PRESS RELEASE - 31st OCTOBER, 2003

Edition 16.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

Cannabis use may impair male fertility?

Press Association
Tuesday October 14, 2003
The Guardian

Sperm from men who smoke cannabis regularly may fail to fertilise eggs because of premature burn-out, scientists said yesterday.
A study by scientists at Buffalo University school of medicine in New York showed the sperm move too fast, too early. Cannabis smokers also produced fewer sperm than non-drug takers.

The findings, presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine in San Antonio, Texas, suggest that cannabis use can impair male fertility.

The scientists compared sperm from 22 cannabis smokers and 59 fertile men. Sperm were counted and tested for their ability to move.

The team also assessed "hyperactivity", a burst of vigorous swimming which is supposed to occur as sperm approach an egg.

Chief researcher Lani Burkman said: "The sperm from marijuana smokers were moving too fast, too early. The timing was all wrong. These sperm will experience burn-out before they reach the egg and would not be capable of fertilisation."

The amount of seminal fluid and number of sperm from cannabis smokers were also significantly reduced. The cannabis smokers were frequent users who had taken the drug an average of 14 times a week for about five years.

The study is the first to compare sperm from cannabis users with that from men with confirmed fertility by looking at specific swimming behaviour.

Dr Burkman said: "The active ingredients in marijuana are doing something to sperm."

It was unclear how cannabis upset the sperm's swimming programme. It was possible the active ingredient in cannabis known as THC stimulated sperm cells to disturb their timing. Alternatively, the drug might be affecting natural inhibitory mechanisms.

· A cup of strong coffee not only helps men feel awake, it makes their sperm swim more strongly, boosting fertility, according to researchers at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil.

Tests on 750 men found regular coffee drinkers had more powerful sperm than those who did not touch caffeine.

(Judging by the number of children in Nimbin, not true!! Ed.)

Petition to free Aussie Seed Geneticist in Switzeland

The petition is being run by the Spanish mag, Canamo, and the site
is in Spanish so Rob got someone to translate it.

Mucho "Grassius" Rob.

Petition available at this Spanish site.........
http://www.canamo.net/ANTIPROHIBICION/antiprohibicion.htm

Here is the complete translation for the petition of signatures for Scott Blakey:

[TO LEFT OF PHOTO]

"Petitition of Signatures

The Australian geneticist, Scott Blakey, founder of Mr. Nice Seed Bank, finds himself
imprisoned for the last two months in Medrisio (Switzerland) accused by the authorities
of the canton of Tesino for marijuana trafficking.

Scott Blakey is not a drug trafficker. He has always dedicated himself as a cultivator and
breeder and in discovering new cannabis seed varieties. He is known internationally as an
activist, including here in Spain. He has taught many cultivators some of his secrets in the
hybridization of distinct varieties of marijuana. We ask for a solitary union throughout the
cannabis community, and the world, to help petition for the collection of signatures asking
for his immediate release.

Mr. Blakey with a copy of the book, Mr. Nice."

[DIALOG BOX]

"CANAMO will hand all petition forms to Scott Blakey’s attorney, which will contain all of the
collected signatures with complete names and D.N.I./passport numbers of all persons signing
the form. If one of you would prefer to petition forms in your name or in an association’s name,
you can print out a blank petition/signature form (Modelo Fax) below and fax it to 93-412-16-19
once the form is completely filled with signatures.

I wish for all of you to protest to the Swiss Government about the detention of Australian
geneticist and cannabis cultivator, Scott Blakey."

[BLACK BOX]

Nombre=Name

Primer Apellido=First Last Name

Segundo Apellido=Second Last Name

C.I.F.=Association

Enviar=Send

Aborrar=Erase or Cancel

Modelo Fax=Fax Form/Signature Form

Please help. Sign the petition.....

US Supreme Court Declines Marijuana Case

October 14, 2003

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it would not involve itself in a debate over whether doctors can talk to patients about medical marijuana.

RealAudio: Gwen Ifill gets two perspectives on the controversial decision from Rob Kampia, director of the Marijuana Policy Project, and Dr. Andrea Barthwell, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

http://audio.pbs.org:8080/ramgen/newshour/expansion/2003/10/14/scotus.rm?altplay=scotus.rm

Or if the above link does not work, go to

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/law/supreme_court/

and click the RealAudio link there.

An Anti-drug Explanation of the US Supreme Court ruling

From: David G. Evans, Esq. Legal Foundation Against Illegal Drugs 908-788-7077

Dear Friend:

Today the US Supreme Court decided to not hear an appeal in the Walters v. Conant case. That case came from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit decision held:

"This is an appeal from a permanent injunction entered to protect First Amendment rights. The order enjoins the federal government from either revoking a physician's license to prescribe controlled substances or conducting an investigation of a physician that might lead to such revocation, where the basis for the government's action is solely the physician's professional "recommendation" of the use of medical marijuana. The district court's order and accompanying opinion are at Conant v. McCaffrey, 2000 WL 1281174 (N.D.Cal. Sept. 7, 2000). The history of the litigation demonstrates that the injunction is not intended to limit the government's ability to investigate doctors who aid and abet the actual distribution and possession of marijuana. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). The government has not provided any empirical evidence to demonstrate that this injunction interferes with or threatens to interfere with any legitimate law enforcement activities. Nor is there any evidence that the similarly phrased preliminary injunction that preceded this injunction, Conant v. McCaffrey, 172 F.R.D. 681 (N.D.Cal.1997), which the government did not appeal, interfered with law enforcement. The district court, on the other hand, explained convincingly when it entered both the earlier preliminary injunction and this permanent injunction, how the government's professed enforcement policy threatens to interfere with expression protected by the First Amendment. We therefore affirm."

When the U.S. Supreme Court decides to not hear a case it can mean a variety of things. It does not mean that they agree with the lower court. It could mean that it is not a big enough national issue or that the case is not ripe for a decision yet by the court. Maybe the Court wants to have other lower courts rule on it.

This decision by the US Supreme Court does not mean that the Court supports medical marijuana. They have clearly stated in a previous case that they do not.

This case should not be taken as a victory for medical marijuana as this case only involved freedom of speech. Doctors are free, as are the rest of us, to say stupid things and express ideas. That is all this case is about. Doctors are free to say that marijuana is medicine just as they are free to say that it is not. Most doctors, including the AMA say it is not.

A brief against medical marijuana is attached. Read it and go forth and exercise your freedom of speech. LET US USE THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO EDUCATE PEOPLE ABOUT WHY SMOKED MARIJUANA IS NOT MEDICINE.

How "TIME" (magazine) has changed.....

SAY GOODBYE TO "JUST SAY NO", IN CANADA.....

The Drug Laws Have Been Ineffective And Counterproductive. So Change
Them.

A quarter-century ago, the canadian bar association (C.B.A.) resolved to support the decriminalization of simple possession and cultivation of cannabis for an adult's own use. It also supported decriminalizing the nonprofit transfer of small amounts of cannabis between adult
users. The C.B.A. therefore welcomed federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon's proposal in Bill C-38, introduced last May, to move toward a more rational approach to the offense of simple possession of cannabis. C.B.A. members' initial reaction was that this part of the bill represented a positive shift in direction. And last week the Ontario Court of Appeal declared parts of the very restrictive regulations governing access to medical cannabis unconstitutional.

The result will probably be increased access to cannabis for medical purposes. Yet these generally positive steps will inevitably meet opposition, largely because of the sensationalism and heavy-handed reliance on the criminal law that have too often been the mark of Canada's drug policies. The proposed changes have been criticized at home by the Canadian Alliance and abroad by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, whose director charged last week that Canada's drug policies were going in the wrong direction. "It's the only country in this hemisphere that's become a major drug producer instead of reducing its
drug production," he said.

Our current laws have not stopped people from using marijuana. What these laws have done is greatly expand the profits of criminal and even terrorist organizations, promote a violent black-market trade and waste the time and limited resources of police, prosecutors and the justice system. They have made the drug use that does occur more dangerous. Governments have relied on simplistic "just say no" messages to deal with the complex nature of drug use in our society.
They have distracted us from the central issue--why some individuals use drugs in a way that causes harm to them and to the communities around them. In short, the existing approach has been unnecessary, expensive, ineffectual and counterproductive.

Criminal law is a blunt instrument, inappropriate for dealing with many of the subtleties of a complex society. The Canadian government's own statement of criminal-justice policy recognizes this. The Criminal Law in Canadian Society, released in 1982 when Jean Chretien was Minister of Justice, stressed that the criminal law was an instrument of last resort, to be used only when other means of social control were inadequate or inappropriate. Yet successive federal governments
have chosen to ignore this policy when it came to drugs.

Canadians recognize that using more of the criminal law cannot address the presence of a wide variety of psychoactive substances in our society. In 2000 the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank committed to reducing society's reliance on incarceration, concluded that the U.S. imprisons more individuals for drug offenses than the entire European Union does for all offenses. Yet U.S. rates of illegal-drug use remain higher than those in many other countries,
and cannabis is among the U.S.'s most significant crops in dollar value. We cannot arrest our way out of the drug problem.

Law enforcement's present approach absorbs public resources that are badly needed elsewhere. It means that the chances of being prosecuted for drug use vary with geography, and it leads to young offenders being tried and possibly imprisoned at great public expense. Applying the criminal law to minor drug problems has led to measures that threaten important constitutional rights, including the right to be free from unreasonable search or seizure.

Any change of policy in Canada should be viewed in an international context. Eleven U.S. states decriminalized cannabis possession in the 1970s. Several Australian states followed suit. Many European countries have shifted away from criminal prohibition of possession of cannabis and other drugs. It is time for Canada to look to other models for deterring problematic drug use; jail-enforced prohibition has proved to be both expensive and counterproductive.

Cauchon's cannabis-law-reform bill, which was handed to a special parliamentary committee last week, gives us the chance to hold a much needed debate on how to react to the use of cannabis in Canadian society--as well as that of many other drugs, legal and illegal. Drug policy cries out for a rational discussion, free of the inflammatory rhetoric that has impeded sensible reform.

Drug pusher profile study

The World Today - Thursday, 2 October , 2003 12:32:40
Reporter: Elizabeth Jackson
ELIZABETH JACKSON: To a fascinating profile of drug pushers.

An international criminology conference in Sydney has been told that many of Australia's heroin importers are upstanding businessmen, who don't drink or use drugs and have no criminal record.

Lorraine Beyer, a PhD student from the University of Melbourne, spoke to a cross-section of heroin importers who were imprisoned for importing more than five kilos of the illegal drug.

I asked Lorraine Beyer what she expected to find and whether it matched with what she found.

LORRAINE BEYER: Well, I tried not to have any preconceived ideas before I went in there, but like everyone else I'd read the various media reports of importation and I had, you know, I mean, you can't avoid to have some sort of perception in your head, perhaps of depraved criminals involved heavily in organised crime.

So, when I interviewed these people, I found that the reality was probably something a bit different and that was that these were more ordinary people who had a work ethic, who'd been involved in long-term employment, who had their own businesses, and who thought well, this market exists whether or not I participate or not, so, why don't I become involved.

And they'd made this, made a decision to become involved in heroin importing for various reasons, all, most all to do with earning some more money, earning a lot more money by that way. So, making a wrong decision there.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Did they make that decision independently, or were they part of a gang?

LORRAINE BEYER: Uh, no they'd made… the way people tended to be recruited to the offending was through friends. It was very much an invitation to participate type of scenario. Some of the…

ELIZABETH JACKSON: But not official gangs?

LORRAINE BEYER: No, not at all.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: So, individual business people?

LORRAINE BEYER: Well, it was more like individuals getting together with other individuals in a private group and organising an importation through that method.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What countries were they from?

LORRAINE BEYER: Backgrounds were Asian backgrounds. One in four of the people that I interviewed was an Australian citizen.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Did these people use themselves?

LORRAINE BEYER: No.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Did they have any kind of criminal background?

LORRAINE BEYER: Only a couple did. The majority had no criminal background and in fact, that was what made them attractive to people who approached them. To be recruited the recruiter was looking for someone who didn't use drugs, who was not alcohol user, who didn't have a criminal history, and who was trustworthy and dependable.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Were they all men?

LORRAINE BEYER: Not all were men, no.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Some women. What percentage were women?

LORRAINE BEYER: A small percentage.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Did they think about getting caught?

LORRAINE BEYER: Yes, they had thought about being caught. However, the goal of the money at the end, particularly where a person… because some were recruited because they were really heavily in debt through, maybe gambling debts, for example, the temptation was just too great, so they just put that to one side and don't think about it.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: And I suppose they only need to be involved in one importation to make their money and get out of it. Was that the plan for many of them?

LORRAINE BEYER: From the offenders who are recruited from Asian countries, many do come from very poor backgrounds and to have one successful important means that they have a lifetime salary in their hands. So, many may do it for the benefit of their families. But it's a huge temptation when you look at it in those terms.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What did they do to minimise the risk of being caught?

LORRAINE BEYER: One of the most common risk reduction strategies was, what I call, "subcontracting". So, although I could draw diagrams of how all the connections fitted, actually there was an enormous amount of subcontracting that went in between each of those connections.

So, for example someone may be offered a thousand dollars to pick up a package and feeling that well, it must be illegal because of so much money being offered to me then offer…ask their friend, how'd you like to earn $500 to pick up this package and bring it to me; and then that friend, the same thing.

So, you may well have five or six different people actually picking up the package. So, that's to reduce the harm to themselves, or to reduce the risk of detection to themselves individually.

But, it makes it really, really hard for police because if they detect a package with heroin in it and they then follow it back and put it under surveillance – so they might track back two, three, four points of transferring that package – they may still actually not have got off the, you know, that bottom level, up to the organising level.

So, it's actually quite tricky but that was one of the main ways they reduced risk to themselves individually.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: PhD student Lorraine Beyer speaking at the criminology conference in Sydney.

Jamaica: Speed Up Ganja Discussions - Chuck Delroy

Pubdate: Thu, 16 Oct 2003
Source: Jamaica Gleaner, The (Jamaica)
Copyright: 2003 The Gleaner Company Limited
Contact: feedback@jamaica-gleaner.com
Website: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/493
Author: Robert Hart, Staff Reporter

SPEED UP GANJA DISCUSSIONS - CHUCK

THE NEW Joint Select Committee that will consider the report of the National Commission on Ganja met for the first time yesterday, but has yet to begin deliberations on the recommendations put forward for the legalisation of the drug.

Committee member Delroy Chuck said the group should push to complete its examination of the Ganja Commission's report and submit its own recommendations by the end of the year.

"We have been lagging with this since 1972...I don't want us to be sitting on this next year; let us finish it this year," he said.

Mr. Chuck also suggested that after the committee meets with the Ganja Commission at its next sitting in three weeks, the Joint Select Committee should have only a few more meetings before the recommendations are sent to Parliament for debate.

"Let there be as minimum deliberations as possible so that the Parliament can get it and let the Parliament by whatever means make a decision," he said. From November 200O to July 2001, and on the request of the Prime Minister, the National Commission on Ganja conducted "a period of exhaustive consultation and inquiry" on ganja use. The consultation involved interviews with more than 350 persons, including professional and influential leaders of society.

In its report, the Commission determined that the health hazards associated with the drug did not substantiate the criminalisation of "thousands of Jamaicans for using it in ways and with beliefs that are deeply rooted in the culture of the people."

The Commission made seven reccommendations, including the amendment of the relevant laws so that ganja be decriminalised for the private, personal use of specific quantities by adults, as well as for use as a sacrament for religious purposes.

It was also recommended that a Cannabis Research Agency be set up to coordinate research into all aspects of cannabis, including its epidemiological, and psychological effects as well as its
pharmacological and economic potential. The new committee is chaired by Dr. Morais Guy, Government MP for Central St. Mary. It was preceded by a joint select committee, in the previous Parliament, chaired by then Government MP, Canute Brown.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!