Gordon Brown & Cannabis Reclassification

Gordon Brown and New Labour today, once again changed the status of the Cannabis plant from a Class C to Class B. Brown recently stated that the changes were needed because of the new "lethal strains" of Cannabis available on today's market. Cannabis has no toxicity and there has never been a single death in history attributable to its use. The reclassification of the Cannabis plant will criminalize countless individuals whose only crime is to grow their own medicine, instead of taking the toxic lucky bags you get prescribed from the Doctor. This isn't a criminal issue and it's not a dangerous plant. Up until the 1930s it was the active ingredient in over 50% of all the prescription medications available from licensed chemists at that time. In fact, the plant was considered so vital to the American Economy, farmers in the USA could be penalised for not growing it!

The real reason Gordon Brown and his counterparts in the USA won't legalise it, is simply because you cannot patent a plant and the Drug Companies and their voracious investors won't allow for that. The Cannabis plant and the oil it produces is the best natural fuel we have on the planet. Totally bio-degradable and unlike other crops being used for bio-fuel, it's not harmful to the soil. In fact, Cannabis plants can be sowed continuously as their deep roots till the soil so much; it doesn't need time to recover. The real criminals in the Cannabis issue are the politicians, the drug companies (including alcohol) and the investors. We've heard so much recently about the plight of investors thanks to the Global Credit Crunch. What they don't tell you in the news is that these investors are happy to profit from anything, even if it includes denying people the only medication that can make them better. They're happy to invest in poisonous tablets that people can buy over the counter and kill themselves with, if they take more than a handful. They're happy to invest in petro-chemical companies who have polluted the earth to such an extent, we're now on the brink of a global catastrophe, in fact we're seeing them happen now as a direct result of the greed of these people. But what they're not happy about is people being able to treat their conditions for free.

Take the recreational aspect of Cannabis use out of the equation for now and purely focus on the medicinal benefits. And I say this in the firm belief that the recreational aspects of Cannabis are purely beneficial also. But I understand that some people can't see past this aspect of it, so please allow me for now to focus on the medical side only. Below you will find some information relating to the use of Cannabis to treat a wide range of conditions. I will be including some statistical info along with links to research carried out by Universities. I will also use links to elaborate somewhat on historical reasons for the illegality of Cannabis and the government cover ups that have led to its continued status as an illegal drug.

http://www.eldoradocountyaamc.com/condtreated.htm
• Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
• Anxiety Disorders
• Autism
• Aversive Memories
• Can Cannabis Help Multiple Sclerosis?
• Can Cannabis Kill You?
• Cancer cachexia and cannabinoids
• Cannabidiol anti-inflammatory activity
• Cannabinoids and Memory
• Cannabinoids in clinical practice
• Cannabinoids treat skin cancer
• Cannabis and Depression
• Cannabis and Migraine
• Cannabis and Neuroprotection
• Cannabis and Treatment of Chemo Related Nausea
• Chronic Cannabis Use in the Compassionate Investigational New Drug Program
• Chronic Pain
• Control of the cell survival/death decision by cannabinoids
• delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol in clinical oncology
• Diabetes
• For the Sake of the Children
• Hepatitis C
• Lymphoma may be slowed by cannabis
• Musculoskeletal Disorders
• Neuroprotection by Delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol
• Pancreatitis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis(Letter to physician - 30K .pdf file)
• Sickle Cell Disease and Cannabis
• Sleep Apnea
• Smokeless Medicine
• Tourette-Syndrome
• http://www.phoenixtears.ca/

From Rick Simpson, Director of Run from the Cure
My name is Rick Simpson. I have been providing people with Hemp Oil medicines, at no cost, for about 3 years. The results have been nothing short of amazing. Throughout man's history hemp has always been known as the most medicinal plant in the world. Even with this knowledge hemp has always been used as a political and religious football.

The current restrictions against hemp were put in place and maintained, not because hemp is evil or harmful, but for big money to make more big money, while we suffer and die needlessly. Look at a proposal such as this; if we were allowed to grow hemp in our back yards and cure our own illnesses, what do you think the reaction of the pharmaceutical industry would be to such a plan? Many large pharmaceutical companies that still exist today sold hemp based medicines in the 1800's and early 1900's. They knew then what I have recently found out. Hemp oil if produced properly is a cure-all that the pharmaceutical industry can't patent.

Two years a go I contacted the Liberals, the Conservatives and the New Democratic Party about this situation. I also provided them with evidence to backup what I was saying. No one lifted a finger; in most cases I was lucky to get a reply. I contacted the R.C.M.P. along with many other organizations and Public Interest TV shows, with little or no response.

Why are all these people trying to avoid such a simple truth? If I am in some way wrong in what I have been saying then I invite the system to come and prove it. I would be happy to put on a public demonstration of what this oil can do. That would answer this question for the Canadian public once and for all. It seems unbelievable that we have a law in Canada that will not allow us to cure our own diseases with a natural herbal remedy.


While much of the evidence for the effectiveness of Hemp is reports from patients and doctors, it is important to realize that this reporting leads to restrictions of drugs and their withdrawal from the market. Such was the case with doctors reporting the birth defects from Thalidomide and heart problems with the Fen-Phen combination of drugs. Further reports led to new uses for Thalidomide as a drug to treat leprosy rather than morning sickness. Anecdotal evidence (reports and observation by patients or doctors) usually indicates to a doctor that a treatment or drug should be altered, discontinued or changed.
In addition to the evidence, much research has been done and a list of a few of the researchers and their papers or publications is here. [Penicillin was approved for use with less experience and data than is available on the effectiveness of Hemp - only six patients].
The results of the cases can be readily replicated by any practitioner, medical or otherwise, anywhere, to cure malignant melanomas and more importantly, save lives. The topical application of hemp oil salves or balms helps to control or cure various skin conditions. Taken orally, the oil tends to seek out and destroy cancer cells in the body, but as with any drug, too much can cause side effects; most notable with hemp oil is drowsiness. Unlike opiates and their derivatives, hemp oil is not addictive.

For those who may find it incredible that the medical establishment would ignore or even disdain such research we remind the reader that the history of the medical establishment includes examples of mule-like stubbornness, incompetence, mediocrity, greed, arrogance, and stupidity. Consider the case of Dr. Ignas Semmelweis:
In 1847, Dr. Semmelweis, a respected Hungarian physician who was concerned about the high mortality rate of women giving birth in hospital, instituted a procedure at one hospital whereby doctors washed and disinfected their hands before delivering babies. Immediately, the mortality rate dropped from THIRTY percent to near zero. Seven other hospitals followed suit with similar results.

The European medical establishment recognized Dr. Semmelweis's achievement by blocking his applications for further research funds, vilifying and ostracizing him, and, ultimately, causing him to lose his prestigious positions at maternity hospitals. In America, the newly formed American Medical Association added insult to injury by threatening to revoke the license of any doctor caught washing his hands. Dr. Semmelweis was so distressed that women continued to die that he suffered a mental breakdown that eventually led to his death in 1865.
Don't expect a doctor working inside the system to buck the system. The risks are still too great!
The advice she or he offers you is controlled by the large medical industry that makes its money from expensive cancer fighting drugs and treatments. It is an industry that doesn't look favourably on natural supplements or other cancer treatments that they cannot patent or make a large profit from. Years from now the current conventional cancer treatments used by doctors will on the whole be viewed in the same light that we view the old medical practice of blood letting to cure illnesses.
See the movie here
http://www.phoenixtearsmovie.com/
http://www.thehempire.com/index.php/cannabis/news/ford_and_diesel_never_intended_cars_to_use_gasoline

Ford and Diesel Never Intended Cars to Use Gasoline
Center for Research on Globalization - Canada, 29th August 2005
When Henry Ford told a New York Times reporter that ethyl alcohol was "the fuel of the future" in 1925, he was expressing an opinion that was widely shared in the automotive industry. "The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumac out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust -- almost anything," he said. "There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There's enough alcohol in one year's yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

Henry Ford's first Model-T was built to run on hemp gasoline and the CAR ITSELF WAS CONSTRUCTED FROM HEMP! On his large estate, Ford was photographed among his hemp fields. The car, 'grown from the soil,' had hemp plastic panels whose impact strength was 10 times stronger than steel; Popular Mechanics, 1941.

Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, designed it to run on vegetable and seed oils like hemp; he actually ran the thing on peanut oil for the 1900 World's Fair. Henry Ford used hemp to not only construct cars but also fuel them.

As an alternative to methanol, hemp has at least one glowing report: the plant produces up to four times more cellulose per acre than trees. And a hemp crop grows a little quicker than a forest.

As for an alternative to petroleum...

Hemp grows like mad from border to border in America; so shortages are unlikely. And, unlike petrol, unless we run out of soil, hemp is renewable.

Growing and harvesting the stuff has much less environmental impact than procuring oil.

Hemp fuel is biodegradable; so oil spills become fertilizer not eco-catastrophes.

Hemp fuel does not contribute to sulphur dioxide air poisoning.

Other noxious emissions like carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons are radically slashed by using "bio diesel.

Hemp fuel is non-toxic and only a mild skin irritant; anybody who’s ever cleaned out an old carburettor with gasoline can confirm the same is not true for petrol.

Growing hemp for fuel would be a tremendous boon for American farmers and the agricultural industry, as opposed to people like, say, the Bush family.

And that's why hemp might not go anywhere as a fuel alternative. Oil interests are big and donate likewise to politicians, and selling a man on an idea that will cost him more than he'll benefit requires an amazingly skilled orator -- or a gun. Unfortunately, unless you're the federal government, gunpoint conversions are usually illegal. Ergo, PR is about the best bet right now.

There are many people working hard on this front, including the Hemp Car and its intrepid crew. Currently ginning up for a trans-America evangelism tour, the Hemp Car plans to spread the good word of hemp-fuel viability at stops in both the U.S. and Canada.

For whatever good it will do, they should make sure to stop by Washington, D.C., and have a word with President George W. Bush. The current oil crisis and our nation's dependency on sometimes-pernickety foreign sources might find the new chief executive with an open mind to fuel sources other than Texas tea -- regardless of his oily bank accounts. And, while salvaging his dad's legacy is not Goal 1 for Dubya, it might also help him look more forward thinking in terms of energy policy and the environment.

Of course, hemp fuel may never take off. It might dry up like all those hemp crops left unattended after the feds banned their cultivation in the 1930s. One way or the other, Bush should consider freeing up the market to innovate with alternative fuels like hemp oil -- it couldn't hurt, and it stands the chance to help. In so doing, he'll end his term with a far better moniker than the "environmental president." For, if other policy decisions he makes go in a similar direction, we can perhaps call him the "free-market president."

Fuel of the Future
Ford recognized the utility of the hemp plant. He constructed a car of resin stiffened hemp fibre, and even ran the car on ethanol made from hemp. Ford knew that hemp could produce vast economic resources if widely cultivated.

Ford's optimistic appraisal of cellulose and crop based ethyl alcohol fuel can be read in several ways. First, it can be seen as an oblique jab at a competitor. General Motors had come to considerable grief that summer of 1925 over another octane boosting fuel called tetra-ethyl lead, and government officials had been quietly in touch with Ford engineers about alternatives to leaded gasoline additives. Secondly, by 1925 the American farms that Ford loved were facing an economic crisis that would later intensify with the depression. Although the causes of the crisis were complex, one possible solution was seen in creating new markets for farm products. With Ford's financial and political backing, the idea of opening up industrial markets for farmers would be translated into a broad movement for scientific research in agriculture that would be labelled "Farm Chemurgy."

Why Henry's plans were delayed for more than a half century:
Ethanol has been known as a fuel for many decades. Indeed, when Henry Ford designed the Model T, it was his expectation that ethanol, made from renewable biological materials, and would be a major automobile fuel. However, gasoline emerged as the dominant transportation fuel in the early twentieth century because of the ease of operation of gasoline engines with the materials then available for engine construction, a growing supply of cheaper petroleum from oil field discoveries, and intense lobbying by petroleum companies for the federal government to maintain steep alcohol taxes. Many bills proposing a National energy program that made use of Americas vast agricultural resources (for fuel production) were killed by smear campaigns launched by vested petroleum interests. One noteworthy claim put forth by petrol companies was that the U.S. government's plans "robbed taxpayers to make farmers rich".

Cannabis reclassification is all about denying people their basic liberties of freedom and happiness, while simultaneously enriching the greediest, most self-centred people on the planet. What gives any politician the right to declare nature is wrong! It’s probably a reflection of how far society has disengaged itself from nature and from spirit, but that’ doesn’t make it right. All around us, we’re witnessing the world falling apart as a direct result of greedy people dabbling with nature. Men of evil intent and please don’t read any religious significance from the evil reference, this is purely down to humans and their unbridled greed. So far removed have we become from nature, that we’re happy to sit and watch people starving on the TV, while we invest in companies who strategically cut back on crop production to keep the prices high on the global market.
Not only is the continued prohibition of the Cannabis plant a crime against nature, it’s also a moral crime that directly leads to people suffering and dying more on a daily basis and I would urge you to write to your MPs to express your disgust at the daily practice of the injustice. Please don’t forget that the Government has taken this drastic action, despite the Advisory Panel they asked to investigate the issue of Cannabis Reclassification, advising them that it should remain a Class C. Therefore Gordon Brown and New Labour have spent untold amounts of Taxpayer’s money appointing a body to investigate this, only for them to ignore their recommendations.
The only reason for this has to be, that New Labour are taking the decision to further criminalise millions of people, in the hope that it will take our mind’s off the shattered Economy. Please don’t accept this from your Government and please be vocal in your disgust at this complete and utter breach of civil liberties and social justice.
American users of Cannabis are already being charged under The Patriot Act in the USA…that’s right, The Patriot Act!!! A law designed to stop the onset of Terrorism, is being used by the American Government against their own people! The truth sadly though, is that it has nothing to do with Terrorism and everything to do with Corporate Capitalism and protecting the profits of the alcohol and drug companies. Alcohol is directly responsible for 4,000 deaths a month in the UK alone and you won’t be surprised to discover that the Whisky and Beer industries in particular, are among the biggest investors in the Anti – Cannabis movement. It seems so ridiculous, bordering insanity even, that the drug and alcohol companies responsible for the highest number of deaths are the same people that are so vociferously targeting users of a plant that has never killed anyone!!
To me this is a solid indication of how far removed our politicians and our business leaders are from reality. Furthermore, it’s an indication to me of the incessant greed ordinary people have now. Their greed is so bad, they’re willing to profit from the misery and death of countless millions of people, while at the same time restrict millions of people from having access to the most beneficial plant in the history of mankind.




Craig Murphy


http://www.euroresidentes.com/Blogs/2008/04/study-in-spain-underlines-therapeutic.html
Recent study carried out by the Catalan Department of Health and Spanish Health Ministry endorses the efficiency of cannabis in combating the effects of chemotherapy

A pioneering study carried out by the Catalan Department of Health has demonstrated the efficiency of a medicine which contains cannabis in treating sickness and vomiting in patients undergoing chemotherapy. At present cannabis is available in a medicine form throughout the Spanish health service for patients being treated with chemotherapy if other drugs fail to be effective.

Yesterday, Marina Geli, the head of the Catalan health service said that a pilot programme using cannabis to treat those with multiple sclerosis, cancer and other illnesses had shown that sickness in 67% of the patients in the study had decreased. There were 207 patients in the study suffering from various illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, neuralgic pain and other serious conditions associated with chronic pain.

The study which cost 500,000 euros and was carried out in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry of Health is the first to respond to public opinion which supports the therapeutic use of cannabis.

In the case of patients suffering from anorexia-caquexia associated with Aids up to 53% of these regained their appetites. The number of patients in the study suffering from multiple sclerosis who went from having unbearable pain to suffering tolerable pain went down from 66% to 35% and the number of patients who suffered almost no pain at all increased from 11.40% to 27.70%.

The drug containing cannabis called Sativex comes in the form of a spray. Each container has 50 sprays which covers one course of chemotherapy. In the case of patients suffering chronic illness being treated with Sativex costs around 300 euros per year. Sativex is owned by GW Pharmaceuticals, and will be commercialised in the rest of Europe by Almirall laboratories.
Labels: society



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x668861
In 1971 Richard Nixon launched the War against Cancer. In 1974 research being done on cannabis led to the discovery that it could prevent several types of cancer. And what did the government do in the initial phases of the war on cancer when its most promising leads turned out to be marijuana? They buried the information because cannabis prohibition was more important than any thing that might prevent cancer or limit pain.

Steve Kubby was a Libertarian candidate for governor at one time in California and helped write what is the Compassionate Use Act that the biased papers call Prop 215 even though it says in the opening of the short act that it shall be known as the Compassionate Use Act. He is now a resident of Canada seeking asylum because without marijuana his adrenal cancer will kill him. It is no joke and it is unquestionably true.

Anyway, this is a big article as it shows the government has practiced deception in sustaining its policy of total cannabis prohibition and the article appears at http://www.sierratimes.com/03/11/07/article_kubby.htm It is also reproduced at http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17748.shtml The comments at cannabisnews make it the better link to read this important article.

This is my first thread at DU. By the way, I am not a democrat but I will never vote Republican again in my lifetime. You can do a Google search for "The Great Right Dope" and it will probably take you to one of my comments at cannabisnews. I cannot believe no one else besides me calls Bu$h, The Great Right Dope. Maybe DU can change that.

This is your government on drugs- http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17748.shtml



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