Wednesday 20 June 2018

The law, cannabis, medicines and our Rights -get the debate on track

Almost all the debate I am seeing is about whether cannabis helps people or drives them psychotic or makes them ill, or both, which are medical issues. Little mention of my or your human rights, which I never asked for but was "given". The law is not actually about drugs or plants or medicines, it is about what some people can or cannot do with them - possession, production, supply.

If we have a right to a private life then that must include the right to grow or possess or even share with willing people, unless it threatens PUBLIC health, public order, or the rights of others.

Issues such as whether somebody else is cured of illness or has their pains or tremors eased, or suffers from psychosis or even dies of cancer, has nothing whatsoever to do with possession, production or sharing in PRIVATE. What difference it makes to driving or singing skills, is not the issue when it comes to private life.

Limits or otherwise on strength, claims that childrenmay  use cannabis or that some people later take drugs, is not the issue when it comes to Private Life.

Billy Caldwell, Alfie and other children, in fact, don't get me wrong, but their survival has nothing to do with what we do in our private lives.

I say that because the law targets our private lives; people get busted in their homes even though they pose no threat or do no harm

IT SEEMS TO ME obvious that those that get benefit from the cannabis plant or its products that are otherwise inhumanely suffering or risking life itself, should be protected by the Government, not punished by it, and should have that medication available in a pure and safe form.

But that is a health issue, Of course they have the right to live a healthy life. Yet it is a different issue, and many of the politicians are talking about allowing pharmaceutical grade cannabis or its products including oils, on prescription. Well we know how much is already being grown ready for that profitable situation to become acceptable to the public, after the years of lies, by GW Pharmaceuticals and British Sugar and who owns shared in those?

When somebody says that cannabis use heals or harms, saves lives or ruins them, leads to drug use or not, whether safer than aspirin or alcohol or sugar - I have to ask

WHO SHOULD WE ARREST?

Those that cannabis consumption helps or those that cannabis harms?

Those that later take drugs or those that do not?

Those that eat sugar or those that do not?

Those that harm others, or those that do not?


Tuesday 19 June 2018

Corrupt UK Government to restrict cannabis production to the elite

Despite recent news that the UK Home Office minister has used his 'extraordinary powers" to allow Bill Caldwell to be given cannabis oil to stop his epileptic fits and possible save his life ...

Despite that many thousands of people are claiming medicinal benefits through their use of cannabis bought or grown illegally ..

Despite the fact that many other countries have made "medicinal" cannabis available ...

Despite the fact that not one person has died from cannabis use per se...

Despite public opinion ..

Despite the fact that cannabis itself is still scheduled as a substance with no medicinal applications and yet THC and CBD have medicinal uses, and that British Sugar Cooporation produces and exports more "medical grade" cannabis than almost every other country ...  NOTE the ex-drug minister Victoria Atkin's husband is a major shreholder)

Despite the fact that GW Pharamceuticals have been granted licence to produce the whole-plant extract Sativex which they sell at grossly inflated prices (even compared with street prices) NOTE Theresa May's husband is a major shareholder)

UK: Theresa May personally promised my epileptic son cannabis oil - and he's still waiting 3 months later
UK: Cannabis debate: I appealed to the prime minister 

 UK: William Hague calls for Theresa May to legalise cannabis 

 UK: Lord Hague says government should 'be bold' and legalise cannabis 

 UK: Government will have blood on its hands if medicinal cannabis is not prescribed, says father of ill child 

 UK: Cannabis war 'comprehensively lost', says William Hague 

 UK: Theresa May REFUSES to back Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt on changing the law on medical cannabis after epileptic boy Billy Caldwell's case 

 UK: Tonia Antoniazzi MP: My constituents need to have access to medicinal cannabis 

 UK: Jeremy Hunt shows support for changing law over medical cannabis oil use 

 UK: Review needed on medicinal cannabis cases, says May 

 UK: Cannabis oil: cabinet appears divided as Hunt calls for review 

 UK: Middlesbrough MP 'wonders if cannabis could have helped son' 

 UK: Cannabis oil row: Billy Caldwell discharged from hospital 

 UK: Cannabis oil row prompts legalisation call 

 UK: Cannabis oil: My daughter could die tomorrow 

 UK: Billy Caldwell: Senior MP urges reform over medical cannabis 

 UK: Home Office grants licence for epileptic boy's medicinal cannabis oil 

 Cannabis oil returned to UK boy Billy Caldwell after hospitalization 

 UK: Home Office returns cannabis oil for boy's epilepsy treatment 

 UK: Billy Caldwell 'will have medical cannabis returned' after being confiscated by Home Office 

 UK: Epileptic boy Billy Caldwell has 'life-threatening' seizures' after cannabis confiscated 

 UK: 'Dying' Billy Caldwell rushed to hospital 

 UK: Medical cannabis and the challenge for regulation of medicines 

 UK: You've signed my boy's death warrant, says cannabis row mother 

 UK: Mum defiant as son's cannabis medication is seized at airport 

 UK: Mother of severely autistic boy has 'life-saving' cannabis oil confiscated at Heathrow 

 UK: Why we must legalise cannabis now for the sake of public health 

 UK: Legalising cannabis could earn Treasury 3.5 billion pounds 

 22 European Countries and Their Cannabis Laws

 New UN report reveals UK is world’s biggest producer of medical cannabis

 Where Is Marijuana Legal? Peru The Latest Country To Legalize

 Britain is largest exporter of legal cannabis in the world despite ban

Alfie Dingley: Mum criticises decision to deny cannabis treatment for son with severe epilepsy


 

Tuesday 12 June 2018

Billy Caldwell, the use of cannabis as a medicine: Letter to Chloe Smith MP Norwich North

Dear Ms Smith,

I am personally disgusted with the way this Government is behaving over the issue of cannabis as a medciine.  In particular the announcement that Bill Caldwell is not to be allowed to be given cannabis oil by his mother, when it is apparent that it is keeping him alive.

Withdrawing life-saving medicine is the same as withdrawing food or water, and if the result is death, it is surely murder.

Cannabis is scheduled under the Misuse of Drugs Act as aplant drug with no medicinal uses.

So it seems strange, especially as Mrs May's husband is an investor in GW Pharmaceuticals, the company that miraculously extracts Sativex, a whole-plant extract in alcohol, from the plant to sell at greatly inflated prices and with limited availabilty.

Even more strange the Victoria Atkins MP's husband is a major investor in British Sugar Corperation, which apparently exports millions of pounds of cannabis 'for medicinal use'.

Whilst these men and others make massive profits from cannabis, individuals in the UK are still subject to arrest for growing even just a few plants at home for own use.

The UK seems very much behind so many countries in the world today that allow various forms of cannabis on prescription?

WHY is that?  Is it in any way connected to the personal investments of those two men and others?

Alun Buffry, Norwich North

Saturday 2 June 2018

Is cannabis a drug?

IS CANNABIS A DRUG? - A DISCUSSION



WHETHER OR NOT CANNABIS IS A DRUG POSSESSION, CULTIVATION ANS SUPPLY OUGHT BE LEGALISED.
When we talk about cannabis we are not talking about what is not cannabis
Spain: 'Cannabis is not a drug': Spain's anti-drug czar:30 Sept 2013
Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, the cannabis plant and its derivatives which contain THC are classified as a Class B Drug and prohibited. Some parts of the plant, such as seeds, roots and stalks, do not fall within the Act. On the question of leaves, forensic scientists look for the presence of THC and other active cannabinoids, and if found, the substance falls within the Act. Some argue that cannabis is a drug in any case, as it can be used as a constituent in a medicine. Others argue that parts of the cannabis plant cannot correctly, semantically be called a drug at all, especially as it is neither physically addictive nor toxic in any conceivably consumable amount. The correct meaning of the word 'drug' as applied to cannabis continues to be debated; nevertheless, in British law, cannabis is a drug. 

Safety

Cannabis has been described as one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man, and safer than most common vegetables - DEA Judge Young, 1988. Others describe cannabis as "remakably safe, but not completely harmless" - Prof. Lester Grinspoon MD1997). Some even claim that cannabis is completely harmless and beneficial to man. Yet other scientists have inferred health risks involved the smoking of cannabis, mostly based upon the results of experimentation with THC extracts and synthetic THC carried out on mice, rats and monkeys. It is generally accepted that cannabis is safer than alcohol and tobacco. The question of the risk element attached to the use of cannabis will continue to be a matter for the experts, but irrespective of the answer there exists no just reason to punish cannabis users or those who grow it. 

Campaigners, scientists and doctors cannot agree. Cannabis has been used for centuries, both medicinally and for the high, as well as for rope etc, long before the days of drugs and synthetics. Much of the discussion is based on dictionary definitions which change with time. Tell a Rastafarian that his sacrament is a drug and you will be in trouble! Look at a bale of hemp fibre, hemp seed oil soap, paper, cloth or seedcake - they are all pure cannabis - and then tell me it is a drug.

CANNABIS IS NOT A DRUG.

Drugs are associated with addiction, habit and problems. Cannabis is associated with none of these. "Cannabis is not dope, it's everything from rope to hope!"

The following article is an extract from The Report of the FCDA Europe
Although on average approximately 75 people per annum in the U.S. are revealed by post mortem (autopsy) examination to have cannabis in their system at the time of their death, their deaths were induced by causes not associated with cannabis. In all the long history of its use of which the record dates back approximately 5,000 years, cannabis has never been cause to a single fatality. Medical records and study of worldwide pertinent writings over the millennia show that at no time has any person died from the ingestion of any amount of cannabis, ever.
Cannabis is a NON-TOXIC substance. One hundred per cent of the scores of studies by American universities and research facilities show that toxicity does not exist in cannabis. (U.C.L.A, Harvard, Temple, etc.)
All the in-depth medico-scientific clinical studies conducted (for example, US-Jamaican, US-Costa Rican, LaGuardia, etc) have revealed that cannabis contains no addictive properties in any part of the plant or its smoke, so, unlike and in contrast to tobacco, alcohol, and all the legal or illegal 'recreational' substances cannabis is both non-habit-forming and non-toxic. Therefore cannabis is uniquely safe. In this Report, let it be unequivocal and clearly understood that the use of "safe" in the context of cannabis use, by definition means,: "free of danger, risk or injury".

Cannabis Is Not A Drug: Accurate Language.

From all the medico-scientific aspects, harmless cannabis is not only wrongly defined as a "drug" in any meaningful (semantic) definition of the word but also, by definition and empirical reality, wrongly proscribed as a "drug" (or other substance) under legislation regulations.
Although dictionaries vary slightly in their definitions of "drug", virtually all refer to, and rely for definition on, a drug's habit-forming, addictive properties. Webster's New World Dictionary, for example, defines "drug" as: "a narcotic, hallucinogen, especially one that is habit-forming." As is confirmed by the aforementioned medico-scientific research, cannabis contains no habit-forming properties in the plant itself or its smoke. Evident from the most fundamental and widely inferred meaning, by definition based on empirical fact, cannabis is not a drug.
The word 'drug' derives from Old Dutch meaning dried herbs, as used in food, for healing and in the dyeing of textiles. There was no connotation of addiction. (viz: the Wealth of Nations, 1776, Adam Smith; Book One, Chapter One). In the twentieth Century, that meaning has been transformed by the specious pseudo-philosophy of Prohibition.
The invalidity of linking cannabis with "drugs" is further confirmed by the U.S. government's Bureau of Mortality Statistics. The table, below, demonstrates in the most obvious manner that cannabis by any meaningful definition, traditional or modern, is not a drug and cannabis cannot (correctly) be categorised or referred to as a drug.

COMPARISON OF CANNABIS TO OTHER SUBSTANCES
BY OFFICIAL MORTALITY STATISTICS
Sample year 1988. U.S. federal government Bureau of Mortality Statistics.
SUBSTANCE............................................NUMBER OF DEATHS PER ANNUM.
TOBACCO................................................................................ 340,000 to 425,000
ALCOHOL (not including 50% of all highway deaths
And 65% of all murders).......................................................150,000 +
ASPIRIN (Including deliberate overdoses) ................................................180 to 1,000 +
CAFFEINE (From stress, ulcers, triggering irregular heartbeats etc) ..................1,000 to 10,000
LEGAL DRUG OVERDOSE (Deliberate or accidental from legal, prescribed
Patent medicines and / or mixing with alcohol) ......14,000 to 27,000
ILLICIT DRUG OVERDOSE (Deliberate or accidental from all illegal drugs).........3,8000 to 5,200
THEOPHYLLINE (Prescribed asthma drug) ..........................................................50


CANNABIS

To those people in whose (financial) interests it is to perpetuate the Prohibition of Cannabis the semantically incorrect use of the word "drug" where cannabis is concerned, is a premeditated misuse of terminology. This serves strategy advantageous to Prohibitionists, and comprises a simple but effective mechanism of disinformation, by putting the harmless herb into an unjustifiable association with addictive and harmful drugs.
The reality is clear: cannabis and those pernicious substances, the drugs, are wholly unalike. As the word "drug" is wrong and inapplicable to cannabis, it is necessary to establish a correct word, veracious vocabulary, which is fitting.


From The Report of the FCDA Because cannabis has been loosely, widely and incorrectly referred to in the past as a "drug" does not mean that this basic untruth can become acceptable. On the contrary, since the introduction of Prohibition the legal situation compels veracity and clarity more than ever, for not to articulate the truth accurately involves perjury. Yet truthful language, the truth, exposes the mendacious basis to the Crime that is this Prohibition of Cannabis
The Australian Government Report says "Cannabis has been erroneously classified as a narcotic, as a sedative and as an hallucinogen. Cannabinoids represent a UNIQUE PHARMACOLOGICAL CLASS OF COMPOUNDS"

CANNABIS IS NOT A DRUG, AND NEITHER IS IT AN INTOXICANT.

According to the Oxford Pocket Dictionary to intoxicate is to make drunk, excite, elate, beyond self-control. Unlike alcohol cannabis users do not lose self-control. Massive amounts just send them to sleep.
Intoxicants are potentially toxic, that is poisonous, with a certain overdose level often dependent on the individual. There has never been a single death directly attributed to cannabis use, in 5000 years of history, with hundreds of millions of users in the world. There is NO TOXIC AMOUNT OF CANNABIS. One theory states that an amount of 2 pounds eaten in ten minutes, an impossible feat and not certain to cause death. No animal has died of an overdose of cannabis.
Many substances which are mind-altering or mood changing are not drugs : hormones, endorphins, adrenaline.
Conscious-altering substance which we consume but which are not generally regarded as drugs include sugar, caffeine and chocolate.

CANNABIS IS NOT THC

THC or Tetrahydrocannabinol is one of many active ingredients in cannabis. It can also be produced synthetically. Organic cannabis contains over 1000 other substances; like any herb it is the holistic use of the whole herb or medicine which is vital. 30 or 40 cannabinoids have been identified. Any judgment of cannabis based on the supply of THC to patients is unfounded.
Cannabis contains THC but cannabis is not THC. It is incorrect methodologically to mix in extraneous, irrelevant THC findings, or data from isolated cannabinoids, and then make false claims relating to cannabis.
WHETHER OR NOT CANNABIS IS A DRUG IT OUGHT BE LEGALISED.

MOBILE PHONE contract SCAM: VIRGIN MOBILE and others

MOBILE PHONE contract SCAM: VIRGIN MOBILE and others
When you take out a contract for 24 months or whatever, with Virgin and several other companies the same, which includes buying the handset, make sure you mark ona calender the date it runs out, because THEY WILL NOT BE TELLING YOU, instead they will keep charging you the same amount after the contract expires until YOU PHONE THEM to cancel, but when you try to get the phone repaired, in this case just a new battery, you may well and probably be told that they will not fix it because the phone has been yours since the contract ran out, despite that you have payed the same amount as if buying it, for months and presumably for decades until you phone them.
With VIRGIN MOBILE we then phoned then 4 times to be told that we were "probably" entitled to a refund (in this case over £100) and 4 times told that management would call us back within 48 hours, which they failed to do.
VIRGIN and the others will then try to blame you, the customer, for not cancelling the contract. They must make millions of pounds like this, through direct debits, especially from elderly and vulnerable customers. It is nothing but a SCAM.
It was not my phone and I took up the issue with Virgin Mobile for my friend.
Now I have mentioned the case on their facebook page and have been told to engage in yet another conversation so they "can look into it". They have the case number, they have the records, they know that this is not an unusual case.
This has been going on now for over 18 months (although we have cancelled the contract, no more payments taken, but no refund.
Sadly I have to say that in our experience Virgin are best avoided, but I hear it's much the same with Vodaphone and others.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/207123929818172/