PRESS RELEASE - 15th FEBRUARY, 2004

Edition 29.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

Comments by Lester Grinspoon MD on Britain's pending Medical Cannabis Laws

Comments by Lester Grinspoon MD on

Britain Poised to Approve Medicine Derived From Marijuana
by DAVID TULLER

January 27, 2004. New York Times

I am pleased that the New York Times carried the piece, "Britain Poised to Approve Medicine Derived from Marijuana" if for no other reason than it contributes to the growing understanding that cannabis has some remarkable medicinal utilities. However, I am disappointed that it did not address some of the concerns about Sativex and G. W. Pharmaceuticals.

GW Pharmaceuticals sold this product to the Home Office on the assertion that it will provide all of the medical benefits of cannabis without imposing on the patient the "two dangerous" effects -- those of smoking and getting high. There is very little to support the proposition that smoking marijuana represents a great risk to the pulmonary system. Although cannabis has been smoked widely in this country for four decades now, there are no reported cases of cancer or emphysema which can be attributed to marijuana. I suspect that breathing a day's worth of the air in Houston or any other city with poor air quality poses more of a threat than inhaling a day's dose of smoked marijuana. Furthermore, those who are, in today's antismoking climate, concerned about any toxic effects on the pulmonary system can now use a vaporizer, a device which frees the cannabinoid molecules from the plant material without the necessity of burning it and thereby producing smoke. As for the psychoactive effects, I am not convinced that the therapeutic benefits of cannabis can be separated from the psychoactive effects nor am I persuaded that that is always a desirable goal. For example, many patients with multiple sclerosis who use marijuana speak of mood elevation as well as the relief of muscle spasm and other symptoms. If cannabis contributes to this feeling better, should patients be deprived of this effect? The statement that, "The company maintains that Sativex, when taken properly, does not cause the kind of intoxication that people routinely experience from smoking marijuana" hinges on the phrase, "when taken properly". Properly here means taking a dose which is under the dose level required for intoxication. One has to question whether that dose is always therapeutic and whether cannabis taken sublingually can be so carefully titrated to find that precise dose. It is also true that people who want to use Sativex to get high will certainly be able to do so.

One of the most important characteristics of cannabis as a medicine is its capacity for self-titration when taken through the pulmonary system. Because the effects are achieved so rapidly through this means of administration, the patient can determine precisely the amount needed for symptom relief; the risk of underdosing or overdosing is minimized. While sublingual absorption of cannabis leads to faster relief than oral administration (which may take one and a half to two hours), it is not nearly as fast as pulmonary administration and therefore makes self-titration much more difficult if not impossible. Furthermore, many patients cannot hold the Sativex under the tongue long enough for it to be absorbed so as a consequence varying amounts trickle down the esophagus; it then behaves like orally administered cannabis with the consequent delay in the therapeutic effect.

Cannabis will one day be seen as a wonder drug as was penicillin in the 1940s. Like penicillin, cannabis is remarkably nontoxic, has a wide range of therapeutic applications, and will be quite inexpensive when it becomes free of the prohibition tariff. Even now illicit or homegrown marijuana, which is no less useful than Sativex, is less expensive than Sativex will be. This will be noted by people with medical insurance whose copayments are regularly increasing and it will be particularly important to the 43 million Americans who do not have health insurance.

While the pharmaceutical industry will undoubtedly produce analogs of cannabis which will be useful in ways that whole smoked cannabis is not, Sativex provides only one advantage over whole smoked (or vaporized) marijuana: its use will be legal. I have yet to see a patient who has used both dronabinol and smoked marijuana who has not found the latter more useful and manageable. The primary reason people use dronabinol rather than cannabis is a function of the law. Without the prohibition, few would use dronabinol. Similarly, the commercial success of Sativex will largely depend on the vigor with which the prohibition is enforced. It is not unreasonable to believe that as the pharmaceutical armamentarium of cannabinoids increases, so will the pharmaceutical industry's interest in sustaining the prohibition. Dr. Geoffrey Guy claims that he founded the company to keep people who find marijuana useful as a medicine out-of-court; there is, of course, a way to do this which would be much less expensive economically and in terms of human suffering.

Brit Tabloids in Fits Over Pot

Death, Madness, Mayhem! Brit Tabloids in Fits Over Pot
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/321/fits.shtml

A full-blown outbreak of Reefer Madness has occurred in Great Britain in the last couple of weeks as segments of British society react hysterically to impending changes in that country's cannabis laws. Under an already-approved reclassification scheme that will go into effect January 29, cannabis will be downgraded from a Class B to a Class C drug. Changes in daily practice are expected to be minimal, with the primary difference being that police will generally no longer make arrests for simple cannabis possession.
They will instead issue tickets. In some aggravated cases -- public disorder, smoking near schools or around kids, repeat offenders -- police will make arrests.

But to read the British tabloid press and the pronouncements of some "experts," one would be forgiven for mistakenly believing that the British government was about to embark on a program of
mandatory daily cannabis injections for all citizens and the fate of civilization rested in the balance. In the past few days, the tabloids have been full of half-baked reports linking cannabis to madness and mayhem:

"Hedge-Feud Coroner Warns About Dangers of Cannabis" (Daily Telegraph, January 16).
The warning came in the case of a pot- smoking man who killed his neighbor after a simmering, years-long feud boiled over. Coroner Roger Atkinson called it "undoubtedly the worst case I've come across of somebody under the influence of cannabis." He added: "I have stressed that cannabis is not a harmless drug, and this demonstrates, if nothing else, how devastating its effects can be."

"Hedge Fracas Death Fuelled by Cannabis" (The Independent, January 16).
Same incident, additional quote. Detective Inspector Peter Bray of Lincolnshire Police told reporters outside the court: "It does nobody any good to use cannabis and can lead to these sorts
of things." The Independent article, however, contained critical information not apparent from the headline: The shooter was drunk.

"Why I Ditched My Liberal Views on Dope" (The Observer, January 18).
Here essayist Sue Arnold, who credits cannabis with saving her eyesight, explains that she changed her view after her college-age son "had what psychiatrists call 'a psychotic episode,' triggered by cannabis." Arnold is unclear about whether the diagnosis was made by a Cuban psychiatrist (her son was in Cuba) or from afar. "To cut a long, long story short, my son came
home heavily sedated, spent six months in hospital in an intermediate care unit (ICU). He was prescribed different drugs and, after a series of events which are too difficult and painful
to describe, has just resumed his final year at university. He's still on medication and will probably have to take it for ever. It goes without saying that if he ever smokes another spliff he will have a relapse."

"Ban Tobacco, Legalize Cannabis -- Are We Barmy?" (Daily Telegraph, January 19).
Here the essayist, WF Deeves, explores the contradictions between the two policies, and even concedes that limited marijuana use isn't so bad. "In the days when I knew something about dangerous drugs, sat on government committees dealing with them and talked to schools about them, I learnt a bit about cannabis. In truth the occasional spliff does most people no more harm than the occasional cigarette or cigar." But then he goes on to note that cannabis is stronger now and reports ill-effects, the most serious of which he mentions is that "some of the girls we interviewed mentioned that relations with the boyfriend had become eerily estranged since he took it up." Eerie or barmy? You decide.

"Cannabis Law is 'Threat to Health" (Peterborough Evening Telegraph, January 20).
Cannabis reclassification is a "mental health time bomb" waiting to go off, warned Verina McEwen, the Peterborough Drug Action Team coordinator, adding that pot-smoking
was a factor in 80% of inner-city mental health cases. "My fear is young people will be confused about the health risks," she said. "We know cannabis can be linked to confusion, both short-
term and long-term, depression, and trigger more serious problems, such as paranoia."

"Doctors Support Drive Against Cannabis" (Times of London, January 20).
The Times is no tabloid, but here the British medical establishment contributes to the climate of fear. Dr. Peter Maguire, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's board of science, said: "The public must be made aware of the harmful effects that we know result from smoking this drug. The BMA is extremely concerned that the public might think that reclassification equals 'safe.' It does not. We are very worried about the negative health effects of smoking cannabis and want the Government to fund more research on this issue."

But none of those stories, as frighteningly dramatic as they are designed to be, can hold a candle to one that hit the British press on Sunday. In a shocking coincidence, just days before cannabis reclassification is scheduled to go into effect in Britain, the first purported cannabis overdose fatality was reported -- in Britain, no less! "Man Killed By 23,000 Spliffs!" roared the Daily Record. "Cannabis Blamed as Cause of Man's Death", chimed in the Daily Telegraph. A real shocker, if true.

The story, however, appears to be a combination of a coroner's stab in the dark and the tabloids' insatiable appetite for titillation. Lee John Maisey, 36, died in August of unknown causes. Those causes are still unknown, despite the coroner's verdict that "cause of death was probable cannabis toxicity."

That verdict appears to be based solely on the fact that he had cannabinoids in his system and the coroner could find no other cause.

According to the Pembrokeshire Coroner's Office: "An inquest was held on 18th December 2003 into the death of Lee John Maisey, who had died on 24th August 2003. A full autopsy had been carried out which had failed to reveal a cause of death. A histological examination also failed to establish a cause of death and, in consequence, a toxicological examination on blood samples obtained was carried out by Forensic Alliance. The samples showed a high concentration of Carboxy-THC, consistent with heavy cannabis usage. There were also traces of cannabidiol, indicating that cannabis and/or cannabis resin was used within a few hours of death. In the view of the pathologist, and in the absence of any other significant abnormality in spite of exhaustive
investigation, it was likely that death occurred as a manifestation of cannabis toxicity. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by misadventure and that the cause of death was probable cannabis toxicity."

"They've proven nothing. We're still at zero fatalities," said a leading marijuana researcher who asked to remain unidentified for employment reasons. "They have no more proved he died from
cannabis toxicity than he died from Mad Cow Disease from drinking orange juice," he said. "If you read carefully, you see it wasn't even a firm diagnosis. This does not constitute proof, either
medical or legal." When asked for an alternative explanation, he pointed to heart disease. "Most often, when someone of that age dies suddenly, it is from cardiac arrhythmia," he speculated.
"This is ridiculous."

Of course, such considerations did not stop a steady stream of British "drug experts" from confirming the fatal danger of cannabis. Nor did it stop the Daily Telegraph from printing those
ill-informed pronouncements. "This type of death is extremely rare," said Prof. John Henry, a toxicologist at Imperial College, London. "I have not seen anything like this before. It corrects
the argument that cannabis cannot kill anybody."

Dr Philip Guy, a lecturer in addictions at the University of Hull, said: "Cannabis is not the nice hippy drug it used to be. It has been experimented with to produce stronger varieties." Guy
guessed that Maisey had eaten himself to death on pot brownies. "I would not be surprised if in this case the deceased had ingested a fatal amount of cannabis."

And Tory shadow home secretary David Davis was all aflutter, using the alleged news to jab at the Labor government. "This highlights what we have been saying about the effects of cannabis all along. When will people wake up to the fact that cannabis can be a harmful drug? By reclassifying the drug David Blunkett has shown he has lost the war on drugs. In my eyes, it's nothing more than
an admission of failure."

So did Tristan Millington-Drake, the chief executive of the Chemical Dependency Centre. "We have always taken the view that cannabis is an addictive drug, unlike the pedlars who try to
persuade us that it is harmless," he said. "The government's decision to reclassify cannabis is a mistake."

"All this was to be expected, the backlash is always waiting to pounce," said Danny Kushlick of the Transform Drug Policy Institute (http://www.tdpf.org.uk). As for the amazing coincidence related to the alleged cannabis fatality, Kushlick pronounced himself boggled. "That's quite something, isn't it?" he laughed wearily. "They've done the same thing with this mental health stuff. They find some sort of correlation, but the causality gets very spurious when you look at it closely, and the correlation turns out to be extremely tiny."

"We are witnessing the dying gasp of prohibition there" said the anonymous marijuana expert. "Now we see a whole spate of articles about schizophrenia. That argument has been around forever; it's been studied for 115 years, ever since the Indian Hemp Commission in 1894, and the answer is always the same. The fact is, yeah, some people smoke and seem to go nuts for awhile, but it is self-limiting, and there is no evidence whatsoever that you can create schizophrenia with cannabis. People who are susceptible to schizophrenia could have problems, but at the same time, there are many schizophrenics who find it helps their symptomology."

And all of this over a simple rescheduling of cannabis. "The change is really minimal," said Kushlick. "For the police, they have to rely on their arrest guidelines, not the reclassification,
to get that presumption against arrest. Ultimately, this should lead to fewer arrests for possession. The fact is, for the amount of furor around this, the government could have made a much bolder
move."

To read the coroner's report in the "marijuana overdose death," visit http://www.pembrokeshirecoroner.org/coroner/faq.php#1 online.

SINGAPORE SLAMS AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL FOR DEATH PENALTY REPORT

Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jan 2004
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2004 Associated Press
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/27

SINGAPORE SLAMS AMNESTY FOR DEATH PENALTY REPORT

SINGAPORE (AP)--Singapore on Friday slammed a recent Amnesty International report on the city-state's use of the death penalty and said it makes no apology for its uncompromising laws against drug offenders.

A statement from the Central Narcotics Bureau said the Amnesty report - released earlier this month - was riddled with "misrepresentations and distortions."

"The death penalty has deterred major drug syndicates from establishing themselves in Singapore," a statement from Central Narcotics Bureau said. "The Singapore government makes no apology for its tough law and order system."

The statement didn't deny Amnesty's claim that the city-state of 4 million had the world's highest execution rate per capita between 1994 to 1999, with 13.57 executions per 1 million people.

Singapore made the death penalty mandatory for drug traffickers and murderers in 1975. Anyone caught with more than 15 grams of heroin or more than 500 grams of marijuana is presumed to be trafficking.

The ministry said the Amnesty report entitled "A Hidden Toll of Executions" was wrong in asserting that most of those executed here were foreigners and the poor, least educated and most vulnerable.

The statement said that in the last five years, Singapore hanged 138 people, 110 of them for drug offenses. Of the total executed, only 37 were foreigners, it said.

Among those executed between 1993 and 2003, for which no figure was given, the statement said 44% had received a primary education or schooling up to 12 years of age.

Some 34% had a secondary education, or schooling up to 16 or 17 years of age.

Amnesty said it relied primarily on infrequent press reports in compiling its report as the city-state's executions were "shrouded in secrecy" and its execution statistics aren't regularly reported.

RETIRED U.S. POLICE OFFICER CALLS FOR DRUG POLICY REFORM

Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jan 2004
Source: Hannibal Courier-Post, The (MO)
Contact: hcp@courierpost.com
Copyright: 2004 The Hannibal Courier-Post and Morris Digital Works.
Website: http://www.courierpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1988
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?227 (Cole, Jack)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?233 (LEAP)

RETIRED POLICE OFFICER CALLS FOR DRUG POLICY REFORM

Jack Cole To Speak To Rotary

After three decades of fueling the U.S. war on drugs with over half a trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, illicit drugs are easier to get, cheaper, and more potent than they ever were. The prison population has quadrupled and has made building prisons this nation's
fastest growing industry, with 2 million incarcerated - more per capita than any country in the world. Meanwhile people are dying in the streets and drug barons grow richer than ever before.

We must change these policies.

Current and former members of law enforcement recently created this new drug-policy reform group that believes the United States' drug policies have failed and that to save lives, lower the rate of addiction, and conserve tax dollars, the United States must end drug prohibition.

LEAP believes a system of regulation and control is more effective than one of prohibition.

Jack Cole retired as a detective lieutenant after a 26-year career with the New Jersey State Police. For 14 of those years Cole worked as an undercover narcotics officer. His investigations spanned the spectrum of possible cases, from street drug users and mid-level drug dealers to international "billion-dollar" drug trafficking organizations. The overwhelming failure of these efforts propelled him to speak out and call for a set of genuine alternatives. Alternatives that would dramatically change the landscape of American and world politics.

Cole holds a B.A. in criminal justice and a master's degree in public policy. Currently writing his dissertation for the Public Policy Ph.D. Program at the University of Massachusetts, his major focus is on the issues of race and gender bias, brutality and corruption in law enforcement. Cole believes ending drug prohibition will go a long way toward correcting those problems.

Cole is passionate in his belief that the drug war is steeped in racism, that it is needlessly destroying the lives of young people, and that it is corrupting police. Cole's discussions give his audience an alternative prospective of the U.S. war on drugs from the view of a veteran
drug-warrior turned against the war.

Cole will be speaking to civic leaders, community organizations and the media to discuss America's greatest public policy disaster since Slavery.

Author Has Made Marijuana His Life's Mission

Australia: Major Watters says "Zero Tolerance is the Way", according to Piers Ackerman

Hard line on drugs is a labour of love

February 5, 2004

ACADEMIC theorists who believe drug addiction is a victimless crime and can be resolved by harm minimisation are wrong, Brian Watters tells PIERS AKERMAN.

The Federal ALP's soft approach to hard drugs will be a key election issue, but Prime Minister John Howard's hard-line zero tolerance approach has the support of one of those who knows the despair of addiction, retired Salvation Army major Brian Watters.

Major Watters, the chairman of the Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD), has spent a lifetime dealing with addicts at the coal face.

For much of his life, he has worked with drunks and drug addicts and is driven by his experience with countless numbers of families devastated by the scourge of drugs and alcohol.

He has seen the corpses of those who have died of drug overdoses, the bodies of those who have suicided in despair, and has brought comfort to the children, the parents and the grandparents of those struggling with their addictions.

He has no time for the academic theorists who claim that harm minimisation policies may work and he has less time for those who claim drug abuse is a victimless crime. He has seen the damage wrought on communities by those too selfish to understand that their actions affect everyone around them.

He is, however, also a man of compassion and a man of learning, with a degree in sociology and a major in medical sociology. His wife Margaret, a family and addictions counsellor, is also deeply involved in his work.

Reasonably, he says harm minimisation in itself was not a bad concept, but in its true form it was designed to help drug addicts not only minimise the harm they caused themselves while moving towards becoming more drug free, but also to minimise the harm they caused to their community.

Harm minimisation proselytisers today have perverted those goals.

"Drug addicts are not necessarily people from abusive backgrounds," he told me in Perth, where the Prime Minister announced a further $6.5 million funding for community groups dealing with drugs.

"Addicts are just as often from very pampered, wealthy backgrounds, but they are saddled with some angst or trauma they aren't dealing with and they try to wipe out the reality.

"The Alcoholics Anonymous organisation has a saying that the problem is not in the bottle, it's in the man. We try to get addicts to respond to their problems."

Major Watters has looked at the so-called evidence put forward by harm minimisation advocates and has no hesitation in declaring it flawed. Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty supports his view.

In the minds of both men, harm minimisation practices such as the embracing of the Kings Cross drug injecting room do little more than provide addicts with a drug market.

"The ambulance call-out rates have dropped in Cabramatta and increased in the Cross," he said.

"The number of ODs in the injecting room is greater than on the street.

"The aim must be to get people off drugs, not support their on- going destructive and illegal activities. There hasn't been one referral from the drug injecting room to the largest treatment organisations in NSW - We Help Ourselves, Odyssey House and the Salvos," he said.

"Drug addiction is not a victimless crime. It destroys parents, families, kids and loved ones."

Major Watters said he was tired of hearing people say it was their "right" to decide what they did with their bodies when the same people were often the first in the queue to grab social security benefits.

"It's pure selfishness," he said. "They just don't feel they need to contribute anything to society, just take from it."

A member of a traditional Labor family (Major Watters knew the widow of the iconic former Labor prime minister John Curtin during his youth), he is an unlikely supporter of the Prime Minister, but he firmly believes that Mr Howard's approach is correct.

"During the Depression my father bought flour at cost and baked bread for the unemployed in Perth," he said. "The big bakeries fought him and tried to prevent him obtaining flour, but he kept going. He used to ride on the bakers' union float in the Labor Day parade until he died of alcoholism."

Major Watters almost became a journalist, but was forced to make the choice between working on Sundays or playing cornet in the Salvation Army band.

"My wife jokes that I have always been a magnet for troubled people," he says. "If I'm riding on public transport it always seems that those with problems come and sit beside me."

He is particularly upset by the government funding (nearly half a million dollars) that flows to drug users' groups.

He says the money was meant to assist in disease prevention and help prevent the spread of HIV AIDS, but it is now being misused to promote a political agenda designed to achieve the legalisation of drugs.

The extra funding announced on Tuesday by the Prime Minister will go to almost 90 small organisations around the country, with most receiving about $80,000. Major Watters says that money will be extremely important to those in need.

"We're seeing grandparents picking up the pieces and struggling to look after their grandchildren who have been abandoned by their parents," he said.

"The addicts in their iniquitous soul-destroying world of substance abuse don't understand the love and hope we have invested in them."

(And we're going to punish them till they do? I would also like to know just how either of these two "experts" think that zero tolerance will "resolve" drug addiction, and why they think harm minimisation is even supposed to. Harm minimisation has never claimed to "resolve" drug addiction. Very addled thinking from people who should know better. Ed.)

I'M OPEN-MINDED ABOUT WAR ON DRUGS, SAYS LATHAM

Pubdate: Tue, 03 Feb 2004
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Contact: letters@smh.fairfax.com.au
Copyright: 2004 The Sydney Morning Herald
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Mark+Latham

I'M OPEN-MINDED ABOUT WAR ON DRUGS, SAYS LATHAM

Labor leader Mark Latham today said he had an open mind about ways of tackling drug abuse and accused the prime minister of playing politics on the issue.

Prime Minister John Howard has labelled Mr Latham as soft on drugs and today announced the government would spend an extra $6.6 million on its tough on drugs policy.

Mr Latham said he was committed to finding solutions to drug abuse and was keeping an open mind.

"(I'm) very, very committed to finding solutions," he told reporters.

"Sometimes these solutions involve zero tolerance ... on other occasions it's wise to have an open mind about new approaches that can find a solution to a very, very entrenched, tough social problem."

Mr Latham said it was every parent's nightmare to discover their child had a drug addiction.

He cautioned Mr Howard against playing politics on the issue of drug abuse.

"I think it's wise not to be playing politics with this and be making political point scoring out of it," he said.

"You need to be careful about judging the evidence, finding out the things that work in practice and taking a good, strong approach to getting solutions.

"I don't think Mr Howard should be swinging labels around about this, we're all very dedicated to getting the best outcome."

Mr Latham said the heroin injecting trial in Sydney's Kings Cross was a one-off and he did not support trials being held elsewhere.

"My view is those trials are only appropriate in areas where you've got a high user population, so really, I see Kings Cross as a one-off," he said.

"I wouldn't support trials anywhere else."

Mr Latham said he was keen to see what evidence and findings emerge from the Kings Cross trial.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!