Top U.K government scientist says: Cannabis evidence ‘was devalued’

We came across this interesting thread on the BBC website which refers to a lecture given by Professor David Nutt, of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.  Professor Nutt used a lecture at King’s College in London and a briefing paper to attack what he called the “artificial” separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs, accusing ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of “devaluing” scientific research. He also criticizes the scare-tactics of the U.K government on the issue and claims that the link between cannabis use and schizophrenia is hugely over-exaggerated;  This story has some traction and has been on rotation on both BBC News 24 and British terrestrial television!  It is a blow to the U.K government as Professor Nutt is the new chairman of the Government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs – popularly known as the government’s “Drug Czar”.

Many observers are worried about the contradictory and incoherent nature of the U.K’s current drug policy which clearly hasn’t worked – The U.K has the 3^rd largest cannabis consumption rate in the western world! The Home Secretary has herself admitted to smoking cannabis as a student whilst attending Oxford University – making her a MASSIVE hypocrite – if she had been caught under her own rules, she would never have been able to hold the position of Home Secretary!

I also came across a video on the subject… enjoy!

Heres some links to other relevant articles that we’ve found on the BBC website:
Debate over cannabis classification
Q&A: Cannabis and health
Q&A: Cannabis guidelines

Its also interesting to see what the BBC themselves have to say about cannabis, it’s actually a really good, balanced and informative piece which drew a smile from us all!

Marc Emery – Prince of Pot

Here’s a piece I found on Marc Emery on U.S TV – it includes an interview with his wife Jodie Emery and is well worth a watch!

Marc is one of the figureheads of the cannabis legalization movement and his treatment by U.S and Canandian prosecutors who circumvented normal procedure to extradite him from Canada is both contradictory and illegal in our eyes.  Further information can be found at drugwarrant.com

FREE MARC!

The High Cost of Empty Prisons

New York:

Last Wednesday (07/10/09), changes to New York´s notorious Rockefeller drug laws went into effect, allowing judges to shorten the prison terms of some non-violent offenders; particularly those incarcerated for non-violent crimes such as cannabis posession. This measure will further reduce New York´s prison population, which has already declined in the past 10 years from about 71,600 in 1999 under Mayor Rudy Giuliani to about 59,300 today – The state´s crime rate also dropped substantially during that time.
Nevertheless, the state has been slow to close prisons;  this is a multi-billion-dollar industry – opposition from the correction officers´ union and politicians from the upstate areas where most of our correctional facilities are has been fierce.

It was not until earlier this year that policymakers in Albany, confronted with fiscal crisis, mustered the will to shut three prison camps and seven prison annexes which amounted to a total of about 2,250 prison beds. This move is expected to save $52 million over the next two years.
But the state could go further… The prison system still has more than 5,000 empty beds in 69 prisons. What´s more, there are other ways to lower the prison population. For starters state lawmakers could repeal the Rockefeller mandatory sentencing provisions that remain on the books. This could automatically release hundreds (maybe thousands) of prisoners currently incarcerated where the presiding judge was obliged to impose a mandatory-minimum sentence.

Cannabis Patents – Cannabinoid Patch

United States Patent US6113940:
Cannabinoid patch and method for cannabis transdermal delivery.

We  found this patent application in the U.S for a cannabis patch similar to the nicotine patch which has been commercially available for years. Several companies (and even the U.S government – see our previous article “U.S Government Patents Cannabis“) have recently started to take notice of the medicinal properties of cannabis and have started a rush to patent any possible application of this wonderful natural herb. Part of this trend could be linked to the legalization movement which has successfully highlighted several medical advantages to cannabis over traditional pharmaceuticals, particularly the lack of significant negative side-effects when treating serious illness.

Here are the links to both the Patent outline and the Application in .pdf form

U.K Politicians who’ve admitted to smoking cannabis

Here’s a little video I found which lists some of the U.K Politicians who’ve admitted to trying cannabis at one point in their life:

Why are they still in office?!  If they had been caught and criminalised they could never have entered politics in the first place with a drug related criminal record. Why are they so keen to impose the new classification when they obviously had no respect for the law themselves.

Antonio Maria Costa just refuses to answer the question!

Just over a year ago we brought you a spectacular video of ENCOD´s Frederick Polak, trying in vain to get a very relevant question answered by UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa.

Here’s the follow-up;  Costa reportedly went to Amsterdam to see for himself, yet still manages to avoid the question and tell blatant lies:

For those who didn’t see the original post; here’s the link to it:

Costa vs Polak

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

In addition to the websites we have posted yesterday there is one very important online resource which we did not mention in our post. We feel that LEAP is such an important initiative that a separate post is in order.

LEAP is made up of current and former members of the law enforcement and criminal justice communities who are speaking out about the failures of our existing drug policies. Those policies have failed, and continue to fail, to effectively address the problems of drug abuse, especially the problems of juvenile drug use, the problems of addiction, and the problems of crime caused by the existence of a criminal black market in drugs.

These people really know what they are talking about and have actual hands-on experience with the results of the “war on drugs”.

The following video shows some of the members of LEAP trying to get the message out to the general public.

The Dutch Cannabis-selling Cafes

The people over at norml.org have posted a very interesting article on their blog. It starts of with the following quote.

“Coffee Shops Will Disappear Within Two Years… The Netherlands Can’t Continue To Tolerate Existence of Coffee Shops Because Of International Opposition.”

- Henk van de Bunt, Professor of Criminology at Erasmus University (Radio Netherlands, Nov. 10, 2008)

We would like to add to this statement that the Dutch have had international pressure for years on this topic, the real factor is the way the current government chooses to deal with this pressure. It is true that the decriminalisation policy in the Netherlands is hard to sell internationally, but we don’t we understand why. The level of soft- and harddrugs users is very low in the Netherlands compared to other countries, so obviously the policy works, although it is not perfect. There are some forces in the Dutch governement that seem to be determined to get rid of the coffeeshops alltogether.

The rest of the article on norml.org goes as follows:

In the last few weeks, NORML has received numerous inquiries from international and American media, and concerned NORML members, regarding the current and future legal status of The Netherlands’ tolerant and pragmatic cannabis policies. Recent news headlines have concentrated on minority Dutch parties and academics (many of whom have historically opposed the ‘coffee shop’ model) that have been able to persuade coalition government parties (who favor cannabis tolerance) in making two small concessions on where cannabis-selling cafes can be located in the country:

*43 of 228 cannabis-selling cafes in the city of Amsterdam will have to close by the end of 2011 because they are located less than 275 yards from a secondary school. One of the unfortunate victims of this political and zoning concession is the famous Bulldog Café on the Leidseplein.

*In the border city of Maastricht, in an effort to assuage neighboring countries, the city council has voted to remove coffee shops from the center city area (however, allowing them in the suburbs and neighborhoods).

Read the rest of the article.

Top Cannabis resources on the internet

We have compiled a list of what we feel are the top 8 online resources about cannabis on the internet. Every single one of these sites offers quality information on your favourite herb. There is so much information on this subject that even the most experienced canna-enthusiast can learn something new.

• erowid.org

Comprehensive website with lots of information cannabis. This website offers a lot of information on other drugs too. The link above is directly to the cannabis section of erowid.

• encod.org

The website of the European Coalition for just and effective drugs policies offers lots of information the drug policies of the various European countries with an emphasis on the policies on cannabis.

• marijuana-uses.com

A list of articles on Cannabis written by all sorts of people, academics and regular folks, with some very interesting views on this topic. Composed by Dr. Lester Greenspoon.

• thehia.org

The website of the Hemp Industries Association. A lot of info on the industrial applicability of Hemp. A comprehensive list of facts, research papers and frequently asked question about Hemp.

• beckleyfoundation.org

A NGO who have published soem very interesting research papers on drugs in general and Cannabis in particular. Try searching for cannabis in the search box at the top right of this site.

• cannabiscollege.com

A non profit organisation based in the heart of Amsterdam’s Red light District. They recently celebrated their 10th anniversary and hopefully will be informing people about cannabis for many years to come.

• norml.org

A website fighting for Marijuana law reforms. With their blog and FAQ section they really have quite a large information databse on all kinds of marijuana related news and insights. Most of the material on this website has a political background.

• cannabis-med.org

German website with information on medicinal marijuana in six different languages.

If you feel that there are some other websites that deserve a place in this list or are simply also interesting to visit, don’t be shy and send us a message or dump the link in the comments below.

Top 5 Cannabis myths

There are almost more myths about cannabis then there are people that smoke it. Some people spread these rumours because its in their best business interest, like the DEA, paper industry or the petrochemical industry.

These issues are no surprise to the well informed cannabis enthusiast and even the experts sometimes have difficultly separating the facts from fiction.

In an attempt to help you separate facts from fiction we have composed a top 5 of cannabis myths:

With special thanks to drugpolicy.org for being the excellent source of information they are.