Painkiller Warnings Rekindle Debate Over Medical Marijuana

FOXNews.com – Health – Painkiller Warnings Rekindle Debate Over Medical Marijuana: “Jack Cole, a 26-year veteran of the New Jersey state police who served 14 of those years in the narcotics bureau, now serves as director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a lobbying group of former drug-busters who believe the U.S. ‘war on drugs’ has failed and supports sweeping reforms of the nation’s drug policy.

Cole contends that scheduling creates a system that discourages objective research into drugs and their medical effects.

‘There are certainly enough people out there who are already using Schedule I drugs [for medical purposes], who would benefit from being in a government study of their use,’ Cole said.”

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Occasional pot dangerous – UN anti drug day

Sunday Times: Occasional pot dangerous – United Nations

THE United Nations drug agency has warned on world anti-drugs day that even occasional use of marijuana is a link in a long and dangerous cycle of crime, degradation and terrorism.

‘The links between organised crime, drug trafficking, drug consumption, drug money, arms trafficking and terrorism become clearer every day,‘ said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

‘We know that even the occasional marijuana smoker is a link in a much longer and more dangerous chain.’

In a message to mark an international anti-drug day, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned that drugs were ‘little more than tickets to a dead end'”

[they sure are Mr Annan… “In the (chinese) southern city of Guizhou, 24 people were convicted of trafficking over the weekend, and five were immediately executed with a bullet in the neck” /Blair ]

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The High Cost of Prohibition – Milton Friedman on Miron

The high cost of prohibition – PittsburghLIVE.com

Milton Friedman is no dopehead.

But that’s his hallowed name atop the list of more than 500 economists who’ve signed an open letter asking our Drug War-addled politicians to stop the prohibition of marijuana and instead legalize it and tax it.

The petition asks the president, Congress and state officials to wake up, smell the ganja and look honestly at ‘The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,’ a report recently done by Harvard economics professor Jeffrey Miron.”

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Prohibition Declared Safe (choke choke)

God strikes down another prohibitor for telling lies about how safe the prohibition protocol is….

This sound byte (57 seconds) was recorded from the House of Representatives debate on “Class D” – a place to put certain herbals used for partying up in to a ‘regulated model’, but the speaker, a United Future MP is a rabid prohibitor and demanded that cannabis cannot be included in the mix of what might be possible,  preferring instead the chaos and dysfunction that is…. a prohibition in name only.

Here, for the record, Judy Turner’s voice is removed from the debate…
The timing is utterly sublime…could this be an act of god?

http://www.mildgreens.com/media/prohibitionsafe-yeahright.mp3

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Body’s Pot-Like Chemicals May Help Curb Pain

“If we design chemicals that can tweak the levels of these cannabinoid compounds in the brain, we might be able to boost their normal effects,”,

Well, that sounds a bit like we have been lied too about no medicinal use…

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Naomi, Narcanon and higher powers [LTE 15 June]

LTE
fwd’d to Northland Stuff.

Naomi, Narcanon and Higher Powers

Amongst the least effective interventions for use or possesion of cannabis is zero tollerant twelve steps and criminalisation. Intollerance is not a redeeming quality of any higher power that I am familiar with other than despots, dictators and cult leaders. None of these have any published literature demonstrating experience or efficacy delivering sustainable health interventions in drug related fields.

Most people like Naomi, succesfully reduce or cease cannabis use on their own violition, be it by diminishing use or by instant cessation. Common to both strategies is self will, seemingly the highest power of all.
Criminal sanction and “I’m sick, febble minded, or both, so I’ll surround myself with others so convinced” has proven to be a deficient intervention – they are after all, predicated on prohibition. They do no better than drug courts and coercive care according to the evidence base.

But good on Naomi for selfmedicating using a proven ‘anti-depressent’ coping medicine for 18 years without getting caught, loosing her mind, her health or both. God’s seed bearing herb has kept her safe, when prohibition failed her, even if she was a little distracted.

[15 June]    Twelve steps to freedom from drugs
see http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,1478,3314396a1927,00.html

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Pop till you drop

Sally Blundell | New Zealand Listener

“Professor David Fergusson at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences says it is a complicated debate that has been completely botched.

‘It’s completely predictable � young people between 18 and 25 are at their peak potential for taking risks. There is probably good reason to regulate sale, supply and delivery, but if laws aren’t reflected in people’s belief system, they will never work. Look at cannabis � if you pass a law saying no smoking of cannabis and most people ignore it and police don’t enforce it, it’s not really a law, is it? If young people don’t believe [in these proposed regulations] and parents give them freedom and they have purchasing power, the law will be completely irrelevant to how young people take drugs.'”

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Long-term use of cannabis leads to harder drugs

Telegraph | News | Long-term use of cannabis ‘leads to harder drugs’

key phrase….”If confirmed, the findings suggest”

You only need read the remainder to see distortions of science that will keep the UFO lass, Judy Turner and “PCP” Jim Andertons glowing like a southern sunset. But the problem remains… bad people do bad things. Most people who partake in cannabis are not bad people. That makes the law, in its appication, unjust. It is thus, a bad law.

Murray and freinds choose not to see the flaw in the social science.

The editorial is just speculation as to causal relationship. It doesnt deserve the ink…

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Drug Amendment Bill a step towards evidence-based regime (Green

Stealing ideas based on solid unpaid analysis is just theft, but apparently such intellectual dishonesty  is OK for a ‘just’ cause!
see Scoop: Mild Greens deliver Class D Drug solution.
[pub. mar 7 2000]

The following propaganda is a Greens media release on “Drugs Amendment part of balanced strategy”   see
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0506/S00358.htm

——– Original Message ——–

Subject:	Drug Amendment Bill a step towards evidence-based regime (Green Party media release)
Date:	Thu, 16 Jun 2005 18:00:05 +1200
From:	Nandor Tanczos <Nandor.Tanczos@parliament.govt.nz>

Drug Amendment Bill a step towards evidence-based regime (Green Party media release)

16 June 2005

Drug Amendment Bill a step towards evidence-based regime

The Greens are welcoming the passing today of the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) No. 3 Bill.

“We are happy this Bill has passed because we agree with its overall intent and are pleased to see that two Green proposals have now been enacted,” said the Green Party’s Drug Issues Spokesperson Nandor Tanczos.

“We were the first to advocate the introduction of a ‘Schedule D’, a fourth rung in the Misuse of Drugs Act ladder that offers the option of restricting, rather than banning, some psycho-active substances.       

“The second is the targeting of precursors to methamphetamine, which last year we called on the Government to focus on controlling.”

“This Bill is a useful step towards a properly graduated and more realistic, evidence-based drug regime, and while we have had some concerns about the details and processes, overall we commend Mr Anderton for its passage,” said Nandor.

[You have received this message because we think we deserve our superannuation for life and are desperate for votes at the margins so we are taking all the credit in this policy area.
If you would like to keep receiving lies about Drug Policy and/or Justice, please apply to the Green Party, attn. Nandor Tanczos.  ]

Can a bit of restorative justice fix this - we will just have to watch and see!  PS. methamphetamine prevalence is a product of poor drug policy and pandering to a failed system based on moral judgments and sending messages.  MDA#3 is just tatting on the quilt of dysfunction.

Blair Anderson 50 Wainoni Road.   Christchurch, NZ  http://mildgreens.com http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/ ph (643) 389 4065   cell/TXT 025 2657219   car-phone 025 2105080   

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Anderton – Misuse of Drugs Amendment Bill

There will be more to follow on this subject as we take stock of the
passing of MDA#3 ‘under urgency’ this day. The devil is in the details.
Policing, another case of “Powers to which they may well not entitled”
– So much for evidence based ‘anything’, let alone informed consent
public consultation.
The Bill and its consequences are very poorly explained let alone justified.

The only thing Anderton got right was “Class-D” which the public signed
up for, but it didn’t even rate a mention.
(Anderton, Good Friday 2004)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0506/S00353.htm

—
Blair Anderson
50 Wainoni Road. Christchurch, NZ

http://mildgreens.com http://mildgreens.blogspot.com/
ph (643) 389 4065 cell/TXT 025 2657219 car-phone 025 2105080

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