PRESS RELEASE - 5th SEPTEMBER, 2003

Edition 6.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

'Pot Pills' Go On Trial In Britain

Pubdate: Wed, 27 Aug 2003
Source: MSNBC (US Web)
Copyright: 2003 MSNBC
Contact: letters@msnbc.com
Website: http://msnbc.com/news/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/938
Author: Emily Stephens, NBC News
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?323 (GW Pharmaceuticals)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

'POT PILLS' GO ON TRIAL IN BRITAIN

Scientists Seek To 'Scientifically Acquire Anecdotal Evidence'

LONDON, Aug. 21 - In the latest sign of medical marijuana hitting mainstream medical practice, British scientists say they will use the drug in pain-reducing clinical trials involving some 400
post-operative patients here.

THE STUDY, announced by the British Medical Research Council, is particularly poignant in Britain, where the government's view on marijuana is seen as more relaxed than in the United States. Partly to free up officers needed to fight serious crime, British police have taken a "softly-softly" approach to smoking marijuana in public places in London. In the past year, cannabis cafes also have been testing the law.

The clinical trail will use cannabis capsules, called Cannador, to test their effect on patients needing pain medication. Regularly prescribed painkillers and placebos will be used to control the study.

Similar studies with so-called "pot pills" have been performed in the United States, with doctors saying cannabis shows no more effective than codeine in pain reduction. However, British scientists and the Berlin-based Society of Ontological and Immunological Research, the
developer of Cannador, say they hope the new pills - containing more extracts, or cannabinoids, from the marijuana plant - will have a more pronounced affect on pain sufferers.

SEEKING SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

In a statement on Wednesday, the Medical Research Council said it wants to "scientifically acquire anecdotal evidence of the efficaciousness of cannabis in pain-relief."

Cannabis has a long history of use in Britain, dating back to Victorian times when Queen Victoria is said to have taken it for menstrual pains. Her doctor once described marijuana as "one of the
most valuable medicines we possess."

The invention of the syringe at the end of the 19th century nearly spelled the end to the use of medical marijuana in Britain, because cannabis cannot dissolve in water and quickly enter the
bloodstream.

Research shows that oral administration of cannabis hampers its effectiveness because of the slow absorption rate. Many sufferers of diseases alleviated by cannabis - like multiple sclerosis, high blood pressure, migraines and arthritis - simply smoke the drug which, despite the harmful side effects of smoking, gives many sufferers relief within minutes.

CANNABIS SPRAY

Seeking a solution to the problem, British biotech firm G.W. Pharmaceuticals has developed a cannabis spray, whose effects could be felt faster than waiting for a capsule to ingest and be released into the bloodstream.

Sylvia Barber of Bayer pharmaceutical company, manufacturers of G.W Pharmaceuticals' products, said researchers are awaiting government approval of their product.

"The proposal was issued to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency in March of this year, and we are still awaiting approval. We have submitted the product for the treatment of the symptoms of [multiple sclerosis] and neuropathic pain."

She added that G.W Pharmaceuticals is still doing extensive research into the spray's application to other medical conditions.

The British Medical Research Council said it hopes the results of its study will be ready for publication within a year.

NBC's Emily Stephens is based in London.

NAP (Network Against Prohibition) Media Release

Drug users set to take action – International conference to end war on drugs

This year we have seen more than one million Americans arrested for violations of stale and immoral drug laws, three thousand Thai people murdered in a state sponsored campaign to eradicate drug use from the Thai population and the continuation of the spraying of the Columbian countryside with Roundup by Monsanto, to eradicate coca.

Just some of the human rights abuses faced by people around the world as a result of the US led war on drugs. The USA, a country that now has two million people in jail for drug law violations, continues to actively and aggressively push its war on drugs on governments worldwide.

In countries that follow America’s lead, ethnic and indigenous minorities are targeted, as well as people on low incomes, young people and other minorities, who already face intrusive monitoring and targeting by police and other state authorities.

Where is the real drug law reform? After decades of lobbying and working with government’s to effect change, and countless reports, inquiries and studies advocating the end of prohibition, it appears that those governments in bed with the US are no longer going to come to the table on this issue. Prohibition is genocide on a global scale that Adolf Hitler would be proud of.

Many communities around the world are taking action against the war on drugs. Drug users themselves have been fighting back for some time. In Darwin Australia this month, drug users and activists will gather for the 1st International Conference on Using Direct Action to End the War on Drugs.

The conference will feature direct action training, updates on the war on drugs, reports from demonstrations around the world and will be an opportunity for those opposed to this genocide to share ideas and tactics.

It is hoped that the conference will discuss an international day of direct action against the drug war on November 1, international drug users’ day. The concept of a coordinated global campaign of direct action against the drug war will also be floated.

For more info see the conference website www.angelfire.com/oz/syringefestival

The conference will be held from the 22nd to the 25th of September. It will be held in conjunction with the 2nd Darwin International Syringe Festival.

Conference and Festival organisers – Network Against Prohibition http://www.napnt.org

Call +61 (0)8 8942 0570 or mobile +61 (0)418 985 701 / +61 (0)415 162 525

Drop the (0) if you are ringing from outside Australia.

On America www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm

On Columbia www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_drugs/doc53.html

On Thailand http://web.amnesty.org/web/wire.nsf/May2003/Thailand

Ruling: Alaska+Privacy +Marijuana

Wednesday, September 03, 2003 11:11 AM

CCLE Membership Drive: The Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics needs your support to overcome a budget shortfall. Please become a friend of the CCLE today! Secure online form at:
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/membership.html

The Alaska Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the Alaska Constitution's privacy guarantee protects an adult's right to possess up to four ounces of marijuana in the home for personal use. The ruling overturns the conviction of David Noy, a North Pole medical marijuana patient, and
resolves a legal conflict between a 1975 Supreme Court of Alaska decision and a voter initiative passed in 1990.

Read More at: http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/topnews.html

Medical dope: a Smouldering Issue

By Bonnie Malkin
September 3, 2003

It sounds like a bad joke - what do you get when you mix a dozen Nimbin pot smokers, a North Shore doctor and a good cause?

The answer is a protest-style press conference on the grass, that started an hour and a half late, lobbying for the legalisation of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Cannabis researcher, and the only man at the conference in a monotone outfit, Dr Andrew Katelaris, headed the team of pro-pot campaigners handing out rolling papers emblazoned with the slogan 'A reefer a day keeps the doctor away' and leaflets on 'The Effective Use of Medicinal Cannabis' outside state parliament this morning.

The aim of the group, called the Medical Cannabis Information Service? To turn up the heat on the topic of therapeutic marijuana use in anticipation of the release of the NSW government's Exposure Bill on the use of cannabis.

"Australia is being left behind in a world where the medicinal use of cannabis is commonplace," Dr Katelaris said, "Its benefits have long been proven and in the UK and parts of America it is already legal to treat illnesses such as spinal spasticity, MS, HIV and cerebral palsy with cannabis."
It is pointless to undertake further tests of pot's efficacy as a pain killer, we know it works, Dr Katelaris said, while handing out his hemp leaf branded business cards.

What the government should be doing now is finding out how to get the drug to those who need it.

"As it stands a 70-year-old granny suffering from back pain must resort to criminal behaviour and pay through the nose on the black market to get treatment," Dr Katelaris said.

A prime example of the kind of people hurt by current legislation is a man known only as Smoulder. Smoulder is 63 and suffers so severely from cerebral palsy that he needs a translator to be understood. He smokes between four and five joints each day, and spends about $400 of his $900 income on cannabis each month.

"It is a very important part of my treatment, " he said, batting at smoke in the air. "While most sufferers of cerebral palsy drink themselves to death by 50, I am still here. The worst part of my life is not my illness, it is prohibition."

Justin Brash also uses cannabis as part of his treatment, in this case for HIV.

"I have used cannabis for 10 years, in conjunction with my anti-retroviral drugs, because if I smoke pot when I take my doses it supresses feelings of nausea and helps keep the drugs in my stomach, where they should be," he said, between drags on his first joint of the day.

"I also find it good for the pain I get in my fingers and feet."

Mr Brash smokes one gram of cannabis per day, which he obtains from a drug dealer. His cannabis treatment costs him $350 dollars per month.

In Sydney, where he lives, most of the cannabis for sale is grown hydroponically, which is part of the problem.

"I worry about what the young entrepreneurs spray on their crop to improve the yield, you never know what kind of chemicals they are using," Mr Brash said, "And we never will until the industry is properly regulated and the people who need it can access legally grown cannabis easily and safely."

SEATTLE HEMPFEST

Pro-Pot Initiative Gets Political Push At High-Flying Hempfest

20 Aug 2003

Washington
-------
The 12th annual Seattle Hempfest came and went this past weekend at Myrtle Edwards Park, with approximately 200,000 people attending the marijuana-policy-reform-rally-cum-smoke-out. Local media focused on the immediate politics: Seattle Initiative 75 would officially decree weed as the cops' lowest priority, and here was an opportunity to interview lots of people who would like to see that legal relaxation and more. But there's another story to be told: weed as mainstream and an oddly unifying force. There was a polyglot of ethnicities in attendance--African Americans, whites, Asian Americans, Latinos, etc., hanging out with one another in ways they rarely do in the Northwest, and suburban youth, with their Abercrombie & Fitch-inspired bodies, swarmed the event.

It also was the best example we've seen anywhere of activist-police cooperation. Seattle cops largely stayed out, permitting Hempfest organizers to police the event themselves. There were no arrests, not even a hint of a fight.

And unlike, say, the Bite of Seattle, which is run by a for-profit company, Hempfest runs as smoothly as a pacemaker and on a comparatively small budget, the result of near-fanatical devotion by the 80 core members of Hempfest, who work on the event year-round, and the thousand others who work the event itself--none of whom receives a penny for their labor.

Seattle media gave the festival obligatory coverage and treated it as an annual oddity instead of the diverse and strongly supported gathering that Hempfest has become. Might be time for some reporters and editors in town to inhale.

Chibo Mertinet in Europe

HiGH,
www.cannabusiness.com.

I am sending YOU the link and if you go to the pommy flag there is quiet a bit of info. I hope that I'll be there for a day at least, because there is a medical conference as wel,l 100km further south, where I like to be.

www.cannabis-med.org
www.Cologne2003.org

Love to you all, Chibo.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!