We are in Patti ‘s kitchen making pot brownies. I’m not allowed to say where it is, except in an apartment in Orange County. I’m not allowed to say what her last name is. I’m not even allowed to say exactly how she makes her brownies. (“I’m not giving you my ****ing secrets,” she growls, dragging on a cigarette.)
Strangely, though, I am allowed to give you her Web site, paticakes.com , which strangely is spelled with one “t” whereas her first name is spelled with two, and I daren’t ask her why because she’s in one of those moods. (“Well, you’re writing too ****ing slow,” she says when I tell her she’s talking too fast.) I can assure you, however, Patti is a real person I’ve known for several years and really does make awesome baked goodies, although I can assure you I’ve never tried any infused with cannabis.

The cannabis butter, which looks like pesto sauce (or Simple Green), is the key to Patti’s potent brownies.

FRANK MICKADEIT, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Video: Queen of Cannabis Baking
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Anyway, we’re in her kitchen with our mutual friend, Barbara Venezia , who has shot a video of this whole thing. Patti has done catering over the years, but seems to have really found her passion with the advent of liberalized marijuana laws. Patti has a doctor’s note that allows her to make pot brownies, cookies and her premium Sunshine, or “health” bars, and “share” or “donate” them to cannabis collectives, which “donate” back her costs to her.
Two things make Patti’s pot goods great, she says: One: The quality of the non-cannabis ingredients. “I use top-shelf chocolate and I make everything from scratch. A lot of the dispensaries use mixes … the Rice Krispies treats. … I’m not into that. I want to be the Mrs. Fields of cannabis.” Two: the quality of the cannabis. It’s potent. “When I say take two (bites), I mean two (bites). The first person I gave one to ate the whole thing and he couldn’t function for two days.”
In the old days , pot brownie bakers would fold ground-up cannabis into the batter. No more. Patti proffers a plastic bowl containing what looks like pesto sauce. “Cannabis butter,” she says. “Everyone uses it now – unless you’re stupid.” It takes Patti 10 hours to make her cannabis butter, repeatedly heating and cooling the blend of regular butter and finely ground marijuana cuttings, a laborious process she believes best draws out THC, the active ingredient in pot.
Patti poured the cannabis butter into a mixing bowl with the chocolate batter, stirred furiously, poured it into a baking pan and popped it in the oven. Then we went out onto her lushly landscaped patio to talk and smoke – me an Arturo Fuente , her a Marlboro Ultra Light. She doesn’t smoke pot. “Smoking is a head trip – eating is a body trip,” says Patti, who uses pot to calm her nerves. “I bounce off walls (without it). For me it’s truly calming.”
I snip the end of my cigar with a pair of pruning clippers I find on her patio table and point to a squat green plant with serrated leaves. “So you grow it out here?” I ask.
“That’s a weed!” she snorts. “You don’t know what (pot) looks like?” I guess not.
She doesn’t grow pot. “The cat would eat it,” she says, pointing to her beloved Siamese. She buys two strains: sativa, “an ‘up’ – you can function well on that” – and indicia – “that, you veg out in front of the TV for a day.”
“I would never say I’m a stoner or a pot head. I medicate myself before I go to bed. Otherwise I’d never get to sleep.
Why’d you start this? I ask.
She says she grew up in an East Coast Italian family “where everyone had a restaurant or a bakery.” She’s always cooked and baked. And, since the ’70s, medicated herself with pot.
Now, she’s seized the business opportunity and is as enthused as I’ve ever seen her about anything. She follows the legal and political battles. She’s aligned with local growers and distributors – who more and more are driving to patients to get around city crackdowns on dispensaries. She bonds with her customers, many of them middle-age women like her. One suffering from shingles called her crying one day – crying out of gratitude.
“This is my fight,” Patti says. “It’s something I’ve believed in for years and years.”
All too soon my cigar is gone and we can smell another aromatic delight emanating from the kitchen.

by Phillip Smith

If we can’t keep drugs out of the prisons, how can we keep them out of the country?

In Oklahoma City, an Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) agent was arrested Tuesday by Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives agents in a scheme authorities said was shipping weapons to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. OBN Agent Francisco Javier Reyes Luna, 29, faces two counts of providing false statements in violation of federal guns laws and one count of providing a restricted weapon to a person not licensed to own it for using a straw purchaser to buy five AK-47 semi-automatic rifles from a gun shop and for giving a .50 caliber Barrett semi-automatic rifle to an unknown individual. He may be facing more charges, if the federal complaint is any indication. He’s out on $25,000 bail right now.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, one man was released from prison and another had charges dropped in a police corruption scandal that continues to fester. So far, 14 people have been freed from prison or had charges dropped in the scandal in which six former and current police officers have been charged in federal court with offenses including drug conspiracy, perjury, witness tampering and civil rights violations. Two men, former Tulsa Police officer John Gray and former US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent Brandon McFadden have already pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors. Gray admitted to lying on search warrant affidavits in the case of Hugo Gutierrez, who was released from federal prison last Friday. Gray also admitted stealing $10,000 from Gutierrez when he arrested him. Charges against Deon White were dropped July 29. His case is one of 53 associated with undercover Tulsa Police Officer Jeff Henderson, who was indicted July 20 on 58 counts of drug conspiracy, perjury, witness tampering and civil rights violations, federal court records show. The Tulsa World is keeping track of it all here.
In Austin, Texas, a former Austin police officer went on trial Tuesday for having sex with a hooker while on duty and paying her with drugs. Scott Michael Lando faces charges of prostitution, delivery of a controlled substance, misuse of official information, and aggravated assault by a public servant for a series of incidents dating back to May 2006. This trial only deals with four prostitution counts and will feature the hooker, who will testify that Lando gave her drugs and other items in return for sex. Prosecutors already told the court Lando had access to drug dealers and got drugs from them. The state will decide later whether to move forward on the other counts.
In Barboursville, West Virginia, a Western Regional Jail guard was arrested August 3 after getting caught in a sting by authorities. Nathaniel Shawn Johnson, 22, went down after the West Virginia State Police got a tip that he was bringing drugs and tobacco into the jail. They then used an undercover officer, who paid Johnson $300 after he agreed to buy and deliver Oxycontin and tobacco to the jail. He is charged with conspiracy and bringing a weapon onto jail grounds (he had a .22 rifle in his pickup).

by Phillip Smith, August 11, 2010, 01:30pm, (Issue #644)

A Texas asthma sufferer who went to California for a medical marijuana recommendation and then got busted in June on a Texas highway with small amounts of marijuana and hashish is facing up to life in prison after being indicted by a Brown County grand jury. He is charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, a first-degree felony in the Lone Star State.

Chris Diaz, 20, has been jailed on $40,000 bond since the June 27 arrest. He was busted with 14 grams of weed and hash.
Under Texas law, possession of less than two ounces of marijuana is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, while possession of hashish is either a state jail felony punishable by up to two years for less than a gram, or a second-class felony punishable by up to 20 years if less than four grams, although probation is also possible. It is unclear exactly how much hash Diaz had.
Diaz was pulled over for an expired license tag while en route from California to Austin, and according to the DPS trooper’s report, could not produce a drivers’ license or proof of insurance. He was then arrested for failure to identify, and during a subsequent search, police found a small amount of hashish on his person. A search of the vehicle then turned up more hash and marijuana in pill bottle from a California medical marijuana provider.
The DPS report said the search also turned up a cell phone “containing text messages referring to drug sales” and a notebook with “drug and law writings.” Those are apparently the basis, legitimate or otherwise, for the drug distribution charge.
Texas does not have a medical marijuana law, and its authorities do not recognize having a recommendation from another state as a defense against prosecution.
Diaz has attracted supporters both inside Texas and nationally. The Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care and a group called I Am Sovereign are publicizing the case and pressuring Brown County officialdom. And the asthmatic Diaz sits in jail in Central Texas awaiting trial, without his medicine.

Brownwood, TX

United States

See map: Google Maps

WASHINGTON: An ancient Indian high could soon get ‘bhang-alored’ to the United States if the efforts of an American confectioner prove successful.
Scott J Van Rixel, a New Mexico chocalatier, has applied to trademark a product called “Bhang: The Original Cannabis Chocolate.”
Rixel’s highly-anticipated confection, coming amid a rousing debate about legalizing marijuana in the US, is laced with a form of cannabis.
If he gets his first creation through the system, Rixel says he plans to start selling at least two more types of ‘Bhang’ chocolates in the US and may even consider expanding the line to India. He has already incorporated a company named ‘ Bhang Chocolate Company Inc’ for this new venture, according to the Wall Street Journal.
While “Bangalored” has become part of the new-age tech lexicon to describe flight of American jobs to Bangalore, Bhang is the latest Indian product that is coming up for a patent and trademark spat between India and the west, following items such as neem, turmeric and basmati rice.
Pundits believe Rixel’s chances of getting his application through are low because the Indian government has moved quickly in recent years to build a database of traditional Indian biological and medical practices. The now 250,000-strong database, available to international patent offices for reference to stymie trademark infringement, lists “Bhang.”
In fact, long before the US debate over medical marijuana erupted, India has a history of recognizing flower power, with the cannabis-based bhang renowned for its medicinal properties and even religious significance.
Marijuana-based drinks such as “bhang ki thandai” and confections such as bhang burfi are commonly consumed during festivals such as Holi in north India.

Airport security used to be the end of the line for travelers holding medical marijuana. Now some passengers report airports and TSA looking the other way.Medical marijuana patients reported no problems as they boarded with carry on luggage and cannabis plants through airports in states that were both medical marijuana friendly and not.However, officials with TSA say it isn’t in their jurisdiction. TSA leaves it up to local law enforcement, and officials say they call local authorities to handle all known cases involving individuals in airports carrying medical marijuana or cannabis plants.One TSA spokesperson, Dwayne Baird, commented “State laws supersede what we would do in the aviation sector, and it would be up to the local law enforcement officials to determine the action they would take based on whatever the person was trying to bring on board an aircraft.”Jason Christ with Cannabiscare says, “People don’t know where to get seeds. They don’t know where to get clones. They are afraid to drive through states. To go through California to Montana, say to get a good strain from California, I would have to drive through Oregon and through Idaho, which don’t recognize medical marijuana. They’ll take you to jail.”Many medical marijuana patients view the ability to pass through airports with their cannabis plants as part of new regulations. TSA says there are no new regulations. However, medical marijuana patients claim airports, TSA, and local authorities never would have allowed them in the past to pass through airports with their plants. Now, the culmination of local authorities and other airport authorities have allowed it at multiple destinations.Medical marijuana carriers noted a common theme amongst the local law enforcement response. It is a response that deemed it okay to carry the cannabis plants through airports as long as the starting and final destinations were medical marijuana friendly.Update

The District of Columbia passed a law earlier this year that allows residents to legally obtain the drug for medical reasons. But it also includes a provision unlike the 14 other states with medical marijuana laws, requiring the drug to be provided at a discount to poor residents who qualify. Who will get the reduced-price marijuana and how much it will cost, however, is still being worked out.
“Obviously because there’s no roadmap on how to do this, it may require some tweaking over time,” said David Catania, a D.C. councilman and the chairman of the city health committee that drafted the law. “We may, in fact, set an example for other states.”
The first round of regulations implementing the law is expected to be released Friday. It may answer some questions about how low-income residents will be treated, but the regulations will also be revised over several months, and patients aren’t expected to be able to purchase medical marijuana in the city until 2011.
Right now the law says that patients “unable to afford a sufficient supply of medical marijuana” will be able to purchase it “on a sliding scale.” Low-income patients will also get a discount on a required city registration fee. Dispensaries, meanwhile, will have to devote some revenue to providing marijuana to needy patients.
The range of what the drug will ultimately cost low-income residents is anyone’s guess. On the illegal market, an ounce of marijuana can range from about $100-$140, according recent police estimates. City officials have estimated that an ounce from a dispensary will cost about $350 and that the average user will purchase about that much a month, though up to two ounces would be permitted. While one city report suggests 300 people would buy marijuana in the first year — a number some consider low — no one knows yet how many would qualify for a reduced rate. One guess is 30%, about the same as the percentage of the district’s population that is on Medicaid.
Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for the legalization of marijuana, said the city will have to be careful that dispensary prices aren’t too different from what it costs to buy marijuana illegally, a price he estimated ranges from $200 to $500 an ounce. If buying marijuana at a dispensary costs more, some people — poor patients in particular — may just keep buying illegally.
No other states require dispensaries to provide the drug at a discount, though in November residents in Berkeley, Calif., will vote on a ballot measure that could require dispensaries there to provide free marijuana to poor patients. A number of California dispensaries already voluntarily do that for patients who can prove hardship.
“I think that ethic of taking care of people who can’t take care of themselves has been part of the medical cannabis movement from the beginning,” said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, which until recently had a program that gave out free weekly “care packages” to about 600 patients on unemployment or pensions.
For Washington residents, qualifying for a reduced rate may also be tied to the federal poverty level. The city has among the highest poverty rates in the nation — only Mississippi is substantially higher — and more than 1 in 3 residents get some form of health care assistance.
Teresa Skipper, an HIV-positive resident who uses marijuana to stop frequent nausea and help her eat, said she hopes the new law will make getting the drug easier for her since she is a Medicaid patient. She would like to get the drug legally, but she says she can’t and won’t pay more than the $50 an ounce she pays on the illegal market.
“People under the poverty level and below shouldn’t have to pay anything,” said Skipper, who uses about an ounce a week. She’s waiting to see what officials will decide, but she said it may not change much for her.
“Marijuana is like gas and food to me. It’s in the budget,” she said.

Mary Powers with Jacki Rickert 10-04-09.

MADISON: August 11, 2010 marks the first anniversary of the filming and release of the first of a series of very short films documenting lobbying efforts at the Wisconsin Capitol, the “Mary and Gary Show”.
The eventually seven Mary & Gary Shows tell the story of lobbying efforts for the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (JRMMA) before its introduction in Nov. 2009 along with the final months of Mary Powers, a disabled Army veteran, cancer/AIDS/HCV patient and medical cannabis activist.
Mary was also the Secretary of Madison NORML as well as an active board member. Mary knew she would not live to see medical cannabis legal in Wisconsin, yet she spent the last months and weeks of her life at the Capitol, imploring lawmakers and staffers to do the right thing and support the JRMMA. Mary was able to gain the cosponsorship of both her state legislators, State Rep. Kelda Helen Roys and her State Senator, Mark Miller. Miller cosponsored the bill the day Mary passed away, on Oct. 22, 2009, at just 50 years of age.
Although Mary’s passing was a crushing loss for those who were fortunate enough to have known her, a high point in the campaign for the JRMMA was a Memorial/Lobby Day at the State Capitol Jan. 20, 2010 where hundreds of medical cannabis supporters paid their respects to Mary, a true activist..
Below is the second in the Mary & Gary series. we had a lot of fun making them, then I would rush home and edit each episode and had it online that night. I’m thankful Mary wanted to make these and share her story.


Second of seven Mary & Gary Showepisodes.
Mary’s life and her quiet dignity in the face of a heavy burden of serious illness and cancer treatments, being wheelchair bound and other indignities should be an inspiration to anyone who really cares about this issue and the quality of life for our veterans, seniors, sick, disabled and dying.
http://www.examiner.com/x-30194-Madison-NORML-Examiner~y2010m8d6-Mary–Gary-Shows-documented-Capitol-lobbying-final-months-of-MMJ-activist-Mary-Powers-life

Ashbury Park, NJ–(ENEWSPF)–August 6, 2010.   Fewer than one in five Americans nationwide believe that consuming marijuana is more dangerous than drinking alcohol, according to a national telephone poll of 1,000 likely voters by the polling firm Rasmussen Reports.
Fifty percent of respondents, including the majority of those who said that they drank alcohol, rated the use of marijuana to be less dangerous than booze. Only 17 percent of those polled said that cannabis is the more dangerous of the two substances.
Twenty-six percent of respondents said that both substances are equally dangerous.
Commenting on the poll results NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano, co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink, said: “By almost any objectively measurable standard, cannabis is safer than booze – both to the individual consumer and to society as a whole. However, given our government’s longstanding demonization of the cannabis plant and its users it is remarkable that anyone – much less half of America – recognizes this fact. Ideally, these survey results will spark a long-overdue national dialogue asking why our laws target and prosecute those who choose to possess and consume the less dangerous of these two popular substances.”
Respondents also agreed, by a nearly two-to-one majority, that marijuana was far less dangerous than smoking cigarettes.
A majority of respondents (65 percent) said that they believed that marijuana would be legal in the United States within ten years.
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/latest-news/analysis/18028-rasmussen-poll-fewer-than-one-in-five-americans-say-marijuana-is-more-dangerous-than-booze-

Yesterday, Cannabis as Living Medicine (CALM), one of the most well- established medical cannabis dispensaries in Canada, was raided by police in Toronto for the second time in five months. In the last couple of months, a dispensary in Guelph, another in Iqaluit, and several in the province of Quebec were also raided.
Canadians for Safe Access, a national patient advocacy organization, is denouncing these raids. The result is that thousands of Canadians suffering from MS, Cancer, HIV/AIDS, arthritis and other critical and chronic illnesses have lost an important source of their medicine, laments Rielle Capler, a researcher and co-founder of the organization. They will have to go to the streets or suffer without their medicine. Capler adds, Rather than leave these dispensaries vulnerable to police raids, CSA is calling on Health Canada to work with them to develop regulations that would ensure their protection as well as the highest quality of care for patients. Our government should be supporting patients to access the best possible medicine, and supporting the organizations that are providing this vital service.”
While the use of cannabis for medical purposes is constitutionally legal in Canada, the Federal Governments program, which provides licenses to patients for legal possession of cannabis, does not provide an adequate legal source of this medicine. Government statistics show that only about 800 of the 4000 licensed medical cannabis users access the governments supply, which is considered by many to be inferior. Research indicates that over half of license holders acquire their cannabis from dispensaries, which currently supply high quality medicine to an estimated 20,000 Canadians with critical and chronic medical conditions.
Medical cannabis dispensaries, also know as compassion clubs, have played a vital role supplying safe access to cannabis for the critically and chronically ill in Canada for over 12 years. These organizations provide access to a variety of high quality cannabis strains and preparations that can effectively alleviate pain, muscle spasms, nausea, anxiety, and other serious symptoms. Compassion clubs are also at the forefront of academic peer-reviewed research on medical cannabis in Canada. Well-run dispensaries are appreciated by patients, accepted within communities, and their work has been lauded by various court rooms across the country.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/trenches/2010/aug/05/police_raid_medical_cannabis_dis

Marie Summers was in a ‘prison of pain’, until she overcame inhibitions about using an illegal drug. The result seemed like a miracle
Tell someone that you suffer from chronic migraine and you’re unlikely to get sympathy in scale to the pain you suffer.
Tell them you’ve got chronic migraine causing neuro-deficit, plus a small cavernoma with venous angioma and you will understandably get a blank stare. This collection of words is woefully inadequate at conveying the pain that has systematically dismantled my brain and disabled my body, but they are all I have without resorting to illustrations.
I’d suffered from worse than average migraines my whole life but gradually throughout my twenties the pain and frequency intensified. A couple of years ago I began to realise there was no longer a gap between attacks. My brain slipped into a loop, migraine begetting migraine, pain creating more pain, and nothing could stop the juggernaut of my malfunction.
Despite heavyweight preventative medications (each with its own difficult side-effects), mid-2009 my daily migraine became more sinister. I’d lived in constant pain for so long that I expected nothing better; what I did not anticipate was the rest of my body rebelling as well. Suddenly I couldn’t walk, and it wasn’t because I was in pain, it was because my legs were simply randomly unable. When I tried to force myself I began to shake and jerk, like a leaf caught in a storm, then I usually lost consciousness. I couldn’t focus on reading and writing or long conversations, and any movement made me unmanageably nauseous; I was nearly always unable to get out of bed. I was in and out of hospital but we kept coming back to the fact that migraines are doing this to my brain. If migraines continue to run amok within me they will progressively destroy my quality of life and potentially, significantly shorten it.
It’s difficult to describe what living within a broken body feels like without sounding as if it’s a call for pity. Pity is not what is wanted, understanding is. When pain is a constant, sickness and weakness creep into every corner of your self, and your mind begins to lose memories or words, you feel a wasted husk of a human. All the potential you once had seems a shadow, your beauty ephemeral and faded; you begin to feel a liability to those you love.
In what felt like a moment of madness, I Googled the medicinal effects of cannabis on migraines and related neurological conditions. What I found was a surprise, and almost an unwanted one at that. I didn’t want to read how effective it could be, because I didn’t want to feel compelled to try something that I’d once done for an illicit pleasure. I’ve been trained to expect my medicine to be extremely unpleasant, and like the Victorians were with sex, if I’m enjoying it I must be doing something wrong. After reading arguments for and against, I decided that trying cannabis had significantly less risk of side-effects than nearly every other prescription drug I had already legally tried, but with less of a “hit and miss” approach to the matter. I, like most chronic pain sufferers, am strongly advised not to take any pain relievers, from morphine to paracetamol, because they cause rebound pain and significantly compound the problem. When modern medicine sentences you to a lifetime of pain with little hope for a cure this simply adds insult to injury. Medical evidence shows that cannabis almost certainly does not cause rebound pain; in this it is almost unique among viable pain relief medicines. The opportunity to break the cycle chipping away at my brain seemed to be presenting itself; I still had to decide if I was brave enough to break the law at the advanced parental age of 31.
Taking my inspiration from Bertrand Russell, who said, “One should as a rule, respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways,” I reflected on the aspect of staying out of prison. This is of crucial importance to me, not for my own sake (I can be sick anywhere) but for my young son’s. Once I resolved that I was prepared to fight any charge that might be brought upon me in the event I was caught with cannabis, the decision had made itself.
After managing to find some marijuana, it sat unused and hidden in a far corner of the house. I continued to suffer as before, but I’d lost my courage. I remembered being high as a teenager, and I didn’t want to be like that again. I didn’t want to lose control of myself amid a roomful of sober adults. My internal battle waged for four weeks. Four weeks of society’s conditioning wearing away while I wept. Finally one night when the pain became too extraordinary, it was either try the pot or go to A&E to be scanned in case I’d had an aneurysm. In my hospital-jaded and exhausted state, I finally opted for the pot, reasoning that if it was an aneurysm it would still be there afterwards, but if not I’d feel better and save myself an unnecessary trip.
Within minutes of taking a small amount of cannabis there was not an inch of my body in pain, and my tremors had stopped. My body felt at peace, and I don’t think I can ever convey the enormity of that to anyone. Nothing hurt or felt wrong. I was still weak, but I could move with as much ease and grace as I used to. Yes, I was intoxicated, but it was not how I remembered it from my teenage years. Perhaps it was the smaller amount I used, just enough to free my body from its prison. I felt I was smiling more than usual, but this truly seemed to be because the mantle of agony I am normally covered in had been lifted. I certainly wasn’t hearing or saying unusual things. Nevertheless, the “high” period was brief yet the health effects remained for a full 24 hours. It seemed to be a miracle. I tried to imagine the warning label if this was manufactured by a pharmaceutical company: “Will induce slight giddiness and loss of any concept of time for approximately two hours. Full beneficial effects will continue for 24 hours.” An acceptable trade-off?
I had two weeks of this beautiful cure, and every day of those two weeks I became stronger. I was able to take up activities long abandoned and sorely missed. The excitement my husband and I felt was palpable. If I took it slowly, I was nearly normal and every minute my brain was taken out of its loop it was being allowed to recover. Personally, this is a joy, but in the bigger picture it could be an economic blessing. If the sick and disabled can benefit from cannabis the benefits would be felt by relieving the strain on the NHS and allowing some patients or carers to return to the workforce.
Sadly I don’t know how reliably I’ll be able to find cannabis. After years of searching I found something that can make my life bearable, even productive, but it’s just out of reach. I have every intention of continuing to seek it out, but I don’t know how achievable it will be. If you’ve been touched by cancer, HIV, MS, fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis you are among many who could possibly benefit from cannabis, but I would advise each person to fully research for themselves and speak to a trusted medical professional.
Most patients, friends, family members, doctors and politicians know that there is a great truth here that deserves more than it’s receiving. We need widespread medical trials now, and laws quickly changed to reflect the findings. It seems what is holding us back is not truth, but fear. Fear of a deluge of change and a “too liberal” domino effect that cannot be anticipated. My life and my family traded for your peace of mind, so you can be sure everything is as it always was.
Of course medicinal cannabis doesn’t have the same scope for making large pharmaceutical companies big profits that drugs such as Olanzapine or Lorazepam do. After all, how would you patent a daffodil? This would not be a deterrent for law-making in a civilised society, but in ours, perhaps. It’s time that we collectively grew up, and realised that the longer this issue remains unresolved we are throwing lives, money and progress down the drain. This may be one case where the grass really is greener on the other side.
Marie Summers is a pseudonym
Cannabis as a medicine
* Research has indicated that cannabis can relieve pain and nausea and stimulate the appetite, and can also help with the symptoms of diseases such as HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis, but people who use cannabis regularly over a long period may develop a dependence on it.
* In 1999, a House of Lords inquiry recommended that cannabis be made available with a doctor’s prescription. Long-term clinical trials have been authorised but no conclusions have been made.
* It is legal for medical use in countries including Canada, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Israel, Italy, Finland, Portugal and 14 US states.
* Medicinal cannabis is primarily smoked, but it can be administered in capsules or by eating or drinking extracts. The two main components are THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (Cannabidiol). A high level of THC is what causes the user to get high, whereas higher levels of CBD lessen some of the effects of THC and increase others, making it more suitable for medicinal use.
* Colin Davies, 42, of Stockport was acquitted of supplying two MS sufferers with medical marijuana by Manchester Crown Court July 1999. Davies himself took the drug after suffering side-effects from prescription drugs. The judgment was the first of its kind in a British court.
* Jason Turner, 23, of Clifton, was spared jail by Nottingham Crown Court in 2009 after pleading guilty to producing cannabis in his loft, on the grounds that he needed it to help relieve the pain caused by the severe arthritis that he had experienced since birth.