Patients with inflammatory bowel disease may benefit from cannabis-based drugs, UK scientists believe.
The Bath University team found people with the gut disorder had an abundant number of a type of cannabinoid receptors in their body.
They believe this is part of the body’s attempt to dampen down the inflammation and that giving a drug that binds to these receptors could boost this.
Their findings appear in the journal Gastroenterology.
Complete article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4728605.stm
Category: Cannabis News Corner
Law Enforcement’s Opposition To Med Marijuana Based In Misunderstanding
By Steve Elliott
The Arkansas Sheriff’s Association and the Arkansas Association of Chiefs of Police held a press conference on Friday announcing their official opposition to Issue 5, the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act.
In a statement released to the press on Tuesday, Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association Executive Director Ronnie Baldwin claimed they “don’t want people to think law enforcement is not compassionate to the people who would use it and use it responsibly,” but the group is openly trying to take good medicine out of the hands of sick people for reasons that have no basis in fact, according to Arkansans for Compassionate Care.
Law enforcement’s chief concern — that Issue 5 would lead to greater teen drug use — just isn’t accurate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a study spanning a 16-year period which showed teen marijuana use actually went down in states with legal medical marijuana programs.
Complete article:
Hemp vs. oil: How corporate & gov’t collusion perverted the free market
Travis Kelly
Since the days of Cain and Abel, hemp has been one of the world’s largest and most versatile crops, used to make textiles, paint, soap, rope, building materials, fuel oil, protein supplements, and medicines. An acre of hemp produces far more paper than an acre of trees — and you would have to smoke an acre of it to get high, as industrial hemp, though similar in appearance to its close cousin, marijuana (cannabis), contains almost no THC.
Today, in only one industrialized nation in the world, is the cultivation of hemp illegal. You guessed it: Ours truly. And it makes as much sense as outlawing ALL mushrooms because some of them are psychoactive or poisonous. How this travesty came about in 1937 is a lesson in the collusion of big corporations with big government and big media to pervert the free market and stymie competition.
In the early 1930s, Henry Ford’s experimental biomass plant in Michigan extracted methanol, charcoal, tar pitch, and other distillates from hemp, demonstrating that it was an alternative to fossil fuels as an energy source, as well as a competitor to other petrochemical products then being introduced by the DuPont corporation. DuPont had a powerful ally in Washington — Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon, a banker who also had a controlling interest in the Gulf Oil Corporation.
Mellon appointed his loyal nephew, Harry Anslinger, as chief of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1932. Anslinger promptly began lobbying Congress to outlaw “marihuana,” using a series of hysterical propaganda stories run by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst — that era’s Rupert Murdoch. Hearst owned vast timber lands in the Northwest that supplied the wood pulp for most of the American newspaper industry; DuPont chemicals were used to process that pulp. The “reefer madness” scare featured lurid, racist stories of “Mexicans and Negroes” going on murderous rampages while stoned; innocent white women seduced into ruin; teenagers going instantly insane after a puff; and other fearmongering fictions.
Complete article:
http://www.gjfreepress.com/article/20121019/COMMUNITY_NEWS/121019953/1019
Bamboo, hemp on cutting edge of sustainable textiles – Ancient hardy plants provide modern solution for supplying raw materials for a plethora of textiles
BY VANCOUVER SUN
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Hugh Lakeland, a mechanic and service station owner by trade looks over some of his 10 acres of commercial hemp. Lakeland was one of the first to obtain a license to cultivate hemp in B.C. from Health Canada. Paper, textiles and building materials come from the fibre and the seeds are produced for oil and food products.
Photograph by: Don MacKinnon, VANCOUVER SUN
Hemp:
• A term reserved for low tetrahydrocannabinol varieties of the plant Cannabis sativa. Of about 2,000 cannabis plants varieties known, about 90 per cent contain only low-grade THC and are most useful for their fibre, seeds and medicinal or psychoactive oils. Hemp is one of the earliest domesticated plants known.
• Hemp is used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, clothing, biodegradable plastics, construction (as with Hemcrete and insulation), body products, health food and bio-fuel. Hemp is legally grown in many countries across the world including Spain, China, Japan, Korea, France, North Africa and Ireland.
• Hemp is one of the faster growing biomasses known,producing up to 25 tonnes of dry matter per hectare per year. About one tonne of bast fibre and 2–3 tonnes of core material can be decorticated from 3–4 tonnes of good quality, dry retted straw.
• Hemp is environmentally friendly, requiring few pesticides and no herbicides. It has been called a carbon-negative raw material.
Complete article:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Hemp+Bamboo+cutting+edge+sustainable+fabrics/7412469/story.html
All about hemp seeds
ERIN FERGUS
Hemp is used for more than marijuana products, sustainable clothing and thick ropes.
It has been used as food in China for 6,000 years when the Chinese began cultivating the wild Cannabis sativa plant in central Asia. Hemp was popular for its nutritional value even before soy foods, and the nutty-flavored seed can be used in the forms of oil and butter as well.
What makes the hemp seed a powerhouse?
A standard serving size of three tablespoons provides 11 grams of protein, approximately 25 percent of the daily value, for only 170 calories. The protein is highly digestible, so it should cause less bloating than other protein supplements, and it contains all the essential amino acids that must be consumed through food.
One serving also supplies 50 percent of the daily value for phosphorus and magnesium, 25 percent of the daily value for zinc and 15 percent of the daily value for iron.
Complete article:
http://www.thisdishisvegetarian.com/2012/10/all-about-hemp-seeds.html
Walk To End Alzheimer’s With Team Hope Through Cannabis And Texas NORML
by Johnny Green
Support The Walk To End Alzheimer’s, Team Hope Through Cannabis, And Texas NORML
Please join Team Hope through Cannabis (THC) and the Texas NORML Senior Alliance on October 27th in Austin, TX to walk/roll the in support of the Walk to End Alzheimer’s. Various properties in marijuana have shown immense potential in halting, even reversing, the effects of this devastating disease. Patients and their families should be allowed to explore ALL treatment options, especially those that offer so much hope and possibility.
Complete article:
http://www.theweedblog.com/walk-to-end-alzheimers-with-team-hope-through-cannabis-and-texas-norml/
Jury Acquits NJWeedman In Marijuana Distribution Case
By Steve Elliott
Here’s some great news: It’s getting harder and harder for hapless, overwhelmed prosecutors to get a marijuana conviction in the United States — even when the amount in question is a pound, and the charges are distribution, not simple possession.
Such became obvious Thursday afternoon in a Mount Holly, New Jersey, courtroom, when a jury found Ed “NJWeedman” Forchion not guilty in the cannabis activist’s marijuana distribution case, reports Danielle Camilli of PhillyBurbs.com.
Complete article:
The war at home
I was reminded of Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In” while driving home to Pasadena recently. The latest film by the New York-based author and documentary filmmaker, whose works include “Why We Fight,” “The Trials of Henry Kissinger,” “Reagan” and “Freakonomics,” is a condemnation of America’s failed “War on Drugs.”
Jarecki’s criticism comes not because the war hasn’t led to arrests and incarcerations — it has, especially for disproportionate numbers of people of color. Rather, it stems from the fact that, while the nation has become so successful at jailing, the demand for and the trade of drugs has continued to grow.
From where I sit as a black woman, it’s not hard to understand how we’ve gotten to the place where the country has a trail of stories of young blacks killed by cops or those in authority. The deaths of Kendric McDade, Treyvon Martin, Derek Williams and Chavis Carter are just the latest in this sad story.
Traditionally, Jarecki is known for asking tough questions, and his latest film is no exception. As the film aptly states, “40 years, $1 trillion, 45 million arrests.”
“How did we get here?” says Jarecki, when asked about the driving question behind making this film. “The problem I face is people don’t know [the issue] — so few people have it on their radar.”
It’s a phenomenon that civil rights litigator Michelle Alexander, among many experts quoted in the film, refers to as the “New Jim Crow,” a situation in which those caught in the system for minor drug offenses can find themselves stripped of their rights, experience troubles seeking employment and be labeled as second-class citizens.
When I met with Jarecki, he referred to the drug war as “immoral,” something that “yielded no public good.” It’s an ironic turn of phrase, given this nation’s historical preoccupation with morality. Prohibition, for example was deeply rooted in moral concerns. Similarly, the War on Drugs has connections to a moral impulse. President Richard Nixon, after all, declared a war on drug abuse in the early 1970s. There was a concern for those plagued by addiction in that statement, even if that concern eventually went haywire.
Complete article:
More Medical Marijuana, Please
By Kelsey Cline
Medical marijuana has been an incredibly controversial topic for years. Many government officials believe that because marijuana is perceived as addictive, it should stay illegal in the U.S.
On Nov. 6, Arkansans will be able to vote on Issue Five, otherwise known as the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Question, to ultimately decide if Arkansas should legalize marijuana for medical use.
Whether or not you personally would benefit from medical marijuana, it is an important decision to make nonetheless.
If Arkansas legalizes marijuana, the national government would be one step closer to saving up to $13.7 billion per year by not having to enforce the current prohibition on the drug and adding a tax at the rates similar to alcohol and tobacco, according to the Huffington Post.
More than 300 economists have signed the petition to call these startling facts to attention. The economic benefits of medical marijuana legalization have pushed the government and the citizens alike to take another look at the problem.
Complete article:
http://www.uatrav.com/2012/10/17/more-medical-marijuana-please/comment-page-1/
The Montel Williams marijuana open line
by Max Brantley
Talk show host Montel Williamswill have a news conference at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the State Capitol to endorse the medical marijuana initiative on this year’s ballot. He has multiple sclerosis and uses “medicinal cannabis” to treat symptoms. Maybe the Family Council and the Arkansas Baptist Convention can pull a Gomer Pyle and make a citizen’s arrest while he’s in town. This is a moral issue, see, and pain relief is not a valid purpose for use of a naturally occurring plant. Or so the good Christians have told us.
Complete article:
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/17/the-montel-williams-marijuana-open-line