PRESS RELEASE - 15th SEPTEMBER, 2003

Edition 9.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

Japan: Pipe Dreams

Pipe Dreams
Thu Sep 11, 6:34 PM ET
FORBES.COM
By Benjamin Fulford

You can go to jail for seven years for growing marijuana in Japan. (Second-degree murder gets you only three years). So why is Yasunao Nakayama, 39, driving around Japan in a car powered by hemp oil, hawking dope-derived products?

With the exception of researchers, Nakayama is the first person in Japan since the end of World War II to be given official permission to cultivate weed for commercial and experimental uses. The license allows him to run a half-acre farm and to sell any marijuana derivatives, except for the intoxicating buds and leaves. It's also his green light to proselytize on behalf of hemp.

"There is no other plant with such a broad variety of uses," he says. Among them: clothing, soap, fuel, paper, building materials, medicine, liquor and, using flour from the inside of seeds, noodles. Nakayama sells a handful of such goods to bring in $3,300 a month in revenue. He lives modestly in a yurt, a giant Mongolian tent, on Oshima, an underdeveloped island an hour and a half by boat from Tokyo. "The business will get big later, after I have finished promoting hemp," he says. Meantime he is lobbying the government to turn Oshima into a special hemp zone to promote
tourism and sustainable development and, he argues most improbably, to help prevent abuse.

Good luck. Shiozuki Kiuchi, head of narcotics policy at the Ministry of Health & Welfare, represents Japan's official view of marijuana: "It is highly addictive, people can't quit, it causes brain damage and it makes youth antisocial." Arrests have increased by 60% over the last three years; dope-smoking raves among the young are on the rise, Kiuchi says, and are
spreading to older crowds.

Yet pot once played an important role in ritual and commerce. Before Japan's occupation by U.S. forces, which imposed antinarcotics laws, at least 200,000 farm households cultivated hemp. During World War II Japanese imperial army soldiers were permitted to smoke marijuana to ease the stress of battle. Hemp was once burned in special urns to help Shinto priests in
their divinations. Its smoke also symbolized the passing of the spirit of the old emperor to the new
one. When Emperor Hirohito died in 1989, his successor had to plant hemp seeds to produce a crop that would provide fiber for special clothing to be worn during the succession ceremony.

It was to such tradition, as well as to a little-known clause in the drug laws allowing licensed farmers to grow marijuana for nonnarcotic purposes, that Nakayama appealed when applying for his license. Officials in Shizuoka prefecture were shocked at the request, and he was called in to explain himself before a committee of five very suspicious men. Nakayama presented his
case, mentioning seeds found in a 12,000-year-old archaeological site, the traditions of the imperial household and the threat that an aspect of the culture was in danger of extinction. The panel bumped up the request to the governor, who granted Nakayama his license.

Perhaps that exception has gone to his head. Nakayama is on a mission to turn pot into a major industrial crop for Japan. He points to research by Ford Motor, begun in 1929, on a hemp car. Don't believe it? The results were published in Popular Mechanics in 1941--a steel chassis with a body consisting of hemp fiber and plastic made from hemp resin. Although the car was
tough and lightweight, it was not cost-competitive and the project was dropped. No talks with Toyota or Honda yet. But Nakayama is high on promoting hemp-based gasoline, extracted by pressing the seeds into oil; he is convinced that its costs of production, now projected at four to five times the cost of diesel fuel, can be drastically reduced. Then there are plastics and building materials, which now cost 1.5 times what those derived from petroleum do. "The world is very interesting when viewed through the lens of hemp," he says. Indeed.

New Zealand: Report of a parliamentary committee on cannabis

With regard to medical use the report states: "We believe that the issue of medicinal use should be dealt with independently from the legislation regulating general use. (.) We are aware that natural and synthetic cannabinoids are being developed and trialled overseas as medicinal products. We think that this development has potentially useful implications for people suffering from a range of both acute and chronic illnesses."

With regard to the development of psychosis the report says: "The Royal College of Australian and New Zealand Psychiatrists recognises that cannabis psychosis is a contentious issue, and is difficult to prove. While extant research does not appear to substantiate a link between cannabis use and psychosis, the college notes that there are reports of distinct psychosis occurring in heavy cannabis users, commonly paranoid ideation and marked aggression. The psychosis is always brief, however, and there is no evidence that a chronic psychosis is induced by cannabis. The New Zealand Medical Association stated that in susceptible individuals, excessive cannabis use can cause psychosis and other mental illness."

Source: Report of the Health Committee
"Inquiry into the public health strategies related to cannabis use and the most appropriate legal status"

See link at: http://www.cannabis-med.org/science/science_links.htm

UK: Police Will Let Most Cannabis Users Off With Verbal Warning

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v03/n1374/a10.html
Newshawk: CannabisNews ( http://cannabisnews.com/ )
Pubdate: Fri, 12 Sep 2003
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2003 Telegraph Group Limited
Contact: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: John Steele, Crime Correspondent
Cited: Association of Chief Police Officers http://www.acpo.police.uk/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

POLICE WILL LET MOST CANNABIS USERS OFF WITH VERBAL WARNING

Police should no longer arrest the majority of people found in possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, according to new guidelines issued yesterday by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Instead, offenders should receive a verbal warning on the street after giving their details and admitting possession of the drug, which would then be confiscated. Such a warning will not constitute a criminal record.

However, the power of arrest for cannabis possession will remain. Officers can use their discretion to arrest if: the drug is consumed in public; the person is a repeat user; the possession is deemed to create public order difficulties, or cause a "locally identified policing problem"; or it is found around young people in places such as schools or youth clubs.

Those arrested may still face prosecution or conviction, or a formal caution, both of which leave a criminal record.

People under 18 found in possession of cannabis will receive a formal warning at a police station. Under-tens caught with the drug will be considered "at risk".

The Government has decided to re-classify cannabis from a Class B drug to a Class C substance to reduce the police time spent on arresting or formally cautioning people found in possession. The aim is to focus on Class A hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, stressed that cannabis "will not be legalised or decriminalised".

Under existing law, police can arrest for Class B drug possession, but not for possession of Class C substances.

However, police did not want to lose the power of arrest in relation to cannabis. Therefore, as well as ordering the downgrading of cannabis, the Home Office has introduced a measure into the Criminal Justice Bill to retain the power of arrest. Both measures are scheduled to come into law next January, when ACPO will activate its guidelines.

Andy Hayman, the chairman of the ACPO drugs sub-committee and Chief Constable of Norfolk, said: "In the spirit of the Home Secretary's decision to reclassify cannabis, the new guidance recommends that there should be a presumption against arrest.

"In practice, this means that in the majority of cases officers will issue a warning and confiscate the drug. Police officers will be expected to use their discretion.

"The reclassification of cannabis will allow police to focus more time and resources on Class A drugs. That said, despite reclassification, it remains illegal to possess cannabis."

The guidelines do not specify the quantity of cannabis defined as for simple personal possession, as this could encourage dealers to carry around only amounts smaller than the prescribed limit. Police would also face difficulties in judging amounts.

ACPO advises that street interviews "should be short but sufficient to prove the offence or identify a defence. This could be as little as two questions, such as 'What is this?' and 'Whose is it?'. This should be recorded contemporaneously in an officer's pocketbook.

"This would reduce paperwork and bureaucracy for patrol officers."

Incidents of possession dealt with by warnings will still be recorded as "cleared up" crimes.

ON PRESCRIPTION ... IF YOU LIVE IN HOLLAND

Newshawk: CannabisNews ( http://cannabisnews.com/ )
Pubdate: Wed, 10 Sep 2003
Source: Jamaica Gleaner, The (Jamaica)
Copyright: 2003 The Gleaner Company Limited
Contact: feedback@jamaica-gleaner.com
Website: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/
Author: Eulalee Thompson

GANJA, GANJA EVERYWHERE AND NOW YOU CAN HAVE YOUR SHARE,
ON PRESCRIPTION ... IF YOU LIVE IN HOLLAND.

If you were living in Holland, as of last week Monday, your medical doctor could legally write you a prescription for ganja ( marijuana ) if you were suffering from the severe nausea or pain associated with diseases such as cancer, Tourette's syndrome, AIDS or multiple sclerosis.

The Cannabis, with the active chemical, Tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ), would be measured out by your pharmacist into nicely-labelled containers and your health insurance would cover the cost.

Australia, Canada, Germany and several states in the United States also allow the restricted use of medicinal marijuana or its active chemical.

Jamaica's law, as it currently stands, would not allow the medical community to prescribe "the raw" ganja with the psychoactive ingredient, THC, as is now allowed in Holland, even as an antiemetic agent to control the severe nausea associated with disease such as cancer. However, Dr. Albert Lockhart indicated that, Asmasol, an anti-asthma product, developed by himself and research partner, Professor Manley West, from an isolated Cannabis agent, can also be
used as an antiemetic.

"Asmasol also reduces vomiting and nausea in patients with cancer and AIDS. When they take it, they vomit less and eat more and are able to put on weight," he said.

This ganja-based product is available here without a prescription.

"If we get enough request, we can make one specifically for that purpose ( antiemetic purpose ). We can produce it but we have to assess the demand," Dr. Lockhart continued.

Those who have studied the pharmacology of Cannabis report that the THC, is the most abundant of the 400 or so chemicals in 'the weed' and accounts for the intoxicating effects when it is smoked ( or taken as 'tea' ) and rapidly absorbed into the blood stream.

Dr. Lockhart indicated that the difference between the prescription product now available in Holland ( and in other countries ) and those available here, is that patients there have access to the active ingredient, THC, in controlled - lower or higher - portions. The products available in Jamaica and manufactured by the Lockhart and West team are based on ganja's non-THC content.

"They are controlling the THC part and allowing people to buy ganja of a certain THC content for medicinal purposes. We ( West and Lockhart ) don't get involved in those discussions ( about whether THC should be used and the levels ), the government determines that," Dr. Lockhart said.

Besides, Asmasol ( used to treat asthma, coughs and colds ), the West and Lockhart team have also isolated an effective anti-glaucoma agent from ganja bottled as a drug called Canasol; a more potent version Cantimol has been developed ( though not yet registered ) and the team is ready for clinical trial of a third active ingredient isolated from ganja for the treatment of motion sickness.

Jamaica's laws notwithstanding, there doesn't appear to be a very strong resistance among medical doctors here to prescribe ganja in a therapeutic form and so long as the prescription doesn't stipulate, "smoke the weed twice daily after meals".

"From my knowledge of the debate in the medical community, there is no problem with having extracts from the ganja plant, that have gone through some scientific rigours and found to be therapeutically sound, to be prescribed in a therapeutic way," said Dr. Winston Davidson, public health practitioner and past president of the Medical Association of Jamaica.

He also pointed out that generally the medical community would have a problem with the smoking of the herb or smoking in any form, since this has been found to be harmful to health.

Furthermore, smoking the ganja will have no therapeutic function... smoking ganja will have no impact on glaucoma," Dr. Davidson said.

MARIJUANA BILLBOARD SNUFFED

Pubdate: Thu, 11 Sep 2003
Source: Republican, The (MA)
Copyright: 2003 The Republican
Contact: letters@repub.com
Website: http://www.masslive.com/republican/
Author: Betsy Calvert
Cited: Change the Climate http://www.changetheclimate.org/

GREENFIELD - A legalize-marijuana billboard sponsored by a Greenfield-basedadvocacy group lasted less than a day on Route 9 in Westborough.

It was pasted over with the billboard it had replaced - a composite sketch of an at-large serial rapist.

The short-lived billboard, paid for by Change the Climate Inc. of Greenfield, showed photographs of three people - a teacher, a firefighter and a state trooper whose photograph was taken without authorization from a recruitment brochure,the state police said yesterday.

The message of the billboard was that legalizing and taxing marijuana would bring back public services and plug the budget gap.

Westborough police were not thrilled to have the public service announcement of the composite sketch replaced by a paid advertisement promoting marijuana, said Police Chief Alan R. Gordon.

He believes that the composite sketch, posted for three weeks, has prevented further attacks by a man police believe raped four area women in their homesbetween Aug. 6 and Aug 16.

Gordon has since learned that he will get another month of free advertising of the composite sketch about a half-mile away on Route 9 in the opposite direction, which suits his needs well. Nonetheless, he contacted the state police when he saw that the marijuana billboard depicted a trooper.

Within hours, state police headquarters in Framingham demanded the removal of the billboard for lack of authorization and for violation of departmental policy, said state police Capt. Donald Johnson yesterday.

The billboard company, Clear Channel Outdoor Inc. of Stoneham, pasted the composite sketch back over the marijuana message yesterday morning.

The company issued a written statement emphasizing its commitment to arresting the rapist. Johnson said, however, that company staffers told him the state trooper photograph was their mistake.

They had considered using an actor in a police uniform, but somehow, the trooper's photograph was printed instead.

Change the Climate executive director and founder Joseph White of Greenfield said that its advertisement will be reformulated and posted at the Route 9 site in a few days' time.

US: Court Says Church Can Use Hallucinogenic Tea

COURT SAYS CHURCH CAN USE HALLUCINOGENIC TEA

DENVER - A New Mexico church was handed a small victory Thursday when a federal appeals court ruled its use of hallucinogenic tea was likely to be protected under freedom of religion laws.

The ruling, issued by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, upheld a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Attorney General, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other government agencies that sought to prohibit the tea's use.

The appeals court agreed with the U.S. District Court in New Mexico that the Brazil-based O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal church had "demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success" of winning an exemption for sacramental use of the tea, which contains a drug barred by the Controlled Substances Act.

Jeffrey Bronfman, president of the church, sued the Justice Department after 30 gallons of hoasca tea were seized by U.S. Customs agents from his office in Santa Fe, N.M. No one was arrested in the 1999 raid.

Hoasca tea, used in some religious ceremonies, is brewed from plants found only in the Amazon River Basin.

The church originated in Brazil, and its U.S. operations are based in Santa Fe. About 130 people, many of them Brazilian citizens, are members of the U.S. branch, according to court documents.

Afghans Say U.S.-Backed Warlords Worse Than Taliban

A CLIMATE OF FEAR

Along a potholed road in eastern Afghanistan, Mohammed Jan points through a cloud of dust at a line of mansions that seem out of place in such poverty-stricken surroundings.

"This is where the new, beautiful houses begin. They belong to the commanders. Their money is from drugs, from smuggling. They will never be caught. Their soldiers are working with the Americans," says Jan, himself a small-time opium grower.

Nearly two years after the collapse of Taliban rule, ordinary Afghans like Jan say they are losing faith in the United States and its coalition partners.

They point to rampant corruption, President Hamid Karzai's weak leadership and the behaviour of U.S-backed warlords whose private armies operate with impunity throughout most of Afghanistan.

Their disillusionment is strengthening Taliban holdouts whose attacks are getting bolder. Nowadays the rebels don't fear being turned over to the authorities; they say most villages give them food and shelter.

"The big mistake is from the Americans. They want to bring peace to Afghanistan with thieves and killers. The Americans after two years have learned nothing," said Abdul Raouf, a car dealer in the eastern city of Jalalabad. "Every day the situation is worse."

The American invasion of Afghanistan relied heavily on local anti-Taliban forces, and it was inevitable that these warlords, however unsavoury, would continue to be important forces in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda network that masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks.

But Afghans increasingly wonder whether the trade-off was worth it.

"Everybody says warlords, but who are these warlords? They are commanders, they are government ministers," said Raouf. "We didn't like the Taliban but there was security then, there were laws. But now anyone with a gun is the law."

Back at the mansions, in the province of Nangarhar, a white marble watchtower peeks over the three-metre-high brick wall.

"Drug smuggler," Jan says. "That's a commander of Hazrat Ali's. Are the Americans crazy? We Afghans know who these people are and what they are doing. There is no security, no development, but these people's pockets are fat with money. We know that without the Americans they would be nobody."

Hazrat Ali is military chief of Afghanistan's eastern zone, a powerful man appointed by Karzai but aligned with Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim.

The United States says it is committed to strengthening the central government and is putting more than $1 billion US into extending Karzai's control beyond Kabul, the capital to the whole Texas-sized country.

U.S. officials insist that Jan's lament doesn't reflect the full picture. They say some areas are more secure, some less; some Afghans are optimistic, others not. They point to the reconstruction projects that are beginning, the road that links the capital to Kandahar.

Reconstruction, the argument goes, is bound to be slower in the east and south of Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are being hunted. Sometimes, Western diplomats say, solutions entail messy compromises; when Karzai decided that the governor of Kandahar, Afghanistan's second city, was corrupt and ineffective, he removed him but made him a government minister.

The opium industry, harshly suppressed by the Taliban, has made a roaring comeback.

The United Nations says production in 2002 generated up to $1.2 billion or almost a fifth of Afghan GDP. Central Asian states and Russia are complaining bitterly about the increase in Afghan drugs flowing north.

Those benefiting most are the commanders aligned to the government and working with the U.S.-led coalition, say Afghans in eastern Jalalabad who spoke to The Associated Press.

Commander Mustafa, a soldier of Zahir's and a partner with the U.S.-led coalition, denies the allegation. In an interview at his base near the border with Pakistan, surrounded by a dozen men with kalashnikov rifles, he said his men would seize and destroy any drugs they found.

A UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the drug trade couldn't possibly flourish without the patronage of government officials and military commanders.

Human Rights Watch recently issued a 101-page report warning that "Afghan warlords and political strongmen supported by the United States and other nations are engendering a climate of fear in Afghanistan." It named a string of men in senior government positions.

This climate of fear, the advocacy group said, jeopardizes efforts to adopt a new constitution and hold national elections in mid-2004.

A disarmament campaign was to have begun July 1, but the United Nations delayed it, demanding the Defence Ministry first be reformed to reflect Afghanistan's ethnic diversity. The United Nations wants sweeping changes to take power away from Defence Minister Fahim's private army.

Nearly two years since taking power, Karzai's limited reach is allowing the corruption to flourish.

Several months ago, Karzai banned logging in eastern Afghanistan, but it still flourishes in areas where his appointees govern.

The rock-strewn road from Kunar in eastern Afghanistan to neighbouring Nangarhar province is bumper-to-bumper with timber-laden 16-wheelers.

In Kabul, Afghan businessmen who have come back from the United States to invest in their homeland are disillusioned.

Abdullah Aziz, who returned to Afghanistan from California where he has lived since 1978, said he went to northern Kunduz province to retrieve his property.

He said he brought a letter from Karzai to the governor. "He took the piece of paper and he said 'Karzai -- he is no one here."'

Aziz is still trying to get his property.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!