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Hemp Headlines

1. US Drug Czar Kerlikowske says marijuana legalization is “a non-starter”
2. UK Drugs Advisor Nutt sacked for being honest about marijuana
3. New Hampshire cop’s public stance on marijuana legalization costs him his job

Daily Toker Tunes

• Best of Music: The Tentacles – “Ganja Computer”

Southern California Scene with Tere Joyce

• January Thomas and Tere talk women in cannabis and Mary Jane Says

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s top drug adviser was fired Friday after saying that marijuana, Ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

David Nutt’s comments have embarrassed the British government, which toughened the penalties for possessing marijuana earlier this year over the protests of many prominent British scientists.

In later comments to BBC radio’s “PM” program, Nutt accused British Prime Minister Gordon Brown of making “completely irrational statements” about the dangerousness of marijuana.

“I’m not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like cannabis and Ecstasy,” he said.

Although Nutt’s views have long been public knowledge, the government seems to have been angered by a recent lecture for the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College in London during which Nutt accused former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith of “distorting and devaluing” researchers’ work.

Honesty… is such a lonely word… everyone is so untrue.

It’s getting tougher and tougher for governments to conceal the plain fact that now a majority of people recognize: marijuana is safer than alcohol.  We’re tired of being harassed, locked up, and lives ruined because we prefer not to get hangovers when we party.  We’re tired of every other commercial on the telly being for beer and boner pills, then being told our pot smoking is bad for a “drug-free America”.  We’re tired of being punished for using a natural substance that doesn’t make us cause wrecks, punch people, and puke on your shoes.

This news comes on the heels of our “drugs advisor”, drug czar Kerlikowske, once again saying that marijuana legalization is a “non-starter”.  It’s not a surprising statement, given that Kerlikowske is mandated by law to lie about marijuana.  Three cheers for David Nutt for having the stones to tell the truth based on science!

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Hemp Headlines

1. The 2008 National Survey on Drug Use & Health: American use of marijuana on the rise
2. US Forest Service slammed for racial profiling of Mexican campers
3. UK’s New Scientist: A Better World – Legalize Drugs

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

Southern California Scene with Tere Joyce

• Degé Coutee from Patients Advocacy Network (http://cannabissaveslives.com)

SO FAR this year, about 4000 people have died in Mexico’s drugs war – a horrifying toll. If only a good fairy could wave a magic wand and make all illegal drugs disappear, the world would be a better place.

Dream on. Recreational drug use is as old as humanity, and has not been stopped by the most draconian laws. Given that drugs are here to stay, how do we limit the harm they do?

The evidence suggests most of the problems stem not from drugs themselves, but from the fact that they are illegal. The obvious answer, then, is to make them legal.

The argument most often deployed in support of the status quo is that keeping drugs illegal curbs drug use among the law-abiding majority, thereby reducing harm overall. But a closer look reveals that this really doesn’t stand up. In the UK, as in many countries, the real clampdown on drugs started in the late 1960s, yet government statistics show that the number of heroin or cocaine addicts seen by the health service has grown ever since – from around 1000 people per year then, to 100,000 today. It is a pattern that has been repeated the world over.

A second approach to the question is to look at whether fewer people use drugs in countries with stricter drug laws. In 2008, the World Health Organization looked at 17 countries and found no such correlation. The US, despite its punitive drug policies, has one of the highest levels of drug use in the world (PLoS Medicine, vol 5, p e141).

A third strand of evidence comes from what happens when a country softens its drug laws, as Portugal did in 2001. While dealing remains illegal in Portugal, personal use of all drugs has been decriminalised. The result? Drug use has stayed roughly constant, but ill health and deaths from drug taking have fallen. “Judged by virtually every metric, the Portuguese decriminalisation framework has been a resounding success,” states a recent report by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington DC.

When the evidence is so completely obvious regarding the need to legalize marijuana and regulate hard drugs, it is hard to avoid invoking conspiracy theory as to why we continue to maintain prohibition.  You’d think some sectors of our economy are in such need of more arrests, more prisoners, more prisons, and more crime and mayhem that they would actively oppose changing our drug policies to protect their profits.  You’d think some sectors of our economy would be at such a competitive disadvantage against a grow-your-own medicine / food / fuel / fiber / plastics plant that most couldn’t survive if we ended prohibition.  You’d think that some sectors of our government that are unwilling or unable to help the disaffected poor need the underground economy and jobs market provided by illegal drugs.

But that would be just crazy conspiracy theory talk, right?

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Hemp Headlines

1. Marijuana Found at Michael Jackson’s Home! Gasp!
2. New study says it’s easier for kids to get marijuana than beer
3. Washington dispensary owner busted buying marijuana in Oregon
4. UK media finally covering the study showing no link between marijuana and schizophrenia

Cultivator’s Corner with High Times’ Sr. Cultivation Editor Danny Danko

• David in San Diego: “I cannot grow inside however, I can grow on my balcony. My balcony is un covered and has full sun for half of the day. It is never dark…city lights do not allow me to have a night cycle. So…is an auto flowering strain my only option????”
• Jens in Montana: “I am really interested in using LED’s over the HPS systems, is this a good idea? I know the cost for a good LED setup is expensive right now, but I figure with the lower energy consumption and less heat, it would be worth it.”
• Matt in Oklahoma: “I just bought a homebox portable growhouse online. My question is on lighting. Various websites have different philosophies when it comes to proper lighting procedures during the plant development phases. From what I can tell, they seem to agree on that you use a CFL during the veg stage, then you switch to a HPS lighting system right before it flowers. However, I am only growing two plants, only one at a time (use dried flowers while the other plant is growing cycle). What will be the proper wattage setup for a small grow during the various phases?”

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• It’s a Rap Friday – ‘How We Roll’ by Intox

Cannabis Community

• Jessica Corry, Republican Mom for Marijuana and featured speaker at NORML CON 2009.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/07/31/proposal-to-not-put-dealers-in-prison-to-win-drug-war-115875-21560366/

Well, it doesn’t get much more stupid than this! The UK Drugs Policy Commission has finally recognized that busting drug dealers is counterproductive. However, instead of proposing that they undercut dealers’ prices with marijuana legally grown and sold to adults by licensed businesses, they’ve instead suggested that “police allow some dealers to ply their trade – and merely ask them to move away from residential neighborhoods“.

Apparently the advantages of licensing reputable businesses to produce and sell marijuana to adults is lost on the commission. Instead it thinks a better option is to allow criminals to illegally sell marijuana grown by other criminals to uncarded customers in an environment void of legal recourse.

What, dear commission, is the advantage of that?

Police should turn a blind eye to drug dealers if they want to stamp out street crime, a controversial report says.

Locking them up does no good and could even lead to violence as new villains fight it out to fill the gaps, experts warned in a report yesterday.

Instead, they said, police should allow some dealers to ply their trade – and merely ask them to move away from residential neighbourhoods.

The UK Drugs Policy Commission’s paper suggested crime-busting crackdowns can be counter-productive.

The group’s chief executive Roger Howard said police work should not be “limited to the traditional role of arresting as many dealers as possible in anticipation of reducing supply”. He added: “Drug markets will inevitably remain.”

The report said: “Drug enforcement efforts have focused on arrests and seizures with the aim of reducing supply. But markets are quick to adapt.”

The study said a better strategy would be “seeking to displace a market to another area where it will have less impact“.

Dismissing the report, the Home Office said “tough enforcement is fundamental”.

But Lib Dem spokesman Chris Huhne said: “The Government’s current enforcement policy barely scratches the surface when measured by the availability or street price of drugs.

“The enormous rise in cocaine use last year shows its negligible impact on the drugs market. We need to focus on what works.”

Last week figures revealed cocaine use rocketed by 25% in England and Wales in 2008.

And one question to the UK government, “tough enforcement is fundamental” to what? ..the security of your jobs? God knows it doesn’t keep drugs off the street and it doesn’t prevent children from buying them!

Start with scary headline in British newspaper:

Cannabis ‘can cause psychosis in healthy people’

Add definitive subtitle hammering home the legitimacy of the scary headline:

A potent form of cannabis can cause healthy people to develop psychotic illnesses, a new British study has proved.

Proved, you hear?  Proved!  All right, now deliver the lede that tells us marijuana smokers how we’re destined for the mental ward:

The results appear to confirm a link between psychosis and skunk cannabis, which now accounts for 80 per cent of street seizures of the drug.

Add some related bullet points to raise the reefer madness levels to eleven:

• Skunk smokers 18 times more likely to be psychotic
• One spliff can mean lifelong mental illness
• Mental health charity calls for cannabis study

Don’t worry, by this time few people will notice this little devil in the details:

Scientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in King’s College London made the discovery after running tests on 22 healthy men, aged in their late 20s.  They injected them with THC – a major component of skunk cannabis which has been blamed for increasing psychosis among heavy users.

Whoa, hold on!  You injected people with straight THC and you’re using that to prove cannabis use can cause psychosis in healthy people?!?  I could have saved you the research.  Straight THC is highly psychoactive and without other cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavinoids found in herbal cannabis, delta-9-tetrahydrocannibinol metabolizes in the blood into another form of THC that is even more psychoactive!

Oddly enough, while the British worry about this deadly psychotic skunk weed that has risen to (gasp!) 14% THC, their Dutch neighbors won’t even approve of medical marijuana unless it is between 13%-18% THC.  Here in America, we approve of a 100% THC, no-other-cannabinoid pill called dronabinol (Marinol) which I will tell you from experience will cause a more profound negative psychological reaction than even the finest 60% THC hash I’ve encountered.

Even the researchers cautioned against making the “Skunk causes psychosis” claim, which, of course, the UK media is required to bury around paragraph eleven:

Dr Morrison said the findings offered “additional evidence that can elicit temporary psychotic-like effects in some people”, but stopped short of suggesting they proved a direct link between psychosis and THC.

He said: “Much more research is needed to clarify if skunk is actually more harmful than traditional cannabis.” More work needed to be carried out on the beneficial effects of CBD in balancing the damaging results of THC.

British reefer madness – just like American reefer madness, except bobbies bust into your flat to arrest you for skunk cannabis, instead of cops busting into your apartment to arrest you for kind marijuana.

LONDON (AP) — A judge has sentenced a cast member of the “Harry Potter” films to 120 hours of community service for growing marijuana.

Twenty-year-old Jamie Waylett, who plays school bully Vincent Crabbe in the magical movie franchise, pleaded guilty to producing the drug at a court hearing last week.

Prosecutors said police found 10 marijuana plants growing in a bedroom at Waylett’s mother’s house in London.

Producing cannabis carries a maximum 14-year sentence. Judge Timothy Workman said Tuesday that he accepted that the cultivation was on a small scale and for Waylett’s own use.

He said the actor had been, “until now, a man of good character.”

Well, no jail time, no suspended sentence, no probation, just five days of community service.  Meanwhile, elsewhere in the United Kingdom…

(Mayo Advertiser, Ireland) A married father of four, whose children range in age from nine to one, was given a suspended sentence at Ballina District Court on Tuesday after he was detected cultivating two cannabis plants as well as having cannabis resin in his possession.

Judge Mary Devins said to the defendant “you just don’t care about your children”, as the children could easily have reached the shelf where the cannabis was stashed or have opened the back door. Timlin said that his children did not have access to the back of the house and would therefore not have come into contact with the plants.

The unemployed man was convicted and fined €500 for the cultivation of the plants and sentenced to prison for three months, with the sentence suspended for 12 months on the condition that no convictions were recorded under the misuse of drugs act. For the possession of the cannabis Timlin was convicted and fined €200. Judge Devins told the defendant to “put your children first and yourself second in the future”.

(South Devon Herald-Express) A SCAFFOLDER who turned his loft into a ‘cannabis fortress’ is being sought by police after a court issued an arrest warrant for him.

Ashley Tierney, 21, failed to turn up at Exeter Crown Court to say why he had breached a suspended prison sentence with an unpaid work requirement imposed last November after he admitted cultivating cannabis.

Officers found 17 plants which would have yielded some £12,000 of cannabis.

Tierney was given a four-month prison sentence suspended for two years and told to do 120 hours’ unpaid work in the community after the court heard the crop was for his own use.

Funny how people who aren’t Harry Potter actors seem to get suspended prison sentences for their personal cultivation of cannabis, isn’t it?  I’m not saying that Jamie Waylett should go to jail for growing cannabis; nobody should.   I just find it interesting how courts find cannabis far less dangerous to society if you’ve appeared in a movie.

A TEENAGE trainee chef suffered a fatal heart attack caused by years of smoking cannabis, a coroner has ruled.

Hadrian Gardner, 17, collapsed outside the Cheshire restaurant where he worked on October 7 last year.

But Geoff Roberts, deputy coroner for Cheshire, said Hadrian had died ‘as a result of the direct toxic effects on the heart that the use of cannabis had’.

Excuse me, can someone please explain to me how a non-toxic herb had toxic effects?  Coroner Roberts, do you really understand what the word “toxic” means?

As this story made the rounds of my drug law reform contacts through many “Reply Alls”, the reactions were classic.  Dr. Franjo Grotenhermen, chairman of the German Association for Cannabis as Medicine said, “The claim of a heart attack without acute cannabis use is nonsense.”  Dr. Ethan Russo, one of the world’s leading cannabis researchers (and discoverer of 5,000 year old super pot!), chiming in from Paris wrote simply, “Pure fabrication.”  California NORML’s Dr. Dale Gieringer added, “Another alleged cannabis fatality. To me, it sounds like reefer madness.”

The inquest at Macclesfield town hall was told that Hadrian had already suffered one heart attack in 2007.

On that occasion, doctors had been able to revive him.

Could a person have a heart attack from smoking weed?  It’s possible.  Cannabis smoking does have the side effect of tachycardia (fast heartbeat) for some people, and if you have a weak, damaged, or diseased heart, you might want to think about abstaining.  Or, perhaps, if you’ve had a previous heart attack at the age of fifteen.  So, did Gardner puff a big fatty before keeling over?

Dr Mark Nicol, who treated Hadrian at Macclesfield A&E department, said in his report: “This case highlights that cannabis use is potentially life-threatening.”

The coroner said: “We have heard how over a period of time, for some years, (Hadrian) had used cannabis and perhaps other illegal substances.

Wait a minute, now we’ve gone from a teenager killed by “toxic” cannabis to a kid who used “other illegal substances”?  So naturally, the UK media splashes the cannabis use all about the headlines and these “other illegal substances” get buried in the final grafs.  Typical.

Dr Sally Hales, who carried out the post mortem, found no traces of cannabis or other illegal drugs in Hadrian’s body.

However, he had an inflammation of the heart, which, she said, was most likely caused by ‘a history of using cannabis, amphetamines and cocaine.’

via Chef, 17, ‘killed by cannabis’ – News – Manchester Evening News.

Amphetamines and cocaine, used by a teenaged boy with an inflamed heart, a boy who had a heart attack requiring medical revival two years ago!  But does the headline say “Chef, 17, killed by drug abuse” or “killed by speed and coke”?

A DEPRESSED mother who was high on cannabis took her own life while walking her dog on marshland east of Hailsham.

Stephanie Wainwright, 33, was found hanged from a bridge on a footpath half a mile from her home in Marshfoot Lane on April 24 last year.

An inquest in Eastbourne yesterday heard that Miss Wainwright had used the class B drug since the age of 16.

The voluntary worker told doctors 24 hours before her death that she was feeling depressed ‘nearly every day’.

She was prescribed anti-depressants but was found dead by a passer-by the following day.

Miss Wainwright lived with her 16-year-old son in Marshfoot Lane and had been battling an alcohol addiction but had been dry for the last three months of her life, the inquest was told.

Dr Savvakis Savvas, of the Bridgeside Surgery in Western Road, saw Miss Wainwright the day before she died.

He said she had complained of depression and he gave her a questionnaire to gauge her mood.

Dr Savvas prescribed her the anti-depressant Citalopram, which can take several weeks to have a positive effect, he said.

Toxicologist Dr Peter Sharp’s report revealed Miss Wainwright was ‘high’ on cannabis at the time of her death. East Sussex coroner Alan Craze said, “The effects of cannabis are unpredictable to say the least. Experts now believe that as well as increasing psychosis in people, prolonged use, particularly of strong cannabis from an early age, can actually induce psychosis.

“If I was looking for a trigger for the psychosis in this case, that could be it.”

via Depressed mum hanged herself while on cannabis – Eastbourne Today.

Hmm, a young woman who says she’s depressed has used cannabis since age 16.  I’m not surprised that someone with depression would self-medicate with cannabis; it’s what I do.  Notice how she uses cannabis for 17 years without incident, has an active alcohol addiction until three months ago, takes a prescription anti-depressant, then kills herself the next day, so naturally (in the British press), it’s the cannabis’ fault.

Citalopram (brand name Celexa) is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, or SSRI.  These type of drugs come with a big “black box” warning about increased risk of suicidality found in children and adolescents taking the drug, as well as people with bipolar disorder or previous history of suicidal ideation.  Dr. Savvas apparently saw her one day, had her fill out a questionnaire, decided she wasn’t bipolar or suicidal, and gave her a powerful brain-altering pill.

I also question how the coroner knew she was “high” on cannabis at the time of her death.  If she was a consistent user, she’d likely test positive for THC metabolites for days.  Even if he’s testing THC in the blood, it’s hard to know if she was “high”; even blood tests aren’t good for detecting recent use beyond a few hours and I doubt her body was found just shortly after her death.  If he’s looking for a trigger for the psychosis, how about a powerful pill taken for the first time the day before rather than the cannabis used consistently for 17 years?