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?

Letter to Jeremy Corbyn and Labour: How to Win the next general election

Dear Mr Corbyn,

I would very much appreciate if you could read this brief document that was written over a decade ago but still applies today.  The response we received from Carolyne Flynn at the time acknowledged our arguments but said that Labour would not change the law on cannabis because they thought it would lead to increased use and harm, despite the evidence, even then, that it is only a small percentage and number of consumers that experience harm and the vast majority that experience benefits (thus concluding that the vast majority of users would also benefit).

In addition to the points made in "The Challenge", there would be a huge saving in policing costs, a  saving on NHS costs as so many people claim that cannabis enables them to stop using many expensive prescription medicines, an increase in general revenue through taxation on profits, consumer protection and removing control of supply away from criminal gangs and multi-drug dealers.

I sincerely believe that IF the Labour Party were to discuss the legalisation of cannabis at the next conference and include it in the next election manifesto, Labour would win that election - you would certainly gain my vote and those of many people that I know- we find it difficult or impossible tovote for Labour as a party that supports the prohibition of cannabis.

LINKED from this page is "The Challenge" document along with pages of letters to and from the Home Office.

I do hope that you can find the time to read it and reply.

http://www.ccguide.org/challenge/web/index.php?r=petition

Alun Buffry, Norwich North
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Reply received - do you think they read beyond the first mention of cannabis?

Dear Alun,

Thank you for your email. I appreciate you took the time to get in touch with us regarding the medical use of marijuana.

Please be assured that your comments have been passed on.

The Labour Party will ensure that all NHS patients get fast access to the most effective new drugs and treatments.

We will also insist on value-for-money agreements with pharmaceutical companies.

Thank you for getting in touch

Best wishes,

Jake

Membership Services and Correspondence

The Labour Party

No reason to punish people for using things to their benefit unless they harm others.

Almost everything is life can pose a risk to some people but that is no reason to punish other people for using things to their benefit unless they harm others. Punishing a person simply for growing or possession of a plant for their own use is a total misuse of law, injustice and breach of Human Rights that allow people a Private Life.

To punish a person such as Mr French, who claims to be using cannabis to alleviate dreadful pain an symptoms of MS would be an outrage, as it is that so many other victimless cannabis users have been and are being fined and even sent to prison.

There is now irrefutable medical evidence that cannabis has medicinal vale for a large number of ailments and evidence that risk is very small, far smaller than many pills prescribed by doctors - pills that often have side-effects that require other pills to counteract.

The side-effect of consuming cannabis is at best a feeling of relaxation and at worse the munchies.

In fact, The UK and other Governments, even though they deny that cannabis has any medicinal uses, now allow the production and sale of the whole-plant extract in the form of alcohol solution in a spray, called Sativex.

I have yet to see any explanation of how a medicine can be produced by simply dissolving and filtering a plant with no medicinal use, in alcohol!

And in Netherlands and other countries, cannabis bud is available on a doctors' prescription and bought at pharmacies.

Unfortunately the law gives monopoly to the pharmaceutical companies and unfortunately there products are far more expensive than the cost of growing the cannabis at home or even buying in Dutch Coffeeshops.

But what it boils down to for me - irrespective of benefit or risk of harm through use - why should the law punish people that engage in activities that do no harm or pose no risk to others or their rights?


Call for cannabis legalisation at Portsmouth event
http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/health/local-health/call-for-cannabis-legalisation-at-portsmouth-event-1-6529353 
The News Portsmouth, 19 January 2015

WE must fight to legalise cannabis for the sake of improving our lives.

That was the message yesterday from people with a range of health problems who revealed that taking the drug means they are not left in constant pain.

Patients were given the opportunity to share their experiences during an open discussion on the topic of cannabis legalisation at Fratton Community Centre, in Portsmouth.

Clark French, 29, of Brighton, who was diagnosed with MS five years ago, said taking cannabis has eased the chronic pain that comes with the disease.
He told the audience: ‘MS is an awful disease, it’s horrible, I can’t even bring about the words to explain it.

‘I am in pain all the time.
‘When I use cannabis however, I am in less pain.
‘It doesn’t take the pain away completely, but cannabis gives me a life again and gives me the ability to stand up and share my story.’
Mr French, of United Patients Alliance, which set up the event, added: ‘It’s not right that it is not legal – we need to get together and fight.
‘It’s not cannabis we are fighting for, but our lives.’
Angela Came, 44, of Petersfield, said the drug helps her cope with depression, psychosis and post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘I didn’t start taking it until after I was diagnosed and I didn’t start taking it regularly until two years ago,’ she said.
Mel Clarke, 53, of Southsea, who has MS, said smoking cannabis has changed her life whereas painkillers ended up doing more harm.
Mrs Clarke said she first smoked cannabis on a trip to Amsterdam.
Alex Fraser, 24, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at 19, said while critics may feel he should just take legal painkillers, they make his condition worse.
‘There are a lot of things I can’t eat, I can’t drink, there’s a whole list. And I know that what I do eat, it’s still going to be hard,’ he said.
‘If I smoke a joint or smoke a joint after a meal, I feel so much better.’

CENSORED: 1947 Cannabis Study on Epilepsy

It seems to be the pattern for governments that clearly favour synthetics and pharmaceuticals over plants. From the times of the ancient Chinese and ancient Egyptians through Romans and Culpeper's Herbal until 1971 cannabis was used as a medicine. But in 1961 and then in 1971 in the UK, cannabis was suddenly deemed to have no medical uses and possession, cultivation etc was banned. Nowadays Bedrocan is grown and sold through pharmacies in Netherlands and prescribed in other countries, Sativex a whole-plant extract marketted almost worldwide (both produced by pharmaceutical companies, pharmers, not farmers), as a medicine is now available in many US States and in fact USA has been supplying it to a very few patients for decades whilst all the time burning crops, arresting growers and claiming it has no medical use in international treaties and many country's national legislation. That reveals the hypocrisy and corruption of the governments we have elected.

please see  http://weedfinder.com/dash/news/censored-1947-cannabis-study-on-epilepsy/

All beneficial use is therapeutic - the difference is in urgency of need - the Cannabis Health Service

think that the decision whether or not to prosecute or punish somebody in possession of or for production of cannabis / drugs should be based upon whether or not the person has done harm or put at risk others or their property or Rights or they have threatened public health - as in fact stipulated in Human Rights law - and not on whether or not the person is injured or ill.

Campaigning for better medical access for those in urgent need is a different matter, of health and not law, and what is needed is for the Government to RESCHEDULE cannabis bud (plant materials) and not only Sativex as they have done.

Then cannabis will be available on prescription in the form of BEDROCAN, sterilised and standardised, through doctors and pharmacies as in The Netherlands, Italy and other countries and as Sativex but beware - that does not mean that doctors will be willing to prescribe it or that it will be free - in Netherlands one has to pay and a little more expensive than coffeeshops.

That would also not mean that it would become legal to grow cannabis even only for own use.

To enable that the campaign must DEMAND that the law respect Human Rights, specifically to a Private Life, to freedom to choose and practice ones belief and to equity of property between cannabis and, for example, alcohol.

Such a demand cannot be a demand only for one type of person for example those that are ill or injured, it must be applied the same for everyone (that is the acknowledgement of Human Rights not access to prescribed cannabis)

Also as we know cannabis has tremendous value as PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE - and as Clark French and previously Granny Pat Tabram, Chris Baldwin, The Late Biz Ivol, and many others that suffer and have found their suffering eased through consumption of cannabis, have said ALL USE IS MEDICINAL.

I agree with them - at best the line between "medicinal benefit" and "getting high" is vague, to my mind it is false. There is only use - therapeutic use. All else is degree of urgency of need.

So I think this campaign will need to focus on:
1) better access - that is through doctors, pharmacies and clinics
2) stopping prosecutions for possession and cultivation for own use

Then look at supply to adults other than through doctors etc, e.g. CSC's, Coffeeshops, Cannabis Clubs - to make that legal too.

Also Colin Davies has set up an enterprise to raise funds to buy / produce cannabis oil for those that cannot grow their own, many not expecting to live long enough to grow and crop their own.

It is called the CANNABIS HEALTH SERVICE and you can read about his cause and make a donation here
http://www.cannabishealthservice.org/