The enterprising entrepreneur was also growing cannabis plants and manufacturing a range of cannabis-flavoured biscuits and butter. The biscuits, known as Marrakesh Biscuits, are apparently very popular.

The rural cottage in the townland of Glantane near Mallow was the scene of the raid last week when local gardai called around unexpectedly and made the discovery of a still and 22 cannabis plants in an upstairs loft.

Locals in Mallow, which wags have now dubbed 'Mellow', were bemused by all the fuss. "You have to hand it to the distiller. He was out trying to create a bit of industry in these lean times. The stuff was being sold locally as Creme de Grass -- I didn't drink any of it, but I heard it had quite a strange effect on the auld head if you took a drop," said one local.

Detective Sergeant Paul Reidy led the raid, which also uncovered regular dry leaf marijuana of the smoking variety. All the items seized have been sent to Garda Headquarters for analysis, explained Sgt Reidy.

The search was carried out at a house in Glantane at 7.30am on January 23. Twenty-two cannabis plants and drugs cultivation paraphernalia were found, as well as other items such as cannabis alcohol and biscuits. It was a heady mix -- A cannabis plant is worth about €400.

A local man in his mid-40s was arrested at the scene and detained in Mallow garda station. He was subsequently released and a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecution's office, a garda spokesperson said.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/irish-police-raid-cottage-making-cannabis-poteen-and-biscuits-14660706.html ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Here's a snippet from the product description:

Our commercial growers have kept asking us to produce a feminized strain that will yield and finish FAST. Well that time has come, we’re proud to introduce the 60 Day Wonder! It took us a bit longer to get this one released but it was definitely worth the wait!!

Full product details: 60 Day Wonder ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Many health-conscious patients say they would rather eat the drug than smoke it, and they would prefer to eat something other than sugary treats.

‘When I started using marijuana, I was eating a brownie every day. I gained a ton of weight,’ said Michael DeLao, a former hotel chef who hosts the Cannabis Planet TV show in Los Angeles.

‘Then I learned how to really cook with marijuana and once more people learn about all the possibilities, we’re going to see a lot more people wanting this in their food,’ he added.

In Denver, Colorado, a new medical marijuana eatery called Ganja Gourmet serves lasagna (LaGanja), Panama Red Pizza and an olive tapenade called ganjanade, along with sweets such as cheesecake, muffins and brownies.

All patrons must show a medical card that proves they have a doctor’s permission to use pot for some kind of ailment. ‘The food is really good,’ said customer Jamie Hillyer.

Chefs say it takes 20 minutes to two hours for the pot-laced meal to produce a high and, if patrons each too much, they feel sluggish. So, at Ganja Gourmet, customers are allowed to eat only one menu item every 45 minutes.

But the craze could be short-lived. Denver’s city council wants to ban marijuana being smoked or eaten in restaurants.

http://www.metro.co.uk/news/806710-cannabis-cafes-making-ganja-gourmet-food ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Spasticity, involuntary muscle tension or contraction, is a common symptom of MS. Many existing therapies for this symptom are ineffective, difficult to obtain, or associated with intolerable side effects. In this study, reported incidence of side effects from cannabis, such as intoxication, varied greatly depending on the amount of cannabis needed to effectively limit spasticity, but the researchers note that side effects were also seen in the placebo groups. They add, "Considering the distress and limitations spasticity brings to individuals with MS, it is important to carefully weigh the potential for side effects with the potential for symptom relief."
Lakhan concludes, "The therapeutic potential of cannabinoids in MS is comprehensive and should be given considerable attention."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091203222136.htm ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Cannabis Cup
1st. Green House Seeds - Super Lemon Haze
2nd. Barney's Farm - Vanilla Kush
3rd. Green Place - Head Bang

Indica Cup
1st. Hortilab - Starbud
2nd. Reserva Privada - OG 18
3rd. AllStar Genetics - Kush D

Sativa Cup
1st. Harvestmen Seed Co. - Hilton
2nd. Green House Seeds - Super Lemon Haze
3rd. BC Bud Depot - BC Bud Depot... ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

But his call comes as another academic is due to publish a study highlighting the possible links between the drug and schizophrenia.

"The more you smoke, the higher the risk," Prof Robin Murray told the BBC.

Prof Nutt told Radio 4's The Report that a Royal Commission on decriminalising the use of cannabis was a "sensible" idea and it could have "big health benefits."

He added: "We've seen some countries like Portugal make real progress in terms of drug-related crime and drug-related harms by decriminalising drugs of personal use.

"You could make a moral position that why should people be imprisoned for possessing something that effectively will only harm themselves?"

Prof Nutt said: "I certainly am interested in the idea that we might de-penalise possession and even allow the Dutch model for cannabis - the coffee shops - which could potentially have many benefits.

"I think it's perfectly sensible to think about the Dutch model for cannabis and explore whether that might be a tenable way of allowing young people to get an intoxicant which is safer than alcohol, and which they could then use in a controlled, safe environment."

He suggested that "trial towns" might be set up for an experiment.

Prof Nutt was sacked three weeks ago from his post as head of The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) by Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who accused him of campaigning against the government's decision to reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug.

The professor had attacked what he called the "artificial" separation of alcohol and tobacco from illegal drugs and said smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.

Skunk and psychosis

But this view is challenged by research due to be published next month by Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, who said that eight studies published since 2002 had shown that the risk of developing schizophrenia or psychotic symptoms was higher in those who used cannabis.

He told The Report the risk increased in younger cannabis users and those who smoked skunk, the more potent strain of the drug.

"Our evidence was that if you started smoking by the age of 18, then you're about one-and-a-half times more likely to go psychotic by the time you are 26," said Prof Murray.

"If you start by 15, you're four and a half times more likely."

He said that traditional studies showed that 8% to 15% of all schizophrenia cases could be attributed to cannabis but he added: "More recently, our evidence from south London is that it's more like 20% and I think that is associated with skunk."

Prof Murray also said 20% of all the people who developed schizophrenia would not do so if people did not smoke cannabis, and in particular skunk. "I think that would be worthwhile," he added.

Prof Nutt said Prof Murray's was an important study but "we need to know if it is replicated across the country".

He added: "I'm not saying cannabis is safe, it is a dangerous drug, but the majority of people who use do not come to any serious harm."

Prof Nutt said it was difficult to tell if the drug was more dangerous to adolescents.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8366466.stm ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Full product details: Lowryder #1 ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

TGA is Subcool, Jill, Sunycheba & Badboy. Together they mix cannabis seeds genetics like DJs mix records. They should be called ‘Gene Jockeys’ because they know how to combine the best traits from the parent stock.

All TGA Seeds come as regular seeds and you can choose from either single seeds or packs of ten.

The Strains

Here is the complete list of strains:

3D Third Dimension
Fruit punch with a soaring high that lasts and doesn’t peak for at least 20 minutes after initial toke, a true gem, 3D does well when topped and likes a lot of nitrogen to keep her happy, produces budsites down to the main stem, it topped will hang like a sticky willow tree in later stages of bloom, needs support, food-like, smell, taste. High is very thought provoking, body numbing, truly unique hybrid with almost apple-smelling buds, very very high resin.

Agent Orange
range Velvet is a much sought after strain in the USA, due to its uncanny orange creamsicle flavour and enjoyable medicinal high, using Subs JTR male to add yield and lots of resin, this plant is like smoking a bowl of fruit each toke coats your mouth with deep flavours of mango and oranges. A favourite of the ladies due to its flavours and medicinal effect, very thorough long-lasting stone, extremely stout plants that can support huge buds, a very good strain.

Astro Queen
Selecting from our own cross, Astroboy a large watermelon trait female was pollinated with our proven Space Queen male. The resulting cross yields very unusual tasting hybrid with with flavors from cherry to watermelon. The high is very intense and is reported by smokers as trippy and good for pain relief. Females are very similar with heavy resin and a fruity smell and taste. Very mind expanding and visual, very much a head high. Harvest window is 8 weeks.

Jack The Ripper
Created from the legendary Jack’s Cleaner, pollinated by a Space Queen male, aka Space Dude which instantly added a fruity mango flavour and added its own unique potency to the mix. JTR seeds are huge, dark and tiger-striped, they are easy to grow and will produce good sized buds with a coating of resin so heavy it causes what’s known as resin curl along the ran leaf edges. Brushing against these plants while in bloom will fill the air with a thick heavy fruit peng, literally smells like like over-ripe mango. Top plants for bubblehash or dry sieving!

Jack’s Cleaner 2
JC2 is the product of a backcross to the clone only Jack’s Cleaner, using a proven JTR male. The resulting plants are almost all 75% Jack’s Cleaner with the Space Dude’s genetics being overpowered by JC’s dominant traits resulting in a more hazey, slightly harsher tasting hybrid but with a sweet exhale a creeper stone, that can completely disorientate, if you over indulge, a definite appetite stimulant.

Jilly Bean
MzJill was lucky enough to be gifted an amazing Orange Skunk and the first time we smoked it we knew we had to outcross it with our Space Queen male. You don’t really have to be a master breeder to figure out orange and pineapple mango will be a good combination. The resulting outcross is remarkably stable and is close to a 50/50 representation of the parents. Topped it grows into a nice short bush with lots of side branching and multi heads. Flavours range from orange, tang, candy, mango and apple. The cross works really well in SOG Or SCROG. Very large stems and huge top colas make this an easy strain to grow in any medium.

Pandora’s Box
Many years ago the most powerful magic recipe was locked away to protect humanity from the devastating power, locked inside a combination of genetics that only a team of Uber-stoners would have the power to harness. This strain is very stable and we are very excited about the yields we have seen. The first plants I saw grown in a hydro hut grown by a newbie grower were literally sagging with huge glass like buds and the buzz is up, speedy, very shit eating grin and smiling like a Cheshire cat like high. It’s a bit smoother than JTR and has a different feel in the head less haze influence. I can’t tell where the ceiling is as every bowl I smoke I seem to get a bit higher until the point my vision blurs. Not for light weights. I can’t stop grinning when I smoke this weed.

Querkle
Another knockout clone only strain, Urkle is one of the most sought after USA strains. Its deep purple hues make this plant a true spectacle to watch grow. As early as day 40 you will see her leaves change to a deep dark purple and now with JTR’s resin profile and potency, this is sure to become a sure fire top strain. One of the only purple strains that will rip your head off. Top Bag appeal.

Space Queen
Our interpretation of BCGA’s famous lost cross Space Queen this F2 took over a year to create agonising over four distinct and amazing mother plants found in a very old pack of Vic’s original seeds. Once the best mother plant was selected the long process of growing out the F2 generation was started and the result made us very happy and very very stoned. This cross has been grown more than any other TGS gear and everyone that germinates these seeds ends up with a keeper female they cherish forever.

The Flav
A much sought after romulan meets the resin bomb Space Queen and they both bring their own very worthy qualities to the cross, excellent resin profile, high odour and as tasty as a candy factory. Easy to grow, can support itself until the last week of bloom when she starts to get top heavy, support is recommended, excellent meds, pain relief and creativity.

Vortex
Apollo 13 is another legendary clone-only strain in the USA. It was used as the seed-bearing parent in this awesome cross. Its a sticky, milky, sweet tasting plant that has a very uplifting high, very enjoyable, puts you in a very creative mood. Again Space Dude has passed on the cherry-like sweet fruit undertone to an already complex apollo flavour. Excellent toke for daytime, non-confusing and clear, each toke is a tasty treat which usually leads to smoking excessive amounts, leaving the smoker in a daze. Can creep up on you. Excellent stout structured, vigourous plants. ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

It's called White Russian Automatic, and the product details are as follows:

Sagarmatha White Russian is a brand automatic flowering strain bred from the multiple award winning Serious Seeds White Russian.

It has high levels of THC making it very strong with a long lasting high.

Flowering time: 9 weeks

It is available in packs of five or single seeds. ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Here are the details for each:

Hashplant Haze from DNA Genetics
The Hashplant Haze is a great yielding strain which produces huge amounts of redish hash. The uplifting high is enjoyable throughout the day. It is advisable to flower her right from clone and to supercrop her often to control the size. She grows well in the Sea-of-Green method and is not sensitive to nutrients. This sativa-dominant strain produces buds late in the flower cycle. The taste is that of fruity, hashy, haziness with an earthy, hazy aroma.

Donk from Spice of Life
The heaviest commercial clone going around the Kootenays was going around without a name. A few plants got tossed into the room for the hell of it. It is the heaviest yielding of these four lines, although its pedigree is uncertain, it is improved upon with the Blue Satellite #2 cross. ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Dr Campbell, a synthetic organic chemist, said: "I think that was a clash of personalities. I don't agree with the manner in which he was dismissed. I think such an abrupt dismissal was an unnecessary humiliation for such a respected scientist."

Asked about the Government's attitude to science, he added: "I think the Home Secretary will listen to what the council says but at the end of the day I think political expediency rules the roost."

Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, dismissed Prof Nutt after accusing him of "crossing a line" into politics, especially after he criticised the decision to reclassify cannabis as class B, against ACMD advice.

Dr Campbell said: "When we made our recommendation on cannabis we saw no reason to change the classification and yet the government has already decided to move from Class C to Class B.

"That can only be because the government saw it as a votes-catching exercise."

Dr John Marsden and Dr Ian Ragan also resigned from the council this week despite a crunch meeting with Mr Johnson.

The meeting had been called because members of the advisory body wanted reassurances from the Home Secretary that they could continue in "good conscience" and that their advice would be respected.

Mr Johnson has said a joint code between Government and scientists, proposed by the Royal Society, was being considered by Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Government's chief scientific adviser.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/6545069/Drug-adviser-sacking-was-humiliation-says-colleague.html ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Professor Beddington’s intervention came as it emerged that Lord Drayson, the Science and Innovation Minister, e-mailed No 10 at the weekend to say that he was “pretty appalled” by the Home Secretary’s move, which had the scientific community “up in arms”.

Both were abroad when Professor Nutt was dismissed — Lord Drayson in Japan and Professor Beddington in Russia — and neither was consulted by Mr Johnson despite their roles in overseeing science advice across Whitehall.

Lord Drayson wrote in an e-mail to Nick Butler, the Prime Minister’s policy adviser: “Alan did this without letting me know and giving me a chance to persuade him it’s a big mistake. Is Gordon able to get Alan to undo this? As ‘science champion in Government’, I can’t just stand aside on this one.”

He later issued a statement saying that this was an “immediate reaction to what had happened without full knowledge of the facts” and that Mr Johnson had since assured him of his respect for scientific advice.

Professor Beddington told the BBC that he accepted that there was a difference between scientific advice and ministerial decision-making, and that Mr Johnson had been placed in a difficult position by Professor Nutt’s criticism of the reclassification of cannabis as a Class B drug.

“I think it’s very difficult — when clearly trust had broken down between the Home Secretary and Professor Nutt — to see how that could go on,” he said.

Asked whether he agreed with Professor Nutt that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, he said: “I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it.”

He said that he would consult heads of other expert committees to ask whether they had experienced difficulties.

Professor Beddington has previously been critical of the Home Office’s attitude to scientific advice. He wrote to Jacqui Smith, then Home Secretary, in January expressing concern that she appeared to have pre-empted a report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) on the classification of Ecstasy. He told Ms Smith in March that her public criticism of Professor Nutt risked discouraging scientists from working with the Government.

Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat science spokesman, said: “The revelation of Lord Drayson’s e-mails, and the support for David Nutt from the government Chief Scientific Adviser, shows that the Home Secretary’s position is unsustainable.

“It is time for Alan Johnson to recognise that he blundered over his decision, and the manner of it, because the Government is facing a deepening crisis of confidence from the scientific community.”

Mr Johnson was backed by the Prime Minister, who said: “I think Alan Johnson made the right decision because we cannot send mixed messages. Advisers advise and ministers have to make decisions.”

Fresh evidence supporting Professor Nutt’s view that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes has also emerged from new research led by one of his former colleagues on the ACMD.

Matthew Hickman, Reader in Public Health and Epidemiology at the University of Bristol, has found that thousands of young people would have to stop smoking the drug heavily to prevent even a single case of schizophrenia or psychosis — the Government’s main justification for reclassifying it as a Class B drug.

“The likely impact of reclassifying cannabis in the UK on schizophrenia or psychosis incidence is very uncertain,” Dr Hickman said.

In a study published in the journal Addiction, Dr Hickman’s team examined the evidence for a link between cannabis and psychosis, the background risk of psychosis among different age groups and sexes, and the numbers of cannabis smokers in the UK.

It found that while there was evidence to suggest that heavy cannabis smokers might have twice the normal risk of developing psychosis, the reclassification of cannabis would have to have a very large deterrent effect to greatly influence public health.

To prevent one case of psychosis, it would be necessary to stop at least 2,800 men aged 20 to 24 from smoking the drug heavily, or 4,700 men aged 35 to 39. For women, it would be necessary to dissuade at least 5,470 smokers in the younger age group, or at least 10,870 in the older one.

For light cannabis use, a single case of psychosis would be prevented only if more than 10,000 young men or nearly 30,000 young women were to stop smoking the drug.

Dr Hickman would not comment on Professor Nutt’s sacking, though he is understood to be among the ACMD members who have written to Mr Johnson to express their concerns. Instead, he referred The Times to a statement he made about the addiction paper.

“Preventing cannabis use is important for many reasons — including reducing tobacco and drug dependence and improving school performance,” Dr Hickman’s statement said. “But our evidence suggests that focusing on schizophrenia may have been misguided.

“Our research cannot resolve the question whether cannabis causes schizophrenia but does show that many people need to give up cannabis in order to have an impact on the number of people with schizophrenia. The likely impact of reclassifying cannabis in the UK on schizophrenia or psychosis incidence is very uncertain.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6902240.ece ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Positronics Seeds Company collaborated closely and actively in the development and birth of the first cannabis hybrids at the start of the 80s. New varieties from Holland were acquired and it was decided to relocate there to start working on the first hybrid strains in a professional manner. They were pioneers in developing the revolutionary technique of cultivating sinsemilla plants from cuttings. Positronics became established as the most pioneering company in selective cannabis breeding.

All Positronics Seeds come as feminised seeds and you can choose from either single seeds or packs of five.

The Strains

Here is the complete list of strains:

Black Widow
Light endogamic cross between two exceptional indica varieties. The Misty gene was revolutionary in the 8Os. The origin of this variety remains a closely guarded secret but, given its high CBD levels, Positronics decided to preserve it by importing it directly from the USA. During the mid nineties, White Widow was launched and quickly became one of the most prestigious varieties on the market. Positronics decided to combine the two varieties and recommend its use for medicinal purposes due to its high level of CBD concentration.

Blue Rhino
Blue Rhino is the result of meticulous selection of hundreds of plants as part of a classic cross- breeding process that guarantees one of the strongest and exquisite hybrids that the most experienced growers were demanding. From the Blue strain, an original female from British Colombia was selected for its unique organoleptic properties that contribute a taste and aroma reminiscent of midway between blueberry and gooseberry. Rhino’s strain, owing to its high CBD levels, is renowned for its medicinal – almost narcotic – virtues, it is worth highlighting that it is a perfect hybrid of Afghan, Brazilian and Indian plants.

Caramelice
The skunk’s varieties supposed a successful for the cannabis growing. Its citric flavour and taste fascinated hundreds of thousands of farmers, whom continue filling the gardens with these varieties. Positronics has created a Skunk for the XXI century. Caramelice captures the aroma and taste of its parents, but it’s more resistant to fungus attacks and is faster flowering, both handicaps of skunk variety.

Claustrum
Take yourself off to a medieval cathedral. Claustrum is our sativa plant masterpiece: a cross between three strains of highly heterozygous families: Kali Mist, Super Silver Haze and Jack Herer. The first cross was between Super Silver Haze & Kali Mist, which has a highly unpredictable descendancy. Notwithstanding, a plant with 50% of the genes of its two ancestors was selected. This super-sativa-hybrid was crossed with Jack Herer, one of the best-ever varieties. As a result, Claustrum is a fusion between the world’s best sativas.

Critical #47
Superb hybridisation between two of the sweetest varieties on the market: Critical Mass and AK47. Represents perfection in the development of Skunk varieties. By cross-breeding the two varieties, we have noticeably enhanced the old Skunk taste.

Jack Diesel
Two myths of cannabis crossed together to produce a variety that is far better than its parents. The power of one of the most famous hybrids in the world, Jack Herer, is combined to the strength and aromas of the recently discovered New York City Diesel. The resulting synergy of the final hybrid from parents of the highest ‘pedigree’ makes it indispensable in the menu of all growers, from beginners to ‘connoisseurs’.

Purple Haze #1
Created in the USA during the 70s, it became famous because of the Jimmy Hendrix song. That variety differs greatly to the one offered nowadays by Positronics as, in the beginning, Purple Haze was characterised by medium-low psychoactivity and minimal production. Hazes were too pure to flower and did not develop adequately. Despite this, it was the most smoked variety at Woodstock. Since then Positronics have kept this variety a jealously-guarded secret to relaunch it nearly 40 years later to get you hooked on the hippy generation vibe that we miss so much.

Plus... We've got some more new additions coming very soon - so stay tuned! ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Next week the remaining members of the ACMD will meet the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to decide on the future for the group. Speaking at a briefing today, Nutt said that an independent drug advisory body would keep the issue out of party politics. "Most scientists would prefer an independent body that says 'these are the harms of drugs, we'll rate them on a classification system then you decide on what the appropriate penalties are'. Politicians cannot decide on harm, they can only decide on matters in their province."

Nutt said that the row over his sacking had affected the future work of the ACMD, with several reviews on the recreational use of emerging drugs halted. These include spice, a herbal mixture sprayed with psychoactive compounds, the sedative GBL and the amphetamine-like BZP. In addition, the arguments had stopped work highlighting the dangers of alcohol.

"Liver disease will become the biggest medical problem, outside psychiatric disorders, in the next 10 years," said Nutt. "Most of that is driven by the toxic effects of alcohol on the liver. Government has to wake up to this timebomb of alcohol."

He said he supported chief medical officer Liam Donaldson's recent proposals to increase the cost of alcoholic drinks, though Nutt went as far as to say alcohol should triple in price.

Nutt was also critical of Tory policy on drugs. "The Tories have been making quite a lot of old-fashioned statements about the need to go back to 'get them off and keep them clean and lock them up' sort of approaches to drug abuse. That I think would be potentially very dangerous."

Though he supported the idea of helping people off drug dependency, he said that the risks for people who relapse should be considered carefully.

"There's good evidence now that in a society where you have abstinence-based approaches, the death rates go up. The reason is quite clear – when you stop using heroin, you lose tolerance, so when you start again with the dose you used to take, you're dead."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/04/david-nutt-acmd-independent ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Nutt reckons that the legal drugs, alcohol and nicotine, are more of a risk to users than cannabis and he has been publicly campaigning against the recent government decision to treat it as a class B drug.

Yesterday, Dr Les King, another member of the Advisory Council, resigned in protest at Nutt being denied 'freedom of expression' and a top Labour-supporting peer and scientist, Robert Winston, said the sacking showed "a rather poor understanding of the value of science".

It is easy to see why Brown was unwilling to keep a scientific adviser who accused him of changing policy "on a whim" but the whole embarrassing episode underpins the image of the prime minister as an autocratic control freak who only listens to those who are willing to agree with him.

The very public furore comes at a time when Brown is also caught up in an even more awkward row with leaders of the armed forces about the lack of resources for fighting the war in Afghanistan.

'In blood Stepp'd in so far? Towards Realism in Afghanistan' is the lurid title of a short but damning analysis of the strategy and conduct of the war, which is published today by the Centre for Policy Studies.

Author Adam Holloway is an MP, a member of the Commons Defence Committee and a former Grenadier Guard. He claims that the real beneficiary of the war is al-Qa'ida: "Put starkly, our current situation is working against the West's security interest and is making attacks on the streets of Britain more, not less, likely. . . Before 2006 who had heard of Musa Qala, Sangin or Kajaki? Today they are global rallying cries across the websites of global jihad. Places like Helmand are, for al-Qa'ida, a gigantic film studio."

The pressure on Brown over Afghanistan was intensified at the weekend by the leaking of a memo about the risks to Nato troops because of the shortage of helicopters. It was written in June by Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe just three weeks before he was killed by a roadside bomb.

The news of the memo coincided with a devastating indictment of negligence and incompetence within the Ministry of Defence over the crash of a Nimrod reconnaissance jet in 2006.

There will be more embarrassment for the government over the next few months as the public enquiry into the Iraq invasion gets under way. One of its key witnesses will be Tony Blair, who seems to be still nursing hopes of becoming president of the European Union.

Business Minister Peter Mandelson says in an interview to be shown on the BBC news channel today: "He would like to do the job. But when I talk to him, I don't feel it's a life or death question for him. He doesn't want it so much he couldn't live without it -- but he's committed to it."

That's not exactly the kind of enthusiastic reference that would get a candidate short-listed for an ordinary job. But behind the scenes, Blair is, according to the former SDP leader, Lord Owen, "campaigning very vigorously".

One man determined to stop him at all costs is the Labour MP, Peter Kilfoyle, who, in 1994, was the first MP to sign the nomination papers for Blair in the party leadership election.

Kilfoyle used to be on such good terms with the Blairs that he turned up dressed as Santa Claus for their children at Christmas. Now, like others, he is disillusioned and he has tabled a Commons motion stating: "On his record in international affairs, Tony Blair is wholly unsuitable to be president of the European Union."

The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has not only been talking up Blair as president but also, more privately, promoting his own claims to be the new 'High Representative' of the EU.

Cynics at Westminster think that Brown likes the idea of pushing Miliband off to Brussels so as to leave the way clear for his cabinet ally, Ed Balls, to succeed him as party leader if Labour, as expected, is beaten in the general election next May.

Removing David Miliband from the Westminster stage would also pave the way for Peter Mandelson to replace him as foreign secretary before the election and for David's younger brother, Ed, the climate change minister, to put in a challenge for the leadership after it.

- Nicholas Leonard

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/nicholas-leonard-brown-faces-a-new-battle-with-discord-in-labours-ranks-1930729.html ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/02/david-nutt-dangerous-drug-list ]]>

Pick 'n' Mix Seeds - single cannabis seeds from all the top seed banks.

Nutt said there was "no future" for the council in its present form, and it is thought the group's members may use a meeting next Monday to announce a mass resignation.

In a letter in today's Guardian, Johnson accuses Nutt of "campaigning against government policy" but insists he was not forced out because of his opinions.

"Professor Nutt was not sacked for his views, which I respect but disagree with," he writes. "He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy."

Scientists on the council are said to be preparing a letter to ministers seeking assurances that they will remain free to set their agenda and to speak freely about their research and findings.

The Times today reported that it was possible the 28 remaining members would quit if their concerns were not addressed before a council meeting next week.

The collapse of the panel, which provides ministers with evidence about the harm caused by different drugs, would be a severe embarrassment for the government and deal a heavy political blow to Johnson, who has so far steered clear of the controversies that dogged many of his predecessors at the Home Office.

As the row intensified yesterday, Nutt said he had been contacted by more than half the council's members, who had shared their "horror and disgust" over the manner of his dismissal and were now considering resigning en masse.

Dr Les King, a former head of drug intelligence at the Forensic Science Service, was first to act, followed by Marion Walker, the head of the substance misuse service at Berkshire NHS foundation trust.

King said he had decided to step down because he felt Johnson had denied Nutt his "freedom of expression".

He said that while the government had "a right" to reject the panel's advice, its attitude towards the advisory body had changed.

Nutt said he could "fully understand" why his two former colleagues had chosen to resign. "The government has interfered with the scientific processes of the panel for several years and it has caused significant resentment," he said.

"People are very much considering their positions and they have made it clear they will not continue under the current regime. There is no future for the Advisory [Council] on the Misuse of Drugs in the current way it operates."

Although Johnson would not comment on yesterday's resignations, he went on television to step up his attack on Nutt's conduct, insisting he had "crossed the line" with his remarks.

Charles Clarke, the former home secretary, said today: "The criticism of him [Nutt] is [that he was] campaigning. If that is the case, it was wrong. I cannot judge that."

Clarke argued that the system of classification was "trying to do too many things": not only classifying drugs according to the medical evidence, but also "sending messages about how people should behave in relation to drugs".

But he said the medical community had the right to complain about a government decision and to know that their advice was going to be listened to and "seriously considered".

And in another blow for Johnson, Lord Drayson, the science and innovation minister responsible for coordinating scientific advice across Whitehall, revealed yesterday that he was not consulted or informed by the secretary of state before Nutt's dismissal. Although he did not make any official comment, Drayson's Twitter account said he would be "asking why he was not informed, getting facts and finding a solution".

In an update this morning, he wrote that Johnson had "assured me of the importance both he and his department places on the academic freedom of advisers".

In an angry interview with Sky News yesterday, Johnson said: "You cannot have a chief adviser at the same time stepping into the public field and campaigning against government decisions. You can do one or the other; you can't do both."

Johnson said it was not the job of scientific advisers to "just keep coming back and back and back" to overturn ministerial decisions. He also stressed that the decision to force Nutt out had been his alone and he had not consulted the prime minister, Gordon Brown.

The home secretary said: "I've got enormous respect for the advisory council. I want to meet them very soon. I've got enormous respect for the scientific community. They've got to understand that Professor Nutt crossed this line between offering advice ... and then campaigning against the government on political decisions."

But Johnson found himself under fire from members of the scientific community. Lord Winston, the Labour peer and professor of science and society at Imperial College London, said he was "very surprised and disappointed" by Johnson's actions.

"I think that if governments appoint expert advice they shouldn't dismiss it so lightly," he said.

"I think it shows a rather poor understanding of the value of science."

The sacking follows the publication of a paper by the Centre for Crime and Justice at King's College London, based on a lecture Nutt delivered in July.

Nutt repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause, and pointed out that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. Alcohol should come fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, he said. He also argued that smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.

The Lib Dem science spokesman, Dr Evan Harris, who spoke to scientists over the weekend, accused Johnson of "political thuggery". He said the home secretary's actions could create a crisis in government policymaking if the drugs advisory panel was left unable to function or if experts on other panels resigned.

This morning David Cameron branded the row "unseemly".

"What seems to have happened here is the breakdown of confidence and mutual confidence between adviser and minister and some very unseemly scenes have followed," the Conservative leader said.

"But I am very clear in terms of the actual policy that we should not be changing classifications. We should be keeping them where we are, yes, on drugs, but also on alcohol."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/02/david-nutt-alan-johnson-drugs ]]>

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In my opinion cannabis is very unlikely to cause schizophrenia. After 35 years as a psychiatrist I cannot recall many cases of so called cannabis-induced schizophrenia where there has not been a family history of schizophrenia.

Professor Robin Murray published one of several family studies that show that cannabis induced psychosis is indeed associated with a positive family history of schizophrenia.

One draws the conclusion that schizophrenia, or its early effects before it becomes clinically diagnosable, is causing the cannabis smoking rather than the other way round. (For some reason Professor Murray ignores his own study and others that support the fact that "cannabis psychosis" is indeed familial.)

The deeper malaise is the need for the Labour Party leadership to portray themselves as the great protectors of the British people, so that they can win votes. The party leadership have convinced themselves that, by creating a moral panic about cannabis, ecstasy and crime, they will be seen as our saviours.

The reality about cannabis is more complex as Professor Nutt has so carefully explained. The same is true about crime and antisocial behaviour, where Labour pretends parents are to blame, and need punishment as much as their children.

It is sad to see the Labour leaders behaving like this so wilfully. It is no surprise that people think they are time-expired as politicians. Only the Liberal Democrats have it right on cannabis.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/6480486/Science-is-on-the-side-of-drug-adviser-sacked-to-make-Labour-look-like-saviours.html ]]>

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Now look at the polling on the question. In 1970, 84% of Americans supported keeping marijuana illegal. Today, that number has collapsed to 54%. The proportion believing that marijuana should be legal has gone from 18% at the end of the 1960s to 44% today. On current trends, a majority of Americans will favour legalisation by the end of Obama’s first term. In the western states, 53% already favour legalising and taxing the stuff. Support for legalisation is strongest among the young — the Obama generation — but has climbed among self-described Republicans as well.

But the reality is already ahead of the polls. Take a trip, so to speak, to Los Angeles today, where one would be forgiven for thinking that marijuana was already legal. There are more than 800 marijuana dispensaries in the city — and an estimated 7,000 in the state of California as a whole (many times more than in Holland).

Getting a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana is easier than getting health insurance — just look at the ads in the papers, where a consultation costs about $200. The dispensaries range from the dime store to elaborate palaces of capitalist taste. Seminars are held for entrepreneurs who want to start a business selling medical cannabis. On display are sophisticated strains that can provide exquisitely tailored effects: some best for countering nausea, some for building appetite, others for going to sleep, others for staying alert or for watching movies or for general relaxation.

The concentration of THC, the active compound, is much higher than in the past. But since no one has ever overdosed on marijuana, it’s difficult to say why that matters. Yes, if someone has a history of mental illness, it’s not that smart to experiment with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. But it isn’t smart for such people to take any drugs — or too much alcohol — for that matter. For most people, stronger pot merely translates into a need for less of it to get the same effect. Too much and you’ll likely nod off — and wake up later with no hangover. If pubs served pot rather than beer, crime rates would plummet.

Americans, for whom the use of marijuana is almost a rite of passage in most colleges, know all this. And at some point they stopped pretending otherwise. The past three presidents smoked marijuana in their earlier days, even if only one has openly written about it. (Obama, when asked the Clinton question — if he had inhaled — responded: “I thought that was the point.”) In an online press conference with his younger supporters, the first question was about whether legalising and taxing pot would be a good thing to help raise revenues. Obama laughed it off. With an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars, he may not be able to laugh it off much longer.

The key to the shift has been the emphasis on marijuana’s medical properties. Human beings have used marijuana as medicine for millennia. It was once sold in the States by Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical manufacturer. Allowing this compassionate use for a few soon revealed, accidentally, how harmless it is. It is not chemically addictive, although some mild withdrawal can happen if you are a regular pot-smoker and go cold turkey. Its side-effects are minimal compared with those of most authorised drugs for similar conditions. It is far less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. It leads to no measurable degree of antisocial behaviour, as is the case with, say, crystal meth or cocaine or heroin. Many of its users are successful, productive members of society who simply prefer it to alcohol as a relaxant in the evening or as a way to get through cancer treatment.

Denying Aids patients a tool to stay alive tips the balance. I have one friend who would never have been able to tolerate the medications that saved his life without it. That’s pretty persuasive stuff and lots of people have similar first-hand experiences. A gateway drug? Yes, many users of hard drugs smoked pot in the first place. But almost all started out with alcohol as well — and that is not illegal.

Of course, nothing is inevitable. The police still police it and hundreds of thousands of Americans — disproportionately black and poor — are in jail for it. Los Angeles’s failure to regulate adequately its hundreds of dispensaries may lead to connections with organised crime that could come back to delegitimise the whole thing.

I give it a couple of years to become a non-issue or to go into reverse. And my bet is that in a decade’s time, the banning of cannabis will seem as strange as the banning of alcohol. In the end, unnecessary prohibition undermines itself. And this time around, there are millions of cancer and HIV patients who are on the side of legalising and some truly desperate branches of government looking to see what they can tax next. In fact, I’ll go further: sooner rather than later, marijuana may be more acceptable than tobacco.

The need for taboos is eternal. But the object of the taboo is always shifting. The age of tobacco may be ending; and the millennium of marijuana may be about to begin.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6897958.ece ]]>

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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.

Nutt said he was disappointed by his sacking, telling Sky News television that it might have something to do with the upcoming general election, which must be called by the middle of next year.

"Politics is politics and science is science, and there's a bit of a tension between them sometime," he told the broadcaster by telephone.

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.

A call and an e-mail by The Associated Press seeking comment from the scientist were not immediately returned.

Britain's Home Office confirmed that Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology, had been removed from his position and said it would be seeking a replacement shortly.

In Britain, drugs are classified in three different categories, with Class A the most dangerous one. Marijuana was recently upgraded to Class B from Class C, joining amphetamines, Ritalin and pholcodine as drugs whose unlawful possession could result in up to five years in prison.

But the move ran counter to recommendations made by Nutt, who has long argued that marijuana is far less dangerous than legal drugs such as alcohol, which is responsible for nearly 9,000 deaths a year in the U.K., according to recent government statistics.

Nutt argues that while all drugs are dangerous, the restrictions placed on them should be proportional to their potential harm. Britain's Home Office has rejected his advice, saying the scientific evidence is uncertain and that a message needs to be sent to marijuana users that possessing the drug is a serious crime.

The move prompted a flurry of protest from scientists - among them two former chief scientific advisers to the government. They and others wrote an open letter to the government warning that reclassifying marijuana would send confusing messages about how dangerous it and other drugs really were.

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.

In the lecture, Nutt said Smith's decision to tighten restrictions on marijuana had undermined public faith in government science.

"I think we have to accept young people like to experiment - with drugs and other potentially harmful activities - and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives," he said.

"If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g11SRHRYdrp_hpd_a-b0QlBqZmpgD9BLJECO0 ]]>

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Professor David Nutt warned that other experts on the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) could resign in protest at his sacking by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, yesterday.

Nutt was forced to quit after he accused ministers of "devaluing and distorting" the scientific evidence over illicit drugs when they decided last year to reclassify cannabis from class C to class B against the advice of the ACMD.

Nutt told the BBC today that Brown had "made up his mind" to reclassify cannabis despite evidence to the contrary.

"Gordon Brown comes into office and, soon after that, he starts saying absurd things like cannabis is lethal... it has to be a class B drug. He has made his mind up.

"We went back, we looked at the evidence, we said, 'No, no, there is no extra evidence of harm, it's still a class C drug.' He said, 'Tough, it's going to be class B'."

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Nutt said: "He is the first prime minister, this is the first government, that has ever in the history of the Misuse of Drugs Act gone against the advice of its scientific panel.

"And then it did it again with ecstasy and I have to say it's not about [me] overstepping the line, it's about the government overstepping the line. They are making scientific decisions before they've even consulted with their experts.

"I know that my committee was very, very upset by the attitude the prime minister took over cannabis. We actually formally wrote to him to complain about it," he said. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of them stepped down. Maybe all of them will."

Nutt's sacking is likely to raise concerns among scientists over the independence of advice to the government and may trigger further resignations. The Home Office describes the ACMD as an independent expert body that advises on drug-related issues, including recommendations on classification under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.

It is not thought that the home secretary spoke directly to Nutt before requesting his resignation in writing.

Johnson accused the professor of going beyond his remit as an evidence-based scientist and accused him of "lobbying for a change in government policy" rather than giving impartial advice.

"It is important that the government's messages on drugs are clear and as an adviser you do nothing to undermine the public understanding of them," Johnson wrote to Nutt.

"As my lead adviser on drugs harms I am afraid the manner in which you have acted runs contrary to your responsibilities.

"I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy and have therefore lost confidence in your ability to advise me as chair of the ACMD."

The decision followed the publication of a paper by the Centre for Crime and Justice at King's College London, based on a lecture Nutt delivered in July. He repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause and pointed out that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

He accused the former home secretary, Jacqui Smith, of distorting and devaluing scientific research when she reclassified cannabis, and repeated his claim that the risks of taking ecstasy were no worse than riding a horse.

The charity DrugScope's director of communications, Harry Shapiro, said: "The home secretary's decision to force the resignation of the chair of an independent advisory body is an extremely serious and concerning development and raises serious questions about the means by which drug policy is informed and kept under review."

Richard Garside, the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice at King's College London, accused Johnson of undermining scientific research.

He said: "I'm shocked and dismayed that the home secretary appears to believe that political calculation trumps honest and informed scientific opinion."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/31/david-nutt-drugs-adviser-sacked ]]>

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The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) was requested by the home secretary in 2007 to review the status of cannabis because: "Though statistics show that cannabis use has fallen significantly, there is real public concern about the potential mental health effects of cannabis use, in particular the use of stronger forms of the drug, commonly known as skunk."

So, there was a skunk scare. Cannabis had gone from class B to C, but, supposedly, skunk use had been increasing and it was getting stronger, so we were asked to review whether the decision to go from B to C was still appropriate. In what was the ACMD's third cannabis report (Rawlins et al, 2008), we came to several conclusions:

● Cannabis is a harmful drug and there are concerns about the widespread use of cannabis among young people.
● A concerted public health response is required to drastically reduce its use.
● Current evidence suggests a probable, but weak, causal link between psychotic illness and cannabis use.
● The harms caused by cannabis are not considered to be as serious as drugs in class B and therefore it should remain a class C drug.

On that final point, there has been a lot of commentary and some research as to whether cannabis is associated with schizophrenia, and the results are really quite difficult to interpret.

What we can say is that cannabis use is associated with an increased experience of psychotic disorders. That is quite a complicated thing to disentangle because, of course, the reason people take cannabis is that it produces a change in their mental state. These changes are a bit akin to being psychotic – they include distortions of perception, especially in visual and auditory perception, as well as in the way one thinks. So it can be quite hard to know whether, when you analyse the incidence of psychotic disorders with cannabis, you are simply looking at the acute effects of cannabis, as opposed to some consequence of cannabis use.

If we look on the generous side, there is a likelihood that taking cannabis, particularly if you use a lot of it, will make you more prone to having psychotic experiences. That includes schizophrenia. But schizophrenia is a relatively rare condition, so it's very hard to be sure about its causation. The analysis we came up with was that smokers of cannabis are about 2.6 times more likely to have a psychotic-like experience than non-smokers. To put that figure in proportion, you are 20 times more likely to get lung cancer if you smoke tobacco than if you don't.

The other paradox is that schizophrenia seems to be disappearing (from the general population), even though cannabis use has increased markedly in the last 30 years. So, even though skunk has been around now for 10 years, there has been no upswing in schizophrenia. In fact, where people have looked, they haven't found any evidence linking cannabis use in a population and schizophrenia.

Nevertheless, one of the key arguments in moving cannabis from class C to B was the concern that skunk would cause more psychosis. What is very regularly invoked in this debate is the precautionary principle, which is that, if you're not sure about a drug harm, rank it high, make all drugs class A and get rid of the problem.

In her statement to the Commons, after receiving the ACMD's report but rejecting its recommendation to keep cannabis as a class C drug, Jacqui Smith, the former home secretary, said: "We must err on the side of caution and protect the public." As this is protection from the known unknowns, at first sight it might seem the obvious decision – why wouldn't you take the precautionary principle?

But the precautionary principle is also an act of faith in deterrence, and this is one of the key issues for lawyers. Does deterrence impact on drug use? We don't know. In fact, the outcome may be the opposite of that predicted. It may be that if you move a drug up a class, it has a greater cachet.

I think we have to accept young people like to experiment, and what we should be doing is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives. We therefore have to provide more accurate and credible information. We have to tell them the truth, so that they use us as their preferred source of information. If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you're probably wrong.

This article is based on a longer version published by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College, London, which itself was based on a lecture delivered by Professor Nutt earlier in the year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/29/cannabis-david-nutt-drug-classification ]]>

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Details and buy: Purple Wreck Seeds ]]>

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The 35-year-old was sentenced at Vale Royal Magistrates’ Court.

Rob Youds, prosecuting, said: “He stated he was a cannabis user and the bush from the tub in the lounge was for personal use.

“The two plants he was growing from seed for his own personal use.

“The stun gun, which had a CS gas attachment, he said he found when he was a doorman and decided to keep it – he knew being in possession of it was illegal.”

Vanessa Shaw, defending, said Wilkinson tore cartilage in his knee in an accident a few years ago when he worked as a glazier.

“As a result of this injury he was taking strong painkillers and anti-inflammatories but they were affecting him,” she said.

“So he cut back on the tablets and found himself using cannabis as medicinal, to assist with the pain.

“He decided, rather foolishly, he would grow a small amount for his own personal use.”

She added: “There was no sophistication in the operation and it is quite clear he was unsure what he was doing.”

Ms Shaw said he found the stun gun on a night out in Manchester when he saw a group of men arguing with some bouncers.

She said: “Later the men approached him in the street with a view to attacking him.

“He dropped his mobile phone and one of the persons involved also dropped an item.

“He recovered this, took it home and discovered it was a stun gun.”

She claimed the first time he found out it had a CS gas attachment was when it was examined at the police station.

He admitted charges of cultivation and possession of cannabis and possession of an offensive weapon on Thursday.

Magistrates gave him a 12-month sentence, which they suspended for a year.

http://www.northwichguardian.co.uk/news/4694629.Cannabis_use_was_to__assist_with_pain_relief_/ ]]>

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But he was stopped by police sniffer dogs in Brogeda, in Italy as he tried to cross the border from Switzerland on a coach.

He had hidden the sausage roll in a chill box along with other foods to try and disguise the smell of the cannabis.

One officer said: "He had put it next to some very ripe cheese and salami to confuse the scent.

"He went to a lot of trouble but either our dog was hungry and went straight to the food, or he didn't hide the smell fo the cannabis as well as he thought he had."

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?Smuggled_cannabis_sausage_rolls_uncovered_in_chill_box&in_article_id=757764&in_page_id=2 ]]>

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That's just part of the story. Interventions to prevent cannabis use typically do not succeed for every person who is treated. Depending on how effective an intervention is at preventing cannabis use, it would be necessary to treat even higher numbers of users to achieve the thousands of successful results necessary to prevent a very few cases of schizophrenia.

Matt Hickman, one of the authors of the report recently published in the journal Addiction, said that "preventing cannabis use is important for many reasons -- including reducing tobacco and drug dependence and improving school performance. But our evidence suggests that focusing on schizophrenia may have been misguided. Our research cannot resolve the question whether cannabis causes schizophrenia, but does show that many people need to give up cannabis in order to have an impact on the number of people with schizophrenia. The likely impact of re-classifying cannabis in the UK on schizophrenia or psychosis incidence is very uncertain."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022101538.htm ]]>

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The writer of the Mile Highs and Lows column will offer insights not only into the best decor - do you want the hippy experience or the clinical? - but will also offer an opinion on more than a dozen kinds of marijuana, from White Widow to Afghan Gold Seal, that come at up to $130 (£78) an ounce.

The reviewer's post was proposed by a Westword journalist, Joel Warner, who has written about Colorado's medical marijuana industry for several years. He noticed a disparity in the places selling pot.

"Some really looked like your college drug dealer's dorm room. You know, Bob Marley posters on the wall and big marijuana leaf posters," Warner said. "But then some were so fancy, like dentist's offices. They had bubbling aquariums in the lobby and were so clean. I thought, somebody needs to review these. Somebody needs to tell people what these places are like."

Westword has received applications from more than 120 prospective reviewers, some of whom have offered to work for free - presumably with expenses paid. "Marijuana isn't just important to me, it is my life," wrote one enthusiastic applicant.

But there is a catch. Whoever gets the job has to be able to buy marijuana legally for medical reasons.

Marijuana is illegal under US federal law but has been unbanned in some states for medical use as a prescription drug. Amid growing acceptance of dope smoking as a pain reliever, the Obama administration this week instructed the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies not to raid marijuana dispensaries that are legal under state law or arrest their customers.

That is an important shift. Until now, while local and state police ignored the dispensaries, the DEA could swoop at any time and often did.

California was the first state to approve medical marijuana dispensaries in 1996 but there has been a real boom in recent years. The number in Los Angeles alone has gone from four in 2005 to about 800 today. Colorado has more than 100.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/21/marijuana-cannabis-newspaper-westword-colorado ]]>

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Much of the criticism that has been levelled at the Obama administration in recent months by progressives forgets this basic truth of politics. It's one thing to bang the "change drum" in an election campaign. It's another thing to use the levers of power wisely, in a way that makes that change durable.

When Barack Obama came into power, drug policy reformers were hopeful that, finally, the ill-conceived war on drugs – a war that has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, incarcerated millions of Americans, created narco-states throughout much of Latin America and failed to reduce the availability or use of illegal substances – would be ended.

After all, Obama himself had frankly admitted to his youthful experiments with an array of drugs. The new drug tsar, Gil Kerlikowske, favoured a "harm reduction" strategy that viewed drugs more as a medical than a criminal justice problem. And senior administration officials were committed to ending the sentencing disparities between crack and powder cocaine offences.

Well, not surprisingly, big-picture changes didn't occur instantaneously. And, if you follow the chatter on drug policy reform sites, much of the initial optimism faded. On Monday, it came roaring back.

Eric Holder, the US attorney general, announced that the feds would no longer launch raids against, and prosecute, legitimate medical marijuana dispensers and users in the 14 states around the country that have passed legislation (or citizen initiatives) allowing for the use of medical marijuana.

In and of itself, this is a relatively minor event, a common-sense corrective to another rigid and bullying Bush-era policy. And, in and of itself, there's not much political capital at stake here for Obama. After all, you've got to be a pretty zealous drug-warrior to get truly morally outraged by cancer patients taking a few hits of weed to ease their nausea. With all the other troubles facing America, most Americans probably aren't too happy with scarce resources being spent on prosecuting doper-grannies and their prescription pot suppliers.

But, there's a bigger story here. And it's that story of the ship of state.

If you exercise too sharp a turn, you risk capsizing. If you go into the turn gradually, giving yourself plenty of room to manoeuvre, you've got a much better chance of getting where you want to ultimately go.

There's popular support for leaving medical marijuana dispensaries and users alone. Nationally, support for marijuana legalisation is at its highest point in decades, and in some states, including California, there's now majority popular support for a broad legalisation of the drug. Last year Arnold Schwarzenegger himself broached the notion that it might be time to have a debate on this. After years in the policy wilderness, reform groups such as the Drug Policy Alliance and the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (Norml) are attracting high-profile followers to their causes.

Like the medical marijuana laws, the legalisation of pot would place individual states in legal conflict with the federal government. Under previous administrations, the knee-jerk war on drugs response would have been to launch prosecutions, to prove to the states that the feds had the muscle and the willpower to nip legalisation in the bud (as it were).

With the current policy shift on medical marijuana, and the implicit understanding that Washington is now ready to leave enforcement of such laws up to the states, there's room for the feds to step back if and when the next wave of marijuana laws comes to pass at the state level.

And, if the sky doesn't fall as a result of this new federal stance (or non-stance), over time the American public – conditioned since Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs in the early 1970s to regard drugs first and foremost as a criminal justice issue – will likely become more tolerant of this new, gentler, approach. And, once opinion poll numbers start moving away from more general support for the war on drugs, an increasing number of politicians will feel they have cover to do what they already know needs to be done: wind down a war that has long been unwinnable and which is now, in an era of straitened public finances, increasingly unaffordable.

If you analyse politics simply via the 24-hour-news-cycle, then Obama's achievements in reforming drug policy have been modest. But, if you think long term – and in writing my book Inside Obama's Brain I came to understand that Obama thinks long-term in a way that few recent presidents have done – then I would venture to bet that Monday's shift on medical marijuana presages some fundamental changes in how America approaches its many drug problems in the years to come.

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The four new additions to the Cannabis Science Policy Advisory Board

Robert Raich

Robert A. Raich practices law in Oakland, California, and is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Texas School of Law. He is one of the most respected attorneys in the area of medical marijuana. He is General Counsel of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, and was one of the attorneys in the U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop. and another federal medical cannabis case. He is a member of the California Attorney General's Medical Marijuana Task Force (Chairman, Caregiver Issues Subcommittee).

Sean T. McAllister

Sean T. McAllister is a public interest attorney with offices in Denver and Summit County. Sean has been involved with drug policy reform efforts for over a decade. He serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Sensible Colorado. Sean is a lifetime member of the NORML Legal Committee. He is a member and Board member of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar. He helped start the Colorado Bar Association Criminal Sentencing Project in 2005 to focus on criminal justice and drug policy reform. Recently, Sean was appointed to the Governor`s Drug Policy Task Force, which is working on reducing drug-sentencing laws to save the state money while maintaining public safety. Along with Brian Vicente, Sean recently founded the Canna-Business Institute designed to educate dispensary owners and caregivers on how to legally operate medical marijuana businesses in Colorado.

Warren Edson

Warren Edson is an experienced criminal defense lawyer in Colorado, having taken part in over 1,000 trials. He is also one of the organizers of Colorado's Medical Marijuana Law, Amendment 20, and is a Lifetime Member, NORML Legal Committee, and is a member, Colorado Criminal Defense Bar, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and is a Board Member, Colorado NORML.

Robert J. Corry, Jr.

Robert J. Corry, Jr. is a Denver-based civil rights and criminal defense attorney, specializing in medical marijuana, who has successfully litigated several high profile cases around the country. He is admitted to the bars of Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C., federal courts in these jurisdictions, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. Mr. Corry earned his law degree from Stanford University.

About Cannabis Science, Inc.

Cannabis Science, Inc. is at the forefront of medical marijuana research and development. The Company works with world authorities on phytocannabinoid science targeting critical illnesses, and adheres to scientific methodologies to develop, produce, and commercialize phytocannabinoid-based pharmaceutical products. In sum, we are dedicated to the creation of cannabis-based medicines, both with and without psychoactive properties, to treat disease and the symptoms of disease, as well as for general health maintenance.

This Press Release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. A statement containing works such as "anticipate," "seek," intend," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "project," "plan," or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Some or all of the events or results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not occur. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. Cannabis Science, Inc. does not undertake any duty nor does it intend to update the results of these forward-looking statements.

Cannabis Science Inc.
Dr. Robert J. Melamede, President & CEO, 1-888-889-0888
info@cannabisscience.com
www.cannabisscience.com
or
Peter Glaser, Investor Relations, 1-954-687-3717
info@cannabisscience.com
www.cannabisscience.com

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS141096+21-Oct-2009+BW20091021 ]]>

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But he warned that the authorities would continue to go after traffickers hiding behind medical marijuana laws.

The policy is considered a sharp shift from that of the Bush administration.

California became the first state to permit medical use of cannabis in 1996. It allows special facilities to sell the drug and even to advertise.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could continue to enforce US law barring the cultivation, possession and use of cannabis for any purpose, even when states had legalised it.
'Step forward'

But in a policy memo issued by the Department of Justice on Monday, prosecutors were told they "should not focus federal resources in your states on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana".

However, they will be required to go after people who distribute more than is permitted under state law or use it as a cover for weapons offences, money laundering and other crimes.

"We will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal," Mr Holder said in a statement.

According to the government, 14 states allow some use of cannabis for medical purposes - Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

However, Maryland only allows for reduced penalties for those found to have used cannabis solely for medical reasons.

Advocates of the medical use of cannabis argue that it is effective in treating chronic pain and nausea, among other ailments.

"This is a major step forward," Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project told the Associated Press news agency.

"This change in policy moves the federal government dramatically toward respecting scientific and practical reality."

But critics said it signalled a retreat in the fight against Mexican drug cartels, whose largest source of revenue in the US is cannabis.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8315603.stm ]]>

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Proponents of medical marijuana have not stopped there, however. Advocates cite reports that marijuana can be beneficial in treating a range of illnesses, even though the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration provide few, if any, opportunities for researchers to investigate these claims.

One of the least publicized of these claims is that cannabis can be a help for people with Multiple Sclerosis. MS affects the ability of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord to communicate with each other due to damage of the myelin sheath, an insulating coat around nerve cells that allow them to pass electrical signals. While theories abound for ultimate causes of MS, from genetics to environmental exposure to toxins, it is well understood to be an autoimmune disease. That is, the body’s natural defense systems attack the myelin layers in the brain. In that sense, it is like other chronic conditions, including Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus.

Recently, indirect evidence has surfaced which could go a long way in explaining the potential for marijuana to improve the outlook for MS patients. Scientists generally believe that marijuana’s high is a result of cannabinols, the active ingredients in the smoke, binding to a receptor on brain cells called CB1 receptors.

In June, Temple University physiologist Ron Tuma and his team released a report on work they have done studying a related receptor known as CB2. The Microvascular Research report reveals that selectively targeting CB2 receptors reduces injury and tissue death after a certain kind of stroke. Additionally, a New Zealand pharmacologist at the University of Auckland, Michelle Glass, recently noted that activating the CB2 receptors can shield neurons from damage, possibly by stopping immune cells in the brain, known as microglia, from triggering an inflammatory response.

Some drug researchers find this particularly exciting because binding proteins to the CB2 receptors does not result in people getting high. How much attention this gets from pharmaceutical companies may depend on how widespread the CB2 receptors are in the body, a matter of some scientific controversy. In the meantime, patients with MS will just have to put up with getting stoned.

http://colorsnw.com/colors/2009/10/14/art-of-healing-cannabis-may-fight-auto-immune-diseases/ ]]>

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Herer had improved enough to be released from Emanuel and moved, said Paul Stanford, a longtime friend who is executive director of The Hemp and Cannabis Foundation in Portland.

"He is waking up and gazing appropriately when someone's talking," Stanford said Monday, "but he's not really communicating in any way."

The heavy-set Herer suffered a stroke in 2000, and for several years after, he struggled to regain his speech and locomotion. Stanford said that before Herer addressed the Sept. 12 festival at Portland's Kelley Point Park, "Jack was telling everyone that he never felt better."

Herer wrote the 1985 book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," a history of hemp that he self-published and distributed underground on his constant speaking trips across the United States, mainly to college campuses. The book is in its 11th printing and is considered the founding document of the legalization movement in the Just Say No era.

Herer wrote much of "Emperor" while living in Portland campaigning for legalization and later was instrumental in two West Coast voter initiatives to allow patients to use marijuana as medicine -- California in 1996 and Oregon in 1998.

A cantankerous, boisterous, zealous promoter of hemp and marijuana, Herer was the subject of a 1999 documentary "The Emperor of Hemp" financed by Anita Roderick, founder of The Body Shop.

"He is a true American original," said Rick Cusick, associate publisher of High Times magazine. "He's lovable to a ridiculous degree even as he's annoying to a ridiculous degree, and I say that with deep, deep love."

"He wins over everybody he's ever met," Cusick said. "The reason he wins them over is that in a world filled with phonies, he is absolutely sincere."

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/10/marijuana_activist_showing_sig.html ]]>

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Studies have indicated that cannabis smoke can injure the lungs and regular smoking has been associated with chronic respiratory symptoms.

A spokesman for the Majorca court probing Stephen’s death has insisted drink or drugs were not factors in his death.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/10/15/stephen-gately-consumed-cannabis-on-the-day-he-died-claim-reports-115875-21747707/ ]]>

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The city auditor projected the tax would ring up to $17.5 million in sales.

Richard Lee, Head of Oaksterdam University, the US's first cannabis college, told Sky News the rest of California could follow suit.

He estimates the Californian cannabis industry is worth around "$15 billion, so just the 10-percent sales tax alone would be one and a half billion dollars."

However Special Agent Bob Cook from the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement doubts the tax collected would offset the damage he thinks may be caused from the use of the drug.

He points to people who are now ill from smoking tobacco, now in hospital.

"We're not making enough money now to care for all these people who are in hospitals who have developed emphysema, lung disease, throat cancer, circulation issues..who's going to pay for all of that?" Cook told Sky News.

Advocates of marijuana in the state of California have started their push to get a marijuana legalisation measure on California's 2010 ballot.

Supporters of the Tax Cannabis 2010 campaign need nearly 434,000 signatures to make the November 2010 ballot.

Under the proposal, adults 21 and older could legally possess up to an ounce of pot.

Homeowners could grow limited amounts, and local governments would decide whether to allow pot sales.

Supporters argue taxes levied on marijuana sales could help strapped cities weather revenue shortfalls caused by the recession and California's budget crisis.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1109281/Legalising-cannabis-could-stop-recession ]]>

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It is a cross between Bubble Gum and Kush with relaxing, narcotic and long lasting effects.

It was a first prize winner in the High Times Cannabis Cup (HTCC) 1996.

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The two professionals who say this, Guifeng Jiang and Jason R Stenzel, cooked up the report for Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc, of San Jose, California. Jiang works for the company. Stenzel is part of Washington State Patrol's Crime Laboratory Division in the remote town of Cheney.

By "minimal sample preparation", Jiang and Stenzel mean minimal compared to the traditional method for testing the genuineness of leaf marijuana, hashish, hash oil, and what they lovingly call "residue collected from smoking paraphernalia".

Their traditional method may not be your traditional method. Their traditional method, they explain, is gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the professional forensic lab technician's favourite way to identify the presence or absence of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabinol and cannabidiol, the most famous ingredients of marijuana or hashish.

By "no chemical derivatisation", Jiang and Stenzel mean without the rigamarole of doing chemical reactions that produce related substances which are easier to identify than the originals (the originals in this case being the aforementioned THC, cannabinol and cannabidiol).

Out with the old glitzy method, in with the new. Jiang and Stenzel prefer using ultra high-performance liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry (UHPLC/MS). As it happens, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc manufactures UHPLC/MS equipment, one variety of which, the Accela UHPLC system, proved handy when Jiang and Stenzel decided to test their baked goods.

They are slightly coy when describing where they got the goods. "Brownie and cookie samples were obtained from evidence archived after adjudication" is all they say about it, other than vaguely muttering that it "was known to contain" THC, and that "after 10 years in the forensic laboratory's training vault, cannabinoids in the cookie sample had degraded significantly".

Jiang and Stetzel had some fun with those brownies and cookies. They crumbled them, added some methanol, vortexed the gooey mixture, allowed it to settle for two minutes, filtered it through a cotton-plugged Pasteur pipette, centrifuged it at 12,000 revolutions per minute for 90 seconds, then centrifuged it again.

Following this minimal sample preparation, they ran it through the ol' Accela UHPLC system, and then through an MSQ Plus single quadrupole LC/MS detector that uses Thermo Fisher's Xcalibur 2.05 software.

That's pretty much the story of what they did – and what you can do, too, if you have this equipment on hand the next time someone gives you purportedly marijuana-containing cakes, breads, buns, doughnuts, tarts or pies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/06/improbable-research-marijuana-muffins ]]>

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A much-awaited study came from the University of California, San Francisco, where Donald Abrams and colleagues tested the effects of adding marijuana to the therapeutic regimen of chronic pain patients on long-term morphine or oxycodone therapy. Unfortunately, because the researchers were crunching numbers right up until the conference, the abstract doesn’t include a lot of details. But the study shows that marijuana did indeed add significant pain relief on top of that already provided by the narcotic painkillers. The scientists conclude, “Cannabinoids may augment the analgesic effects of opioids, allowing longer treatment at lower doses with fewer side effects.”

Meanwhile, British researchers added to the body of evidence indicating that marijuana can aid the treatment of multiple sclerosis. Two-hundred and seventy-nine patients received either a standardized cannabis extract, given orally, or a placebo. Patients receiving the extract were twice as likely to experience relief of muscle stiffness, and also reported relief of body pain, spasms, and sleep problems.

http://www.enewspf.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=10629:new-evidence-that-marijuana-is-safe-effective&amp;catid=88888904&amp;Itemid=88890249 ]]>

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"There is no crime here. The politicians who support this extradition are supporters of organized crime. We are making criminals with laws like this," said Emery.

After his surrender, Emery was expected to be sent to North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam, east of Vancouver, to await extradition to the U.S., a process the judge suggested will likely take a month to complete.

Once extradited, Emery, 51, is expected to plead guilty in a Seattle court to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. The leader of B.C.'s Marijuana Party, who runs a magazine called Cannabis Culture, faces a five-year prison term as part of a plea deal.

Emery was arrested in 2005 — following an investigation by Canadian and U.S. police — for allegedly selling marijuana seeds over the internet from Vancouver to residents of the U.S.

He said accepting jail time allowed his two co-accused — Michelle Rainey and Greg Williams — to each be given two years' probation. Had he gambled on a trial, he could have faced up to 50 years behind bars, he said.
Ready for jail term

Emery said his biggest concern about serving time in a U.S. prison is the boredom he will face.

"Boredom is the primary problem in jail, so I'm hoping to keep busy with books and writing, and learning languages — French and Spanish," he told CBC News.

His wife, Jodie Emery, is trying not to think about what awaits her husband.

"It'll be very lonely, but that'll just encourage me to get him back in my arms as soon as possible," she told CBC News. Her plan is to lobby the federal government for Emery's swift transfer to a Canadian prison.

Emery has said his business made millions of dollars over the years selling marijuana seeds by mail order and running a hemp product store in downtown Vancouver. He said he used the money to run his many political campaigns and to support marijuana advocacy groups around the world.

http://www.cbc.ca ]]>

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Medical marijuana has become big business in California and the drug is approved for a range of conditions and for “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief”. In these straitened financial times, booming sales and healthy tax revenues mean that full legalisation of cannabis may be just around the corner.

The Harborside Health Centre — opened by Stephen DeAngelo, 51, in 2006 — alone employs 77 people, has 30,000 registered patients and brings in about $20 million (£12.4 million) annually in revenue.

Across California there are an estimated 2,100 dispensaries, co-operatives, wellness clinics and taxi delivery services in the sector known as “cannabusiness”. That is more than all the Starbucks, McDonald’s and 7-Eleven outlets in the state put together.

These dispensaries, with names like My Green Heaven Ministry, sell marijuana in bud and resin forms and offer other cannabis products, including hash cookies, cooking oils and bottled drinks.

In some high-end stores, there are pastry chefs to ensure the highest-quality cannabis baked goods. Most cannabis co-operatives, which produce their own plants, also sell potted plants and seeds for patients to grow their own medicine.

“People are choosing to become legal cannabis consumers because they don’t want to go out on the corners and deal with thugs and gangsters to get their medicine,” Mr DeAngelo told The Times.

Activists and business owners at last week’s annual conference of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in San Francisco are feeling more optimistic about the future of dope in America than they have for years — because they have economics on their side.

The recession has made the prospect of collecting taxes on marijuana sales as tempting as ending Prohibition was in the 1930s to many politicians.

Legalisation might bring state and federal governments about $7 billion annually in additional tax revenue, while saving them $13.5 billion in law enforcement costs, Jeffrey Miron, the Harvard economist, estimates.

In California Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governor, who has had to cut services to handle a $24 billion budget deficit for the coming year, has suggested that legalisation should be considered.

Tom Ammiano, a Democrat California assemblyman from San Francisco, has introduced a Bill to treat marijuana like alcohol, taxing sales to adults while barring possession by anyone under 21. He estimates that this would generate up to $1.3 billion in revenues. There is also a voter initiative to put legalisation on a ballot in elections next year.

Many, such as Mr DeAngelo, see medical marijuana as the route to full legalisation. More than 70 per cent of Americans favour the use of medical cannabis. Allen St Pierre, executive director of NORML, said: “The vanguard of reform is medical access. The Baby Boomer generation grew up with marijuana and now have the reins of power. Every measurable metric is swinging our way.”

Already, dozens of dispensaries are opening in states from Oregon to Colorado to Rhode Island. Thirteen states have laws that allow patients to use marijuana, typically to alleviate chronic pain, deal with the effects of chemotherapy or even as an appetite stimulant. Fifteen states are considering similar legislation in the coming year.

Proposals by Mr DeAngelo — who uses marijuana to relieve pain from a degenerative disease — for Oakland’s four cannabis dispensaries to pay an extra sales duty have been adopted, making it the first place in America that collects a specific cannabis tax.

Mr DeAngelo estimates that the authorities will receive an extra $1 million next year. California required dispensaries to pay sales tax only in 2007. Conservative estimates put gross statewide medical cannabis sales at about $2.5 billion, generating taxes of about $220 million.

All this has occurred under a federal regime that still outlaws medical cannabis. Officially, the US Government has banned cannabis sales since the 1930s, but over the past decade or so the federal authorities have scaled down punitive action. In late February, Eric Holder, the Attorney-General, confirmed that federal raids and prosecutions would no longer be carried out against anyone complying with state medical marijuana laws.

Today California has up to 400,000 medical marijuana patients. About 600 came to Harborside for the drug each day, Mr DeAngelo said.

“It is good for insomnia, stress, anxiety and chronic pain.” And for the economy, he could have added.

Potted history

• Marijuana was used medicinally in the ancient world and has been in use in Eastern cultures for thousands of years. It was introduced to Western medicine by William Brooke O’Shaughnessy, an Irish physician, who conducted a cannabis experiment in 1830 while at the Medical College of Calcutta

• Cannabis was sold in the form of a powder or tincture early in the 20th century, but, as concern grew over its associations with crime and psychosis, it was steadily outlawed, then banned altogether by the US Government in 1937

• Some doctors object to the use of cannabis as a medicinal remedy because its effects can be unpredictable. Most pharmaceuticals are formed from a purified chemical compound. In contrast, marijuana, which usually consists of the dried, ground-up flowers of a plant, contains at least 400 compounds, including more than 60 cannabinoids, which have therapeutic effects. The proportions of these compounds vary greatly from plant to plant, and smoking — which allows cannabis to enter the bloodstream faster than ingesting the drug — seems to many to be an undesirable way to deliver medicine to sick patients

• There are pharmaceutical forms of cannabis on the market and companies are pursuing more reliable commercial chemical variants

• The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has ruled that there is no scientific justification for the medical use of marijuana. According to the DEA: “Legalisation of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behaviour and drugged drivers.” Despite this, the latest federal survey indicates that more than 100 million Americans have tried the drug at some point.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/health/article6851523.ece ]]>

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The California Supreme Court on Wednesday denied review and let stand a 3rd District Court of Appeal opinion in July upholding the right of patients to collective growth of marijuana.

The opinion also affirmed the ability of patients to sue if their right to collectively cultivate is violated by local law enforcement.

The 3rd District’s decision upheld a 2007 ruling by Butte Superior Court Judge Barbara Roberts that seriously ill people cultivating collectively “should not be required to risk criminal penalties and the stress and expense of a criminal trial in order to assert their rights.”

The county had argued grower David Williams should have allowed himself to be arrested and then sought vindication through prosecution.

Williams was forced by a sheriff’s deputy in 2005 to uproot 29 of 42 plants on his Paradise property or face arrest and prosecution. Americans for Safe Access, an advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against Butte County in 2006 on behalf of Williams and the six other collective members.

Roberts rejected the county’s argument that California’s Compassionate Use Act prohibits collective cultivation. The case now goes back to Roberts.

ASA spokesman Kris Hermes said Thursday the plaintiffs will seek damages and attorneys’ fees from the county.

http://www.sacbee.com/

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More than a dozen states have followed suit since and several others - the most recent of which is Massachusetts - have approved laws decriminalising the possession of small amounts of the drug.

Now, there are moves afoot in California to go further to fully legalise marijuana.

Evidence of the impact that the approval of medicinal marijuana has had on some areas of California is clear in Oakland.

Across the bay from San Francisco, it has come to be known as Oaksterdam, in a nod to the symbolic global capital of marijuana deregulation, Amsterdam.

The relaxed approach to marijuana use in this part of Oakland has led to the opening of several marijuana dispensaries.

They are establishments in this once deprived area of town which sell a broad array of cannabis related products, from food products such as brownies and cereal bars laced with cannabis to traditional marijuana for smoking.

Oaksterdam University

"This is where it all started," says Richard Lee, a leading advocate for the legalisation of cannabis, pointing to a building where the first ever dispensary was opened in 1996.

His sense of excitement is palpable as he shows me around Oaksterdam, which beyond dispensaries is also home to a facility where state residents can go through the process of getting the ID needed for their right to use cannabis for medical purposes.

The area is also home to the Oaksterdam University, which Mr Lee runs.

He shows me around the student union of the university, which he describes as a trade school for all of those interested in finding a place in the thriving cannabis trade that medicinal marijuana has spawned.

Mr Lee tells me that making cannabis use legal makes economic sense but would also help in the fight against the Mexican drugs cartels.

"According to some estimates, the Mexican cartels get about 60-70% of their money - their profit - from cannabis," he tells me.

"So if we cut that out of the equation then theoretically 60-70% of the violence they perpetrate would be cut out, because they'd have less money for the guns and weapons and ammunition to kill people and to spend on bribing officials and all the rest," Mr Lee says.

Trailblazing

That perspective, along with the fact that the California state authorities estimate that marijuana could bring in nearly $1.5bn a year in much needed tax revenue if it were legalised, has led to an increased support among the state's voters for the full legalisation of the drug.

And, politicians like Tom Ammiano, who represents one of the most liberal districts of San Francisco in the California state assembly, have been paying close attention.

Mr Ammiano came into politics as a trailblazing gay rights activist in the 1970s and has long advocated greater tolerance for cannabis use.

Earlier this year, he took that approach one step further and introduced a bill in the California state assembly, which, if approved, would grant cannabis the same legal status in the state as alcohol and tobacco.

That would put California ahead of even Amsterdam, where marijuana use is tolerated but not altogether legal.

Sitting with him in his office in the state government building in San Francisco, with its sweeping views of the city, it becomes very clear that his proposal is far from a flight of fancy.

He tells me he has been finding that more and more of his colleagues in the state assembly are coming around to seeing why moving towards legalisation makes perfect sense.

'Lighten up'

"People across the board, whether they're conservative or liberal, have come to realise that the so-called war on drugs has failed and failed miserably," Mr Ammiano says.

"In fact, it's costing us money instead of saving us money. This new approach would be a way for the policing efforts to be focused on the big bad guys, the cartels, with their violence and murder, and lighten up on the more minor offenses. We like to say prohibition is chaos and regulation is control," he adds.

"On the streets a drug dealer does not ask a kid for his ID before selling him cannabis," he concludes with an acerbic, humorous tone that serves as proof that he has, beyond politics, also had some success in his other career as a stand-up comedian.

But, despite his optimistic tone, Mr Ammiano says that he knows that those who oppose his proposal, including key figures in the medical and law enforcement community, are armed with statistics pointing to the damaging long-term effect of the drug and have the stamina and resources to wage a major fight to ensure that the bill never gets signed into law.

One of those opponents of the proposal is Ronald Brooks, the president of the National Narcotic Officers' Associations' Coalition, which represents more than 70,000 narcotics enforcement officers in the US.

We meet in the town of Redwood City, south of San Francisco, and as I get in his car, we drive past what appears to be a nondescript office building.
'Seriously flawed'

However, he tells me that, in the 1980s, it was a bank - the place where his partner on the police force was killed in front of him by a ruthless marijuana dealer, who was carrying out a bank robbery to fund his drug business.

He says experiences like that have strengthened his resolve that America can't allow itself to take on a more lenient approach to marijuana.

"This argument of freeing up law enforcement so that we can take on the cartels is seriously flawed," he tells me.

"This is really a hoax being perpetrated on the voters of California to authorise their political agenda - that is to legalise marijuana as one step to legalise drugs in America because they simply don't think that the government ought to control drugs," he adds.

"The people who are going to lose if this gets approved are the taxpayers because we're going to have increased costs associated with this, both healthcare and law enforcement costs, and the people who have to drive on the state's highways who are going to be in danger from being hit by someone intoxicated from using cannabis. This is simply a reckless public policy," he concludes.

Back across the San Francisco Bay in Oakland, specifically Oaksterdam, the patrons of the Bulldog Cafe are enjoying their legally sanctioned right to consume marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Emerging industry

Gary has travelled from Texas for the weekend to attend a seminar on the cannabis trade at the Oaksterdam University across the street.

He is in his 50s, but says he is hoping to take the information he has picked up in his course on the cannabis business and make a life-transforming move in the coming months to California.

"My girlfriend and I are interested in moving to California from Texas to become a part of this here. We're not quite sure where we fit in but we want to get into the business itself. We feel it's an emerging industry, and this is where I feel compelled to come," he tells me as the smell of cannabis wafts through the room.

Like Gary, there are hundreds of others participating in the courses at the Oaksterdam University on any given week.

Beyond that, there are more than 200,000 people in the state registered as consumers of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

As for Mr Ammiano's proposal to legalise marijuana in the state, that is still making its way through the California state assembly and it is difficult to say whether it will succeed or not.

What is clear, however, is that whatever the outcome of the legalisation proposal, the medical marijuana law and the multi-million dollar industry it has spawned appear to be here to stay in California.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8275794.stm

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When asked about the possible harms caused by his recipe, he said users should be more concerned with impurities from the manufacturing process, rather than worry over the harms caused by the substance iself.

JHW-018 is a CBD receptor agonist. What that means is, just like the THC it is meant to replace, JHW-018 works directly on the CB1 and CB2 receptors in the human body to create a very similar high to that which cannabis creates. And as Huffman himself says, "You can't overdose on THC."

So without a direct risk associated with this product, one would have to ask why its getting banned? And to find out the answer to this it was necessary for me to get hold of some. Purely in the interests of research you understand..

JWH-018
I ordered a packet of JWH-018 and I only waited a single working day for my delivery to arrive. But as I was out of the house when it arrived I had to wait 24 hours then collect it from my local sorting office as a signature was required.

On returning from the sorting office I immediately opened my package, which is still legal to buy in the UK, to find a see-thru ziplock bag with a printed label on it which read. "JWH-018 - 250mg - (1-pentyl-3)1-napthoyl) indole)". And in big red letters it stated quite clearly this was not for human consumption.

Indeed this is one of the mixes which is marketed as a plant feeder, but which everyone who buys it seems to consume instead of cannabis.

Inside the larger ziplock bag was another, smaller ziplock, and this contained a scary looking white crystaline substance which had about it the feintest yellow tinge.

Health & Safety?
Perhaps most important of all is the fact there were no safety sheets provided to buyers who purchase JWH-018. And right away we can see a problem with the UK and its current stance on drugs, or anything which could be construed as an analogue of a drug.

The fact is tens of thousands of people will buy this substance right up until it is physically banned. But as vendors prefer to market it as a plant feed it is sold without any safety data regarding doseage etc. Meaning there is a very real risk of consuming too much. And with a substance on which we have no history the risks associated with using JWH-018 are clear.

Before trying out the substance I wanted to do a bit of research just so I was happy in my own mind I was not about to kill myself, so I visited the font of all drug knowledge and a website which every one with an interest in recreational drugs should familiarize themselves with; Erowid !

Erowid
A website which by its own admission, is exploring the complex relationship between humans and psychoactives.

On carrying out a search for the term JWH-018 I was presented with a number of articles written by individuals who had tried the JWH-018 for the first time. So I did some reading, and without the a doubt the biggest concern amongst the many voiced, related to doseage, or the amount used, and for me this is the biggest issue with all the legal high's which are for sale currently. No one knows how much to take so every time a person uses legal high's they put themselves in the laps of the gods. And the same can be said with all the other legal high's such as khat, (available on every high street in the UK), salvia divinorum, magic mushrooms as well as the plethora of pills potions and lotions which have come to market over the last 5 years or so.

If you want to reduce harm from drugs, surely its better to tell people how to use them safely rather than let them die and say "we TOLD you so"?

JWH-018 The Substance
The substance itself came as a pure white powder looking for all the world like cocaine. In good natural light it has something of a yellow tint to it, but its very hard to see and for all intents this stuff is pure white.

In the bag itself the powder comes in two distinct forms. First of all the powder (obviously) is the majority, but mixed in the powder are also some small rocks; obviously a by-product of the manufacturing process. Think of a crack-cocaine rock but much smaller and you won't be far off base.

These rocks are small as mentioned, but don't let their diminutive stature take you by surprise. If one of these rocks finds its way into your joint you ARE in for a white knuckle ride, but more on that later.

For the sake of my first time using this stuff I decided to go easy. SUPER easy in fact, and if you think of a regular hand-sized pen-knife, this is what I used to get the substance out of the bag. I place the tip of the pen-knife into the white powder and removed the knife from the bag with just the tip covered in white powder.

The next problem is, how to spread such a small amount of JHW-018 across a single-skin king sized joint. In the end I was distributing literally, tiny white specks throughout the tobacco and with a seasoned display of origami I was ready to light up.

The first puff always gets wasted as its only paper, but on inhaling the second toke the effect was almost instant, with the elevator effect of good home-grown weed kicking in pretty soon after. I took another toke in quick succession and then put the joint down to weigh things up a while. Although I'm used to smoking good grass, this was a totally new experience. My body was totally clean of the substance I was ingesting so a quick uptake was only to be expected. After about 15 minutes I feel like I have consumed four fingers of good malt whisky. My cheeks are warmed up nicely and I have the beginnings of what the canna-sseur may call something similar to a 'sativa' buzz. Its all in the head and around the shoulders. with absolutely no effect at all in the body and legs.

All of which seems like a great trip for the recreational or creative user, but for those who use cannabis as a medicine I'm not feeling any of the benefits in my lower limbs. So I fire the joint up again and consume some more, all the while sitting in front of my laptop writing the days news up for CannaZine Cannabis News.

As is often the case I lose myself in time and an hour later I break away from my writing to reach for the joint again, only to find out it is long gone. The ashtray cooled down some while ago.

I take stock of the situation and suddenly realise I'm hammered. But the stone is definitely what I would call 'creative'.

After losing myself in my writing I carried on smoking. As is often the case I have multiple tabs open and I flit from one to another researching material, and time flies. But today it was going by even faster, and my concentration was absolute. I worked late into the night and finally got to sleep on the sofa around 4 or 5am, having consumed three joints in total.

At 7am the youngest member of the household (8 years of age) comes and switch's on the TV and sits on my legs with his blanket and teddy. A sure signal its time to get up and make his breakfast so he can get ready for school.

I make myself a strong black coffee and take stock. Apart from feeling groggy through lack of sleep my head is clear, I have zero tightness around the chest (a sure sign of a good night), and I can recount my 6 times table without effort. Looking good.

With the kids gone to school and my partner out shopping I settle down to some more writing. But by 11am I'm starting to wane a little. I need to get some sleep so I decide to roll a joint of JHW-018 and see if it can help switch my brain off.

So I go through my routine, including the trick with the pointy knife blade, load one together and get back to work.

Only this time there was a subtle difference, as I had not been so careful about filtering the rocks out of the mix, and even as I'm putting the finishing touches to my joint I can see the pure white specks, about the size of half a grain of short-grain rice, sitting just beneath the surface of the paper.

I light the blue touchpaper and get back into my work. Smoking this as if I had been smoking it for years, and as is often the case my blase attitude came back to kick my butt.

The taste is far more intense this time. Its not like plastic as I've read elsewhere, but its not far off. Although I can taste it quite strongly my partner lets me know there is no smell in the room after its been smoked.

..3..2..1
The onset this time was very pronounced. All I can deduce is the first rock must have been consumed in my first toke, and I pigged the lot and held on to it.

In the distance I could hear a feint whistle as the runaway freight train I was about to board was leaving its station at the top of the mountain. The sensations this time were all over. Like smoking the tops off a good full bodied, mature skunk plant. But on top of the limb-stone there was also this strong 'wave' rising up from the base of my spine in a physical pulse, until it cascaded over the top of my skull culminating in an intense head-rush. Just as soon as it was over, it began all over again, at the base of my spine.

By now the buzz is a physical, all over feeling. Its roaring so loud I can almost hear it, and the first sign of anxiety flares in the pit of my stomach. I get a bit fidgity, and decide to go and busy myself elsewhere in the house but as I leave one room and enter another I know the storm is only just beginning as it starts to press down on the top of my head so my spine bends automaticaly under the weight and for the first time I think I might chuck. And still it comes on.

I've now lost the use of my arms and legs, in much the same vein as a boxer does when he is 'blown'. My limbs are jelly and I struggle to carry my coffee. I head upstairs, deciding its time for a lay down.

20-30 minutes later and the stone is now full on, and as such easier to ride. Its not the altitude which is the problem. Its the speed in which you get there, and the elevator has slowed to a crawl as we approach cruising altitude and the seat-belt lights go out.

So I busy myself with some yoga arm excercises to pass the time. I'm happy of the oportunity to think of something else for a while but then a thought dawns on me.

Adhesive Capsulitis
I was recently diagnosed with Adhesive Capsulitis, more commonly known as a frozen shoulder. In short adhesive capsulitis is when adhesions (gristly strips) grow in the shoulder socket and cause restriction in movement, stiffness and pain. Lots of pain. And as a result of this pain there are a number of movements I simply cannot carry out. Or rather I probably could but don't as its super-painful.

So I decided to try to 'yoga' my adhesions in the hope that I would break them, (or break myself in the process), and whilst I could still feel the pain to a degree, it was almost as if I was sensing the pain from the other end of a long corridor. It wasn't at the forefront of my mind and I was able to move my limbs seemingly freely.

So I took advantage and gave my shoulder a real workout of stretching and flexing. A legacy I'm still living with today as its sore and aching. Did it do any good? Only time will tell but one thing I know for a fact is this. My shoulder socket was restricted for movement on both the inside and the outside of the shoulder joint, (closest to and furthest from, my armpit/chest junction). But the restrictions on the inside of the socket are gone. This side of the joint is no longer immoveable. Now, the only movement I can't manage is to lift my left arm up away from the body in a wide arc.

If '6 o clock' was my legs, and 12 o clock was my head, I can only get to about 9 or 10 o clock before the pain is unbearable, from the tricep down to just below my elbow. Not only that but it takes a good minute or two to subside. During which time I feel sick to my stomach.

So it would appear the much touted analgesic qualities ofJHW-018 are plain to behold.

2 hours after my white-knuckle ride started and it was coming to an end. I was flaked out on my bed, listening to some music and massaging my achy shoulder.

The come down wasn't particularly jittery, or certainly not as jittery as the getting up. I was chatting to my partner, laughing at myself for making a pig of myself, and admonishing myself for being careless.

summary
Make no bones about it. This will be off the market just as soon as the politicians can make it happen. And with the benefit of my own experiences I have to say its probably no bad thing. And right here is where I have a real conflict of interests.

On the one hand I believe absolutely in the rights for a person to grow cannabis. I was watching the Discovery Channel recently and a British journalist (Donal Macyntire) was living in the rain-forest with a tribe, who regularly use all sorts of plants and roots to treat their clans, and for everything from period pains to snake bites.

Although they smoked a great deal, if they used cannabis it was well hidden from the camera crews, but during a staged pig hunt, which the tribe had put on for the benefits of the film crew, Donal Macyntire, who was sharing an elevated 'spearing position' with a tribal elder, was chewing a psycho-active root, and getting well giggly they were too.

So plants, and roots have been providing medicine, and dare I say recreation, for as long as time has been documented.

Cannabis
The reason cannabis is outlawed, is because of how useful it is to humanity. In terms of food, fibre, medicine, building materials etc, you name it in fact. And it can be grown using the cannabis plant. But at an immeasurable cost in terms of lost revenues, to big industries like pharmaceuticals, oil, and alcohol.

As a result, all of these new synthetic CB receptor agonists are finding their way to market. Bringing with them a whole new bunch of risks, and all of which are directly attributable to the drug war.

So while I do believe if a person wants to consume cannabis in the privacy of their own home they should be allowed to, I also believe substances like JHW-018 need to be controlled in some way.

As things stand currently it won't be long before people start cutting this substance like they do with cocaine and heroin. And thats a situation which is going to expose cannabis smokers to the same risks people who buy 'cheap' heroin are exposed to.

In my opinion it would be safer to allow people to use the cannabis. As the alternatives could be a lot more dangerous than the drug they've been created to replace.

And there in a nutshell, we have the real danger's created by the irrational war on drugs.

As for JHW-018? Do some homework on your source, and handle with care!

By Red Dragon @ Cannabis Forums CannaZine Cannabis News
http://cannazine.co.uk ]]>

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A glimpse of today's mainstream media landscape indicates that little has changed -- with news outlets continuing to, at best, underreport the publication of scientific studies that undermine the federal government's longstanding pot propaganda and, at worst, ignore them all together.

Here are five recent stories the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about pot:

1. Marijuana Use Is Not Associated With a Rise in Incidences of Schizophrenia

Over the past few years, the worldwide media, as well as federal officials in the United Kingdom, Canada and the U.S. have earnestly promoted the notion that smoking pot induces mental illness.

Perhaps most notably, in 2007 the MSM reported that cannabis "could boost the risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life by about 40 percent" -- a talking point that was also actively promoted by U.S. anti-drug officials.

So, is there any truth to the claim that pot smoking is sparking a dramatic rise in mental illness? Not at all, according to the findings of a study published in July in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

Investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain compared trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Researchers reported that the "incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining" during this period, even the use of cannabis among the general population was rising.

"[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10-year period," the authors concluded. "This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. … This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence."

As of this writing, a handful of news wire reports in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. have reported on the Keele University study. Notably, no American media outlets covered the story.

2. Marijuana Smoke Doesn't Damage the Lungs Like Tobacco

Everyone knows that smoking pot is as damaging, if not more damaging, to the lungs than puffing cigarettes, right?

Wrong, according to a team of New Zealand investigators writing in the European Respiratory Journal in August.

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand compared the effects of cannabis and tobacco smoke on lung function in over 1,000 adults.

They reported: "Cumulative cannabis use was associated with higher forced vital capacity [the volume of air that can forcibly be blown out after full inspiration], total lung capacity, functional residual capacity [the volume of air present in the lungs at the end of passive expiration] and residual volume.

"Cannabis was also associated with higher airways resistance but not with forced expiratory volume in one second [the maximum volume of air that can be forcibly blown out in the first second during the FVC test], forced expiratory ratio, or transfer factor. These findings were similar amongst those who did not smoke tobacco. … By contrast, tobacco use was associated with lower forced expiratory volume in one second, lower forced expiratory ratio, lower transfer factor and higher static lung volumes, but not with airways resistance."

They concluded, "Cannabis appears to have different effects on lung function to those of tobacco."

Predictably, the scientists' "inconvenient truth" was not reported in a single media outlet.

3. Cannabis Use Potentially Protects, Rather Than Harms, the Brain

Does smoking pot kill brain cells? Drinking alcohol most certainly does, and many opponents of marijuana-law reform claim that marijuana's adverse effects on the brain are even worse. Are they correct?

Not according to recent findings published this summer in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology.

Investigators at the University of California at San Diego examined white matter integrity in adolescents with histories of binge drinking and marijuana use. They reported that binge drinkers (defined as boys who consumed five or more drinks in one sitting, or girls who consumed four or more drinks at one time) showed signs of white matter damage in eight regions of the brain.

By contrast, the binge drinkers who also used marijuana experienced less damage in 7 out of the 8 brain regions.

"Binge drinkers who also use marijuana did not show as consistent a divergence from non-users as did the binge drink-only group," authors concluded. "[It is] possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death."

To date, only a handful of U.S. media outlets -- almost exclusively college newspapers -- have reported the story.

4. Marijuana Is a Terminus, Not a 'Gateway,' to Hard Drug Use

Alarmist claims that experimenting with cannabis will inevitably lead to the use of other illicit drugs persist in the media despite statistical data indicating that the overwhelming majority of those who try pot never go on to use cocaine or heroin.

Moreover, recent research is emerging that indicates that pot may also suppress one's desire to use so-called hard drugs.

In June, Paris researchers writing in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology concluded that the administration of oral THC in animals suppressed sensitivity to opiate dependence.

Also this summer, investigators at the New York State Psychiatric Institute reported in the American Journal on Addictions that drug-treatment subjects who use cannabis intermittently were more likely to adhere to treatment for opioid dependence.

Although a press release for the former study appeared on the Web site physorg.com on July 7, neither study ever gained any traction in the mainstream media.

5. Government's Anti-Pot Ads Encourage, Rather Than Discourage, Marijuana Use

Sure, many of us already knew that the federal government's $2 billion ad campaign targeting pot was failing to dissuade viewers from toking up, but who knew it was this bad?

According to a new study posted online in the journal Health Communication, survey data published by investigators at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania found that many of the government's public-service announcements actually encouraged pot use.

Researchers assessed the attitudes of over 600 adolescents, age 12 to 18, after viewing 60 government-funded anti-marijuana television spots.

Specifically, researchers evaluated whether the presence of marijuana-related imagery in the ads (e.g., the handling of marijuana cigarettes or the depiction of marijuana-smoking behavior) were more likely or less likely to discourage viewers' use of cannabis.

Messages that depict teens associating with cannabis are "significantly less effective than others," the researchers found.

"This negative impact of marijuana scenes is not reversed in the presence of strong anti-marijuana arguments in the ads and is mainly present for the group of adolescents who are often targets of such anti-marijuana ads (i.e., high-risk adolescents)," the authors determined. "For this segment of adolescents, including marijuana scenes in anti-marijuana (public-service announcements) may not be a good strategy."

Needless to say, no outlets in the mainstream media -- many of which donated air time to several of the beleaguered ads in question -- have yet to report on the story.

http://www.alternet.org/media/142815/5_things_the_corporate_media_don%27t_want_you_to_know_about_cannabis?page=entire

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Patrick Stack, director of counseling at Webster University, said any individual has the risk of misusing these types of substances.

“The problem of any type of drug usage originates when a person abuses a drug,” Stack said. “As a result of this abuse, the drug has more influence on the person than the person has over him- or herself.”

Bruce Mirken, director of communications of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), said he encourages the legalization of marijuana. MPP is an organization founded in 1995 that advocates regulated use of marijuana in the U.S.

Mirken said marijuana is a less addictive, less toxic and less threatening drug than alcohol.

“According to the Institute of Medicine, 15 percent of people who drink (it) become dependent on alcohol,” Mirken said. “For marijuana, the figure is 9 percent.”

Furthermore, Mirken said marijuana doesn’t have the typical effects alcohol has on people.

“Unlike alcohol, marijuana doesn’t make people reckless, aggressive and violent,” Mirken said.

Not only did Mirken say he believes marijuana is safer than alcohol, he said he also believes it presents great medical value to patients with AIDS, cancer and Multiple Sclerosis.

Nadia Battle, a senior broadcast journalism major, said she prefers to drink alcohol because it’s legal, unlike marijuana.

“If I had to choose between one or the other, I’d choose alcohol,” she said. “I wouldn’t do marijuana because it’s illegal.”

If marijuana is legalized, there will be regulations that will be implemented to protect society, Mirken said. Marijuana will be treated with the same regulations as alcohol and tobacco. The production and distribution of marijuana would be done by businesses that pay taxes instead of criminals and gangs, therefore reducing social cost.

Despite her preference of drinking, Battle said she is a bit confused about why marijuana is illegal.

“I didn’t know that marijuana is better than alcohol,” Battle said. “But it makes sense since marijuana is a plant and alcohol is a chemical.”

Stack said he agrees marijuana, in its purest form, is a great antiemetic, a medicine that prevents patients from vomiting.

Street marijuana and marijuana in its purest form, or “processed pot,” are very different, Stack said.

“In its purest form, marijuana is processed to eliminate insecticides and chemicals, so these aren’t ingested into the body,” Stack said. “Street marijuana is not processed and is highly carcinogenic because of all the chemicals in it.”

Steve Fox, co-author of “Marijuana is Safer” and MPP director of state campaigns, said he doesn’t believe there are two types of marijuana, referring to street marijuana and marijuana used for medical purposes. He said there are many strains of marijuana as well as different strains of alcohol.

“It depends where the marijuana is found,” Fox said. “A less effective marijuana might be sold at the dispensary to a patient. This type of marijuana won’t be as effective as another strain. It’s known that some strains of marijuana are better for people with certain conditions.”

In regards to whether marijuana is safer than alcohol, Stack said both drugs can be harmful if abused.

“In the area of substance abuse, there are no hard or soft drugs,” Stack said. “A drug is a drug. This is an apple/orange situation; marijuana can be potentially more harmful than alcohol, yet alcohol can be as potentially harmful.”

Fox, however, said even though marijuana and alcohol have various similarities, he thinks marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol.

“Marijuana is less likely to cause health problems and violent behaviors,” Fox said. “Teaching people about this message is really the way to change policies and opinions.”

In his book, Fox says the punishments society have given to people who use marijuana are much more severe than those who consume alcohol. As a result, more people are encouraged by society to use alcohol and, in some cases, abuse it.

“People can be fined or arrested for using marijuana,” Fox said. “There’s drug testing and collateral sanctions such as losing your job or professional license. The punishments associated with the use of alcohol are fewer. Therefore, society is only giving people one option.”

Fox believes the use of marijuana has been monstrasized over the years.

“It’s been demonized for more than 70 years at this point,” Fox said. “It’s a habit politicians have a hard time breaking out of. Several ads had been placed in the U.S. against marijuana. The MPP tried to put ads in New York, showing patients talking of how marijuana helped them, just to get a medical bill passed. Many networks prohibited these ads.”

http://media.www.webujournal.com/media/storage/paper245/news/2009/09/24/Health/Study.Shows.Smoking.Marijuana.May.Prevent.AlcoholRelated.Impairments-3783380.shtml

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The news that the son of the former health minister and current Labour MP, Patricia Hewitt, has been arrested for possession of cocaine is hardly surprising. A 21-year-old middle class professional such as Nicholas Hewitt-Birtles taking coke with friends on a Saturday night is pretty run-of-the-mill. The fact that this young man has a particularly high-profile mother as well as a judge for a father means that he has the misfortune of having his dalliance with the law splashed across the news. Unfortunate indeed, or is he?

One suspects that Hewitt-Birtles will soon be "apologising" for his actions, "regretting" the shame he has brought on his parents and "promising" to seek help for his drug use. In return, and owing much – ironically – to who his parents are, Hewitt-Birtles's future prospects are not likely to be hampered, nor would Release want them to be. Sadly, some young men are not quite so fortunate.

The criminalisation of young people for minor drug offences has real and serious consequences for many already disadvantaged individuals. With the recording of approximately 55,000 drug offences every quarter, the majority of which are for cannabis possession, it is young people that are most affected. More than 3,000 10- to 16-year olds are convicted of drugs offences every year, a figure that has significantly increased since Labour came to power 12 years ago.

The unequal application of the law is clear too. Not only are visible social groups, such as young people, more likely to be encountered by the police, but varying treatment is common throughout the justice process too. Research by Dr Alex Stevens of Kent University has found that black people are six times more likely to be arrested and 11 times more likely to be imprisoned for drug offences than their white counterparts.

A drug conviction can prevent an individual from being able to consider certain types of career or from entering countries like the US. The link between poverty, marginalisation and drugs is well known and the social consequences of a criminal record for drugs possession are totally counter-productive for society. Nor is this approach the best way to educate about the risks of drug use, or to reduce the harm that they can cause.

Hewitt-Birtles is one individual among the 33% of the adult population of England and Wales who have used drugs. The purpose of Release's Nice People Take Drugs campaign, a slogan which although controversial can hardly be disputed, is to persuade the public and politicians that a better solution can be found.

Let us hope that like any other mother, Hewitt does all she can to minimise the fallout for her son, and perhaps has a quiet word in the prime minister's ear about doing something to help everyone else who find themselves in a similar position.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/22/drugs-patricia-hewitt-son-cocaine

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Cannabis Science, Inc. President & CEO Dr. Robert Melamede stated, “After discussing our pharmaceutical products and initiatives with the FDA, Cannabis Science has taken certain steps to meet this potentially urgent situation. Although there is much yet to be done, I am very optimistic that we have an opportunity to have our products available to help meet this challenge.”

Dr. Melamede concludes with an outline of Cannabis Science corporate guidance on its FDA procedures: "There are a number of critical capabilities that must be assembled into a cohesive whole. The guiding principle of both our scientific and business operations is that, by using appropriate independent contractors that are experts in their fields, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Most importantly, we want everyone to understand the efficient and effective corporate structure that we are creating with holistic principles in mind. We are assembling teams in all the necessary arenas required for our growth and
success. We have an agreement with a successful organic producer to provide us with the raw material. We are establishing a genetic testing facility to insure the production of consistent botanical products, as required for FDA approval, using state of the art procedures. We have identified a CGMP compliant processor who will make an FDA approvable extract for further processing by another qualified and experienced manufacturer, who will produce the final commercial product after FDA approval.

Our compliance team of professionals will oversee all of these activities with their many years of FDA experience. We are extremely pleased with the history and quality of expertise of the team that we are bringing together to face the
immediate urgent challenges. We again thank our investors for their confidence in providing us with the necessary resources for this revolutionary undertaking. We have a number of exciting new initiatives we plan to announce shortly and we feel honored to be commissioned to make this happen."

H1N1 Swine Flu:

According to the CDC (http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/) the Avian flu (H5N1) has a 63% mortality rate. Unfortunately, the Swine flu, while thus far causing death at a much lower rate than the Avian flu, appears to also result in death via a similar mechanism. The common cause of death with these strains is organ failure, especially as seen in the lungs with the development of Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). ARDS is caused by an excess immune-generated inflammatory response that leads to apoptosis (cell death) and subsequently to organ failure. The Company’s approach will mimic how the human body uses endocannabinoids (cannabinoids that occur naturally in the body) to regulate immune activity and cell survival, by regulating inflammatory biochemistry. Excessive inflammatory responses are associated with numerous disease states including autoimmune diseases, neurological imbalances, and cardiovascular disease. Phytocannabinoids provide a natural means to supplement illness-specific endocannabinoid deficiencies.

Cannabis Science H1N1 Swine Flu Formulation:

We now know that the endocannabinoid system plays a critical role in maintaining human health. The human body produces Endocannabinoids on demand when they are needed. They help restore homeostasis (biochemical balance). The Cannabis plant produces Phytocannabinoids. When the human body has endocannabinoid deficiencies, it cannot effectively restore the healthy biochemical state needed to counter a particular illness. Phytocannabinoids from the Cannabis plant can replace the deficient endocannabinoid activity in the human body to restore a
health-promoting level of cannabinoid activity. Cannabis Science will test its pharmaceutical products with FDA guidance and oversight to determine if it will reduce ARDS-associated deaths from both the Avian and Swine influenza
infections.

About Cannabis Science, Inc.

Cannabis Science, Inc. is at the forefront of medical marijuana research and development. The Company works with world authorities on phytocannabinoid science targeting critical illnesses, and adheres to scientific methodologies to develop, produce, and commercialize phytocannabinoid-based pharmaceutical products. In sum, we are dedicated to the creation of cannabis-based medicines, both with and without psychoactive properties, to treat disease and the symptoms of disease, as well as for general health maintenance.

This Press Release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. A statement containing works such as “anticipate,” “seek,” intend," “believe,” “plan,” “estimate,” “expect,” “project,” “plan,” or similar phrases may be deemed “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Some or all of the events or results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not occur. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company’s reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. Cannabis Science, Inc. does not undertake any duty nor does it intend to update the results of these forward-looking statements.

Cannabis Science Inc.
Dr. Robert J. Melamede, President & CEO, 1-888-889-0888
info@cannabisscience.com
http://www.cannabisscience.com
or
Peter Glaser, Investor Relations, 1-888-889-0888
info@cannabisscience.com
http://www.cannabisscience.com

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS98806+21-Sep-2009+BW20090921

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