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Suetaz

Cannabis 'preferred to other medications'

By Miranda Wood, Health Reporter | August 15, 2004 | The Sun-Herald

Nearly two-thirds of people using marijuana for medical reasons had decreased or stopped taking other medications early, results of a State Government survey show.

The survey, an Australian first, was conducted by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

Participants reported cannabis was useful in preventing side effects caused by conventional medicines.

The most common medical conditions the cannabis users suffered were arthritis, chronic pain, depression, nausea, muscle spasms and weight loss.

More than 70 per cent were concerned about marijuana's illegality and 54 per cent were scared of being arrested, but were willing to take the risk for the benefits of the drug.

The centre's information manager, Paul Dillon, said: "Some say they believe that if they get caught it won't be that bad because they are using it for a medical condition."

[Suetaznote: We should as human beings be able to have faith that other humans will have compassion for those that are suffering with medical conditions, but unfortunately the judicial system and law enforcement feel no compassion.]

Preliminary findings show that 70 per cent of those using medical marijuana would be willing to be involved in a trial of an alternative form of cannabis, such as a spray.

Mr Dillon said some believed a tablet or spray would be less effective than natural cannabis, but they wanted to experiment because of their concerns over smoking it.

He said a young man suffering fibromyalgia, a chronic illness causing muscle aches and fatigue, said in the survey: "I would rather risk being arrested than not being able to function in a normal state.

"The drugs that I take for pain are bad enough as it is. If cannabis helps and I can function a hell of a lot better, then I am going to use it and continue to use it."

Last year NSW Premier Bob Carr announced a trial of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis.

The survey was one of the recommendations of the NSW working party on the medical use of cannabis.

To participate in the mail-out survey, contact the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre on 9385 0333 or email Peter Gates at p.gates@ unsw.edu.au.

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[Suetaznote: The Australians aren't the only ones that prefer to use cannabis therapeuticly]

Therapeutic use of cannabis no myth

Rapid City Journal | August 13, 2004

By Bob Newland, who publishes the magazine "HEMPhasis.net" from his home near Hermosa.

HERMOSA - "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men." When Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger said that in 1943, he was trying to get Congress to give his agency more money to fight the largely unknown menace, "marijuana."

Worse than that, Anslinger claimed, dark-skinned musicians smoked "marijuana," then used their altered abilities to "insert extra notes into a measure of music," thus creating the abomination known as jazz. "They also give marijuana to white women to seduce them."

Using the twin tactics of advertising that women become helpless in the hands of men who give them marijuana (misleading, at best, based on my experience) and creating a market incentive for people to grow or import and sell marijuana, Anslinger and his successors managed to increase the rate of marijuana use from about one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans to about 20 percent in just 40 years. Very few ad campaigns have ever managed a 20,000 percent increase in market penetration. They also managed to cut by more than half the average age of first consumption.

More people smoking pot for more years. A dream for suppliers.

While public expenditures of $50 billion a year now help maintain a monopoly of the marijuana trade in the hands of outlaws, that figure is dwarfed by the untaxed profits created for those willing to take the risk of delivering the product.

One embarrassing consequence of the massive proliferation of marijuana use caused by the prohibition laws is that tens of thousands of sick, disabled and dying people have learned of the relief, comfort and healing cannabis can bring them. Their experiences render absurdly impotent the non-medical, uninformed, malicious declaration by federal and state legislatures that marijuana has "no medical use."

Medical cannabis patient Matthew Ducheneaux of Eagle Butte testified to the drug and alcohol subcommittee of the legislative Criminal Code Revision Commission in Pierre July 29. After describing how smoking cannabis marijuana safely relieves him of pain and life-threatening muscle tremors, Ducheneaux was asked, "What do you suggest we do to make marijuana available to people who need it, like you?"

"Jeez, just do it," Matthew said. After wrestling with their consciences overnight, the committee decided, in opposition to the subcommittee's chair, Rep. Tom Hennies, that it was too much trouble to try to allow sick people a medicine, safer than aspirin, that gives hope and comfort to people who live in constant pain without it.

At least four major U.S. government-sponsored studies in the 20th century concluded there is medical benefit in marijuana. Adding several dozen minor U.S. medical studies, and dozens in Europe, we have a body of research pointing to an inescapable conclusion: cannabis marijuana is of medical benefit to a wide range of patients with a wide range of medical conditions.

Then there's the inconvenient fact that the U.S. government has sent 300 rolled marijuana cigarettes a month to each of seven medical patients for over 10 years, whose doctors have all acknowledged these folks would be dead (or blind) without cannabis.

Having listened to Matthew Ducheneaux describe to the subcommittee how muscle spasms in his back "feel like somebody's hitting me in the back with an ax, and the spasms keep me from breathing, like being squeezed by an anaconda," and having witnessed Matthew gain immediate relief from such a spasm provided by marijuana, I just don't get it. What kind of society rewards a South Dakota Judge Tim Tucker or a Minnehaha County Prosecutor Dave Nelson for maintaining that white is black, and for that reason you must either suffer or become a criminal?

Rep. Hennies asked the subcommittee to recommend that people arrested for small amounts of marijuana be allowed to argue in court that they did so because they have a medical condition, and marijuana alleviates it. That's all he asked for. To be allowed to say from your wheelchair, "Your honor, I use marijuana because without it I will die."

Nelson and Tucker, both subcommittee members, said such a proposal would cause problems. "If a medical defense is allowed in marijuana cases, it is tantamount to legalizing marijuana," Tucker said. He also said it would cause a "burden" on judges.

Apparently Tucker doesn't think the 43,877 marijuana criminal charges filed over the past five years in South Dakota, or the 18,328 resultant convictions are overly burdensome. But here I am trying to fathom the thoughts of an obviously enigmatic man.

Therapeutic use of the herb, cannabis, is not a myth. The evidence is there in overwhelming abundance. There is no evidence in opposition. For thousands and thousands of people who gain relief by using it, the law is relevant only inasmuch as they must live in fear of being imprisoned and separated from the remedy that works for them. Even Judge Tucker and Prosecutor Nelson would smoke marijuana if they were in Matthew Ducheneaux's wheelchair.

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Higher Logic

*claps hands* Great article! Love this part:

At least four major U.S. government-sponsored studies in the 20th century concluded there is medical benefit in marijuana. Adding several dozen minor U.S. medical studies, and dozens in Europe, we have a body of research pointing to an inescapable conclusion: cannabis marijuana is of medical benefit to a wide range of patients with a wide range of medical conditions.

Truth in a nutshell...

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Ex-drugs officer needs pot to make life bearable
By Jonathan Walker | Birmingham Post | Jul 22 2004

A former drugs-squad officer has urged Ministers to show "a little compassion" and legalise cannabis for medicinal use.

Kate Bradley, from Telford in Shropshire, suffers from multiple sclerosis and admits buying the drug illegally because it is the only way to relieve her pain.

Campaigners had hoped that a review of medical trials of cannabis would be completed by the end of 2003, allowing Ministers to change the law.

However the results have still not been published.

Last night Mrs Bradley, aged 59, urged the Government not to wait.

She said: "There is nothing orthodox medicine can do. Only cannabis helps.

"The Government has said that if its medical advisers give the go-ahead, it will legalise medicinal cannabis and that's been very encouraging. But the waiting is almost too much to bear."

She is backed by her MP Peter Bradley (Lab The Wrekin) who has written to Home Office Minister Caroline Flint to express dismay at the continuing delays.

[zombienote: Thank Harry Anslinger. I get a brief little refresher on his impact, and it can hardly be overstated. He decided that marijuana should be illegal around the world.]

He has also presented a House of Commons motion urging the Home Office to authorise the controlled and limited production of cannabis for medicinal use.

Mr Bradley, who is not related to Mrs Bradley, argued that the Government should allow MS sufferers and other patients to make their own decisions as to whether the risk from medicinal cannabis might pose a greater threat to their health than the disease from which they suffer.

He said: "The biggest problem for medicinal users of cannabis is not so much risk of arrest, though that is a factor, as the difficulty they have in securing supplies.

"In Kate's case it's a particularly bitter irony that, desperately ill though she is, she's forced to get her supplies on the streets from the kind of people she was locking up when she was fit. "I've urged the Minister to exercise a little compassionate discretion so that medicinal cannabis can be made available to people like Kate who are in dire need of it.

"Even though the MHRA may have some remaining concerns about the risks associated with therapeutic cannabis, they are unlikely to be significant and while we wait for it to come to its conclusions, Kate and many, many others are suffering.

"In any case, who are we to stand between people like Kate and the medicine she needs to make her life tolerable?

"The decision whether or not to use cannabis as a medicine ought to be left to those who without it suffer severe symptoms which are not in dispute. They should be allowed to make their own informed choice."

Mrs Bradley said: "I fully support what Peter is trying to do and I know that thousands of other MS sufferers will too.

"The spasms I suffer are sheer hell. From the soles of my feet all through my body into my brain is a searing, crippling, unholy pain.

"It is so powerful it can force my body to crunch into a foetal position one moment and switch to plank-like rigidity the next.

"A little compassion is all that I and many others are seeking."

[zombienote: Who will tell her she just wants to get high?]

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Alien Space Signal

There's no money for your issue so long as we're squandering $50 billion a year on the DrugWar. Ben Masel

Fear became the ultimate tool of this government - V.

FoilQueen5287

why can't a country just hurry up and make it legal that way I could move there and be happy. I guess if any country made it legal that country would be overpopulated. oh well. keep smokin and tokin FoilQueen5287