have a boomerang effect, leading them to dismiss the real dangers the sermons are railing against.

That, however, is not the lesson Walters took home from the Pennsylvania study. When its skeptical results came in, he opted not to renew the university's contract.

Turning a blind eye to unwelcome facts is no way to run an effective anti-drug campaign.

SATAVEX Cannabis Tincture

Cannabis Tincture Information

Many patients who utilise and benefit from medical cannabis do not wish to smoke due to the perceived health hazards of smoking or for other personal reasons. These patients are
in something of a bind when you consider that smoking cannabis delivers the active cannabinoids within seconds. The combusted active elements are absorbed in the lungs and go directly to the brain and general circulation.

The same effect can be achieved with a vaporiser, which is safer than smoking any combusted vegetable matter. Rather than igniting, burning and inhaling the vegetable matter, cannabis material is heated to a sufficient temperature that allows the cannabinoids to vaporise and be inhaled. Since the effects of inhaled combusted or vaporised cannabis are so quick, it is easy for patients to titrate their dose by simply waiting a minute or two in between puffs.

Eaten cannabis, such as cookies and teas, are absorbed in a very different fashion from smoking or inhalation. When cannabis derived products are eaten or used in a drink they pass through the gastro intestinal (GI) tract which gradually absorbs Cannabinoids over the course of one to two hours. Therapeutic agents in the cannabis are processed first by the liver, which then converts some cannabinoids. Orally delivered cannabis requires four to ten times the amount of the smoked version in order to achieve the same effect. Orally delivered cannabis can sometimes present a problem in achieving the required or desired dose level in any consistent fashion.

Cannabis tincture is an alcohol extraction and suspension of active cannabinoids from plant
material. Cannabis tincture is designed to address the problems of rapid medicine delivery and
consistent dosing. Tinctures are made to be used under the tongue or sublingually. Absorption by
the arterial blood supply under the tongue is completed in seconds. One trick is to not swallow
the dose straight away, if swallowed, absorption will be in the GI tract.

Many patients prefer to add their tincture to a cup of tea or cranberry juice for easy delivery.
When tincture is used in a beverage, absorption will be slower than if absorbed under the tongue.
While tincture absorbed in an empty stomach is accomplished in minutes, conversion in the liver
remains, as does the difficulty in titrating dose.

English pharmaceutical companies are presently working on a cannabis extract "spray" that can
be used under the tongue in a similar fashion. These sprays are not expected to be approved for
use in the United States for years, and will be very expensive for patients in Australia.

Dosage:

Patients who have never used, or have not used cannabis in many years may receive benefit from
3-4 drops. Other patients may need a full dropper depending upon the patient's own unique
requirements among other factors.

We recommend patients start tincture use by using very little, and waiting up to 24 hours before
using the tincture again. If noticeable results were not achieved previously, a slightly higher
dose may then be tried. This method can be repeated till a required effect in identified by the
patient.

General Rules:

Cannabis contains many chemicals that can either upset the stomach or taste nasty. One of the
goals of extraction is to secure the cannabinoids while leaving out as many of the non actives and
chlorophylls as possible. Trial and error is usually required to acquire the appropriate dose level.
Both heat and light adversely effect cannabinoids and should be avoided or minimised.
Tincture should be stored in airtight dark glass containers kept at room temperature or below.

Cannabis detecting Saliva Tests being developed at Swinburne U.

In an on-going study at Swinburne University in Melbourne to develop a saliva test suitable for roadside testing for drug impairment, researchers have found that marijuana use impairs driving ability.

Dr Katherine Papafotiou, of the university’s drugs and driving unit, said 80 regular and non-regular marijuana smokers had volunteered to take part in the trial. Data from six sessions reveals significant impairment in the individual maintaining specified positions within designated traffic lanes. “There was a lot of weaving over barrier lines and solid lines when they were intoxicated by cannabis in high doses”.

Non-regular users were more impaired, even though the level of THC was higher in regular users.

Occasional smokers also recorded a higher number of collisions and had slower reaction times in the driving simulation tests.

The conclusion, that regular users might be slightly more tolerant to the impairing effects of marijuana is just one problem in developing an accurate roadside saliva test for all drug classes, which Dr Papafotiou said was at least three years away.

Smoking Pot Kills...Not.

For the health-conscious pothead who can't afford or can't get motivated to use a vaporizer, the mother of all questions has to be: does smoking cannabis lower life expectancy? A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal generated ominous headlines, attributing some 30,000 deaths annually in the UK to cannabis smoking. But you can relax a little, dear reader: the authors simply extrapolated from the number of deaths caused by cigarette smoking (120,000) and assumed that pot smoking was 1/4 as common and equally dangerous.

In the Sept. 20 BMJ, Stephen Sidney, MD -the associate director of clinical research for Kaiser Permanente, who has conducted the most relevant studies- explains how to approach the question scientifically:

"Firstly, we need to examine published data regarding use of cannabis and mortality. These data come from two large studies. The first study done in a cohort of 45,450 male Swedish conscripts, age 18-20 when interviewed about the use of cannabis, reported no increase in the 15-year mortality associated with the use of cannabis after social factors were taken into
account.

"The second study was performed in a cohort of 65,171 men and women age 15-49, who were members of a large health maintenance organization in California, United States. [Sidney is referring to the Kaiser study on which he was principal investigator. His paper describing the results, 'Marijuana and Mortality,' was published in the American Journal of Public Health in
1997.] They completed a questionnaire assessing their use of cannabis, and reported no increase in mortality associated with use of cannabis over an average of 10 years of follow up, except for AIDS-related mortality in men. A detailed examination showed that the mortality link between cannabis and AIDS was not a causal one. Thus published data do not support the characterization of cannabis as a risk factor for mortality.

"Secondly, we need to consider the time course of exposure to cannabis and its potential relation to mortality. No acute lethal overdoses of cannabis are known, in contrast to several of its illegal (for example, cocaine) and legal (for example, alcohol, aspirin, and acetaminophen) counterparts.

"Deaths due to chronic diseases resulting from substance misuse generally result from the use of that substance (for example, tobacco and alcohol) over a long time. Importantly, and in contrast to users of tobacco and alcohol, most cannabis users generally quit using cannabis relatively early
in their adult lives. The proportion of older adults who use cannabis is only 18% that of younger adults, and that is much lower than the comparable proportions for alcohol (89%) and tobacco cigarettes (60%).

"Moreover since the use of cannabis in young adults declined steadily between 1979 and 1998, whereas use in older adults remained stable, the observed low prevalence in older adults is unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future. Therefore, even diseases that might be related to long
term use of cannabis are unlikely to have a sizeable public health impact because most people who try cannabis do not become long term users. This observation is relevant to lung cancer, which, although strongly related to cigarette smoking, typically only occurs after at least 20 years of smoking.

"Also, a typical regular cannabis user smokes the equivalent of one marijuana cigarette or less per day, whereas consumption of 20 or more tobacco cigarettes is common. Exposure to smoke is therefore generally much lower in cannabis than in tobacco cigarette smokers, even taking into
account the larger exposure per puff.

"A third issue to consider is the potential relation of the use of cannabis to diseases that contribute the most to total mortality. For example, in the United States and the United Kingdom the leading cause of death is diseases of the heart, predominantly coronary heart disease, which is strongly
associated with smoking tobacco cigarettes and accounts for nearly one third of all deaths. Mittleman et al noted the quadrupling of risk found in one study when cannabis was smoked within one hour before a myocardial infarction [heart attack]. However, since only 0.2% of the patients with myocardial infarction reported this exposure, the number of myocardial infarctions attributable to the use of cannabis is extremely small.

"Cannabis does not contain nicotine, a component of tobacco that contributes importantly to the risk of coronary heart disease. Use of cannabis in a young adult population was not associated with the presence of calcium in coronary arteries -an indicator of coronary atherosclerosis- and a cohort study conducted in a large health maintenance organization showed no association between the use of cannabis and admission to hospital for myocardial infarction and all coronary heart disease. [Sidney was lead investigator on the two studies cited.]

"Two caveats must be noted regarding available data. Firstly, the longer-term follow up of cohorts of cannabis users may still show an increased risk of cancers, chronic diseases, and mortality if enough members of the study cohort continue to smoke cannabis often enough and for long enough. The cohorts to date have not followed cannabis smokers into later adult life so that it might be too early to detect an increased risk of chronic diseases that are potentially associated with the use of cannabis. Secondly, the low rate of regular use of cannabis and the high rates of
discontinuation during young adulthood in the United States may reflect the illegality and social disapproval of the use of cannabis. This means that we cannot assume that smoking cannabis would continue to have the same small impact on mortality (as it probably does with current patterns of use) if its use were to be decriminalized or legalized."

"Although the use of cannabis is not harmless, the current knowledge base does not support the assertion that it has any notable adverse public health impact in relation to mortality. Common sense should dictate a variety of measures to minimize adverse effects of cannabis. These include discouraging the use by teenagers, who seem to be most at risk of future problems from drug use, not using before or during the operation of automobiles or machinery, not using excessively, and cautioning people with known coronary heart disease."

Some Comments

Some of the harm-reduction measures recommended by Sidney are indeed "common sense;" but some are at odds with findings reported by Tom O'Connell and Tod Mikuriya, two doctors who have made a specialty of monitoring their patients' cannabis use. O'Connell's data indicate that cannabis use as a teenager predisposes against problematic use of hard drugs later in life.
And according to Mikuriya, "Cannabis does not have an adverse effect on cardiac functioning. It decreases stress with its resultant cardiac problems."

Sidney assumes that cannabis use would increase if Prohibition were ended. He's almost certainly right, but who would start using, and would they be smoking the crude plant? There are millions of older Californians who have not availed themselves of the right to use marijuana medicinally but might do so if access became easier. And they'd almost certainly prefer sublingual extracts or vaporization... Sidney's paper seems like a strong argument to get a vaporizer. It would be almost like quitting, lung-wise. Unfortunately, the only really cool one, the German-made Volcano, costs
around $550.

The rate at which teenagers use cannabis probably wouldn't change significantly if the Prohibition eased -they have access to it now. The only longterm way to reduce drug use by teenagers is to create a society in which they have skills, purpose, freedom, and dignity. We could start by calling
off the dogs and getting rid of the bottles they're made to pee in.

Potshots

"Ferris Fain was the one who grew the clones for the local professional growers," according to a Georgetowner who knew him slightly in his final decade. "That's why he had to do time -he had thousands of plants." Our source was under the impression that Fain, when he'd met him, had been using marijuana to ease his aches and pains. What a shame that marijuana could become an "issue" between him and a loved one. How many parent-vs.-kid and kid-vs.-parent tensions have been exacerbated by Prohibition?

The Med Board v. Mikuriya hearing resumes and is expected to conclude on Wednesday, Sept. 24. The dignified Berkeley psychiatrist has spent five hours on the stand defending his treatment of 16 patients. He has yet to be cross-examined. The lawyers will have three or four weeks to submit briefs to Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew, who will then have three or four weeks to make his "recommended decision" to the Medical Board, which will then have three or four weeks to publish it and as much time as they want to act on it. The Board can depart from the ALJ's recommended decision in either direction -punishment or leniency.

Upton Sinclair on medical care: "I number many doctors among my friends, and the better they know me, the more freely they admit the unsatisfactory state of their work. Leo Buerger, a college mate who became a leading specialist in New York, summed the situation up when I mentioned the osteopaths, and remarked that they sometimes made cures. Said my eminent friend: 'they cure
without diagnosing, and we diagnose without curing.'"

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!