Shun the alcohol craving – Use cannabis!

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• She added: “This brings up two important points. First, self-determination, the right of an individual to decide which treatment or substance is most effective and least harmful for them.
• “Secondly, the recognition that substitution might be a viable alternative to abstinence for those who can’t or won’t completely stop using psychoactive substances”. – Amanda Reiman, UoC, Berkley, USA 

The study was published in BioMed Central‘ open access Harm Reduction – see Shun the alcohol craving – Use cannabis!

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Druggies Have Rights Too!

International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy launched

Human Rights Day 10.12.09

The MildGreens Initiative congratulates Professor Neil Boister of Canterbury University School of Law for his important role and contribution to [the launch of]  the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

‘Individuals who use drugs do not forfeit their human rights…Too often, drug users suffer discrimination, are forced to accept treatment, marginalized and often harmed by approaches which over-emphasize criminalization and punishment while under-emphasizingharm reduction and respect for human rights.’  /  Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, March 2009

Image by Scott Hess via Flickr

Today, Human Rights Day (10 December 2009), is the occasion for the launch of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy.

The Centre is dedicated to developing and promoting innovative and high quality legal and human rights scholarship on issues related to drug laws, policy and enforcement.

It pursues this mandate by publishing original, peer reviewed research on drug issues as they relate to international human rights law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and public international law, and fostering research on drug policy issues among postgraduate law and human rights students at universities and colleges around the world.

The Centre’s work is supported by a prestigious International Advisory Committee as well as two Institutional Partners. At present, the Centre has established two ongoing projects:

The International Yearbook on Human Rights and Drug Policy is the first and only international peer reviewed law journal focusing exclusively on human rights and drug policy. We are now accepting submissions to the first edition of the Yearbook to be published in late 2010.

Image by bea y fredi via Flickr

The Human Rights and Drug Policy Project is a joint initiative with the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway. This Project will establish a Doctoral Studentship in Human Rights and Drug Policy, as well as a programme of activities designed to promote research on drug policy issues among other university human rights programmes. Applications for the Doctoral Studentship are being accepted until 18 December.

For more information, please visit http://www.humanrightsanddrugs.org or email info@humanrightsanddrugs.org

Project Directors: Rick Lines, Damon Barrett

International Advisory Committee: Dr Massimo Barra (founder, Villa Maraini Foundation, IT); Dr David Bewley-Taylor (Swansea University, UK); Prof Neil Boister (University of Canter(University of Essex, UK); Dr Ursula Kilkelly (University College Cork, IRE), Prof Manfred Nowak (UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment); Rebecca Schleifer (Human Rights Watch); Prof William A Schabas (Irish Centre for Human Rights); Baroness Vivien Stern (International Centre for Prison Studies, UK); Prof Gerry Stimson (International Harm Reduction Association)

Institutional Partners: International Harm Reduction Association; Irish Centre for Human Rights

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Reflections on Social Ecology and Drug Misuse.

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Reflections on treatment: Part 1… society must take an ecological approach to addiction recovery, which focuses on the inter-relationships amongst people experiencing serious substance use problems and their personal (physical, psychological), family, social and cultural environments [Professor David Clark Blog, Wired In]

certainly looks like ‘social ecology‘ to me! /Blair

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Sugar Addictive? Couldn’t be?

Image via Wikipedia Study Suggests Sugar May Be Addictive – “changes in the brain seen in people who abuse drugs such as cocaine and heroin”

“Our evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways very similar to drugs of abuse,” lead researcher Bart Hoebel, a professor of psychology at Princeton University, said. “Drinking large amounts of sugar water when hungry can cause behavioral changes and even neurochemical changes in the brain which resemble changes that are produced when animals or people take substances of abuse. These animals show signs of withdrawal and even long-lasting effects that might resemble craving,” he said. Dr. Louis Aronne, director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City, added: “The big question has been whether it’s just a behavioral thing or is it a metabolic chemical thing, and evidence like this supports the idea that something chemical is going on.” The stages of addiction, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association, include bingeing, withdrawal and craving. / Monday, 15 December 2008, 5:17:18 a.m. Nomen

SO how would arrest, detention, inquisition, victimisation, labeling, public humiliation and punishment help? How can the latter argument be sustained for cannabis, a non-addictive health food additive where [any] binging, withdrawal and craving is a product of prohibitions set and setting?

Meanwhile unresolved is the tenuous ANZAC ‘herbals’ medicines act…

Class D for herbal psychoactive recreational drug use… is ‘Labours’ partial prohibition. Good move Helen.

[Doh!, Where does the bulk of NZ’s sugar come from?]

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Cannabis grower denied home detention

A year for pot, fur krise ake! $200 tonnes or more is dispatched benignly, the social harms are weak, and harms to self, while also ‘very weak’ who the hell cares? Judge Harding has just added about $100,000 to the ‘pterodactyl prevention’ budget. Further, this man will probably never work again and who could blame him. No doubt the Police could equally argue that they have saved the community Millions…. Puke! /Blair

Cannabis grower denied home detention

Monday July 07, 2008

Home detention was “inappropriate” for a man who had been growing cannabis to supplement his sickness benefit, a judge said today. It was precisely the sort of offending Lawrence Frederick Williams had been committing from home, said Judge Christopher Harding in Tauranga District Court.

Williams, 43, was jailed for 12 months when he appeared for sentence on four charges – cultivating, possessing and supplying cannabis, and possessing methamphetamine.

He had converted a bedroom for growing cannabis, a drug he had been smoking for 20 years. The window of the purpose-made room was blocked to prevent neighbours from seeing the glow of the grow lamps.

The defendant was nabbed after police visited the house on an unrelated matter, smelt dope and found the drugs. There were 30 plants about eight weeks old and 338g of dried cannabis material.

He told police he had sold enough “tinnies” for $20 each over the previous two months to make $1000. The rest he smoked himself.

Lawyer Jim Smylie said Williams acknowledged he had a problem with cannabis and had also had trouble with alcohol. (The problem was the ‘law!’, cannabis is not criminogenic, what kind of dum harse lawyer is this guy. The evidence should be before the court, the evidence is exonerative.) Prohibition incentivise’s ANY cash value in excess production. )

“But he has solved that. He has been off the booze for three years.” (displacing another harm of great consequence to society?)

Since appearing in court in May, Williams had started a fulltime forestry job and was “trying to do something with himself,” Mr Smylie said.

Judge Harding ruled out community work and home detention. Williams, he said, had a “significant addiction”. (compared to what?)

After his release from prison, special conditions would remain in place for six months, including treatment for drug and alcohol dependency. (and the success rate is?)

Six months imprisonment for cultivating cannabis, plus a month each for possessing cannabis and a small amount of methamphetamine will be served concurrently with the year imposed for selling the drug. (Ohhhh Dear, A year for an honesty offence! )

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10520390&ref=rss

Jacob Sullum comments on the new World Health Organization study:..

One thing that’s clear is the point made by the WHO researchers: Drug use “is not simply related to drug policy.”

If tinkering with drug policy (within the context of prohibition) has an impact, it is hard to discern, and it’s small compared to the influence of culture and economics. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/07/the-stupid-drug.html

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Deal with Policy Inadequacies rather than funding failure.

Andre Bigras of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada writes critiquing Vancouver’s supervised drug injection facility Insite, suggesting it to be a waste of money. Peer review analysis shows it not only saves lives of drug consumers, but significantly it has a major health benefit to otherwise innocent victims in both reducing HepC, HIV and other social liabilities due to acquisitive crimes. His misunderstanding of the goals and aspirations of needle ‘services’ is as misguided as his understanding of New Zealand’s “supposed’ consideration to introduce forced treatment. NZ legislated in 1966 to do this but like most other educated and informed countries has moved away from it due to ineffectual outcomes. He may have been referring to a recent parliamentary hearing where a former policeman, now public speaker and pseudo-educator self-interestedly called for renewing such interventions but they were roundly dismissed. Likewise, Mr Bigras misrepresents the science behind both England’s reclassification and Hollands border tourism issues. (He couldnt have got it more wrong on Scotland, see http://www.stv.tv/info/news/20080609/Call_for_new_ways_to_tackle_drugs_and_a_080609110937870

It is however a fact that the NZ Law Commission, a statutory body headed by former Prime Minister and Bill of Rights architect Sir Jeffery Palmer, is undertaking a historic review of NZ drug laws including the international conventions that underpin them. The Canadian Senate Committee called for such international debate in 2002 and significantly this year the EU and the UN are doing some self examination from first principles. Mr Bigram may be pleased with Tony Clement’s position on drugs but like Dan Gardiner, civil society globally is now confronting the abject failure of the current expenditure in enforcement ‘demand reduction’ to produce any quantitative or qualitative result. Such principled review is the stuff of social capital.

Blair Anderson Director, Educators For Sensible Drug Policy, http://efsdp.org/

DEAL WITH ADDICTS’ PROBLEMS RATHER THAN FUNDING SAFE SITES

Re: An irrational and stupid drug policy, May 31. I fully support the government’s new drug strategy for Canada that is based on prevention, treatment and enforcement. I thank Health Minister Tony Clement for taking a stand. Less than five per cent of the injection drug users of Vancouver use Insite, the supervised injection site, leaving 95 per cent on their own. Those statistics from the Insite report itself indicate to me that to meet all the needs of every injection user, Vancouver would need another 19 sites alone. Each site costing $3,000,000 per year. Not knowing how many will make it to treatment, only how many have been referred, means that this need could grow on a yearly basis. I respect Mr. Gardner’s opinion but do not agree with it. I have worked in a volunteer capacity with the homeless, poor and addicts of the inner city of Ottawa for more than 12 years and have witnessed firsthand the deterioration of their lives and our city. Having visited Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, I can only pray that the same doesn’t happen here in Ottawa. Mr. Gardner mentions that “real prevention means dealing with the social decay — broken families, mental illness, illiteracy — that promotes drug abuse.” I agree that this indeed is the root cause and would definitely be a good starting place to invest money. This is the real issue at the end of the day. Harm reduction measures only ensure the addictive behaviour continues and doesn’t do anything to prevent it from beginning in the first place. England has reclassified marijuana, Scotland is examining its methadone program, New Zealand is examining if it can force addicts into treatment and Amsterdam in Holland has closed some of its prostitution sites along with some cafes which are really cannabis distribution sites. My question to Mr. Gardner is: are all those other countries and governments also irrational and stupid given they are reviewing their drug policies and re-adjusting them to better serve the citizens?

ANDRE BIGRAS, Gatineau, Drug Prevention Network of Canada

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Curing Addiction With Cannabis Medicines

Smokers trying to quit in the future could do it with the help of cannabis based medicines, according to research from The University of Nottingham.

Teams of pharmacologists, studying the cannabis-like compounds which exist naturally in our bodies (endocannabinoids), are exploring the potential for medical treatment. This includes treating conditions as diverse as obesity, diabetes, depression and addiction to substances like nicotine.

Scientists have known about endocannabinoids since the mid-1990s. This led to an explosion in the number of researchers looking into the future medical uses of cannabinoids and cannabis compounds.

Dr Steve Alexander, Associate Professor in the School of Biomedical Sciences, focused on a number of these projects in editing the first themed podcast for the British Journal of Pharmacology.

Dr Alexander said: “It is clear that there is very realistic potential for cannabinoids as medicines. Scientists are looking at a range of possible applications.”

One of these researchers is Professor David Kendall, a cellular pharmacologist at the University: “The brain is full of cannabinoid receptors. And so, not surprisingly with diseases like depression and anxiety, there’s a great deal of interest in exploiting these receptors and in doing so, developing anti-depressant compounds.”

Addiction is a real target researchers like Professor Kendall believe the endocannabinoids could be a crucial link to addictive behaviour: “We know that the endocannabinoid system is intimately involved in reward pathways and drug seeking behaviour. So this tends to indicate that that if the link involving endocannabinoids and the reward pathway, using inhibitors, can be interrupted, it could turn down the drive to seek addictive agents like nicotine.”

Because cannabinoids have also been shown to bring down blood pressure, it is hoped that related compounds can be used in patients with conditions like hypertension.

Dr Michael Randall, a cardiovascular pharmacologist at the University has looked at how endocannabinoids cause blood vessels to relax. “This could have many implications,” Dr Randall said. “The endocannabinoids appear to lower blood pressure under certain conditions; states of shock for example. If the endocannabinoids are of physiological importance, this could have real therapeutic possibilities.”

“In terms of getting better medicines the endocannabinoid system has a lot to offer,” said Dr Alexander. “The range of cannabis-related medicines is currently limited, but by increasing our knowledge in this area we can increase our stock.”

NOTTINGHAM UNIVERSITY
University Park
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/

---

Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/99968.php

Main News Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs

Also Appears In: Public Health, Smoking / Quit Smoking,

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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Community is urged to (conditionally) engage on drug issue

Community is urged to engage on drug issue
(extract)

“It’s about how we voice our concern and work out why people do not see what a problem cannabis is in our community.”

(the MildGreens can tell you why people don’t see what a problem cannabis is in your community…. just ask?)

“Mr Bell is right to say we need to get the issue back on the table — we need to have a really good debate around how people feel about cannabis and we need for it to start pretty much immediately.

“We need people like Meng Foon(1), Nona Aston(2), a few doctors, community leaders with a few clues to all join in and be vocal about the issue so people understand that the debate is coming from within our community. We can make a thousand programmes but, unless there is discussion from within the community about what is needed and how it is accessed, it’s of limited use.” (and we all know what the Health Select Committee said about impediments to health promotion… or are you all stupid? This ‘we care more than you care’ shite makes a good man vomit.. this is about job preservation and the marketing ‘treatment services’ dependent on drug mayhem and moral panic for its budgets.. /Blair )

Our questioning of the Ministers of Health and Justice and spokesmen in the Labour, National and Green Parties has drawn just one response after a day and a half — National’s health spokesman, Tony Ryall.

“The National Party does not support decriminalisation of cannabis — we are concerned about the social and health consequences of this drug. (the debate is about effectiveness of the Policy Tony, not National’s morality! Get with the program, your own MP’s are not unanimous on this subject, further, it would be a conscience vote anyway, and it was the National led select committee that called for examination of the effectiveness of the law in 1998 and again in 2003/Blair)

“There is no doubt that drug rehabilitation in NZ needs greater priority, but this view does not extend to legalising cannabis.” He cited the recent front-page apology by The Independent on Sunday newspaper in Britain this year for its 10-year campaign to legalise cannabis. (widely condemed for its profligate rhetoric surrounding 30xtimes ‘what we smoked’ genetically engineered cannabis. The critical ‘antidote’ review of the Independent’s reversal, can be read at http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-independent-on-sunday-got-it.html /Blair)

“There are now more than 22,000 people a year, almost half under the age of 18, being treated for cannabis addiction in Britain.”

(Tony Ryall was previously unembarrassed by his declaration that everyone in a regional mental health facility was there due to cannabis addiction /Blair ‘leopards-spots’ comes to mind)
notes;

(1)Meng is a strong supporter of law and order locally and nationally, believing it to be paramount to a community’s success. He participated in the Commissioner’s Police Act Review Symposium late last year at Victoria University of Wellington. In his submission, Meng said, “The most important part of local government and Police is to be relevant to our communities. The Police are an integral part of our communities; we need each other to be successful. It is all about people – all people, from all walks of life. We have a job to make our nation a great place to live safely in.

(2)Nona Aston is a Road Safety Council member.

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Causation, Correlation, Nicotine, Alcohol & Pot.

Teenagers who smoke are five times more likely to drink and 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who are not smokers, says a US report issued today.

The report by Columbia University’s National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse presented further evidence linking youth smoking to other substance abuse and spotlighted research on how nicotine affects the adolescent brain.

“Teenage smoking can signal the fire of alcohol and drug abuse or mental illness like depression and anxiety,” Joseph Califano, who heads the centre and is a former US health secretary, said in a telephone interview.

The report analysed surveys conducted by the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and other data on youth smokers. Most smokers begin smoking before age 18.

Smokers aged 12 to 17 were more likely drink alcohol than nonsmokers – 59 per cent compared to 11 per cent, the report found. Those who become regular smokers by age 12 are more than three times more likely to report binge drinking than those who never smoked – 31 per cent compared to nine per cent.

Binge drinking was defined as having five drinks or more in a row.

Asked whether smoking is causing these other behaviours or is just another risky behaviour occurring alongside the others, Califano said, “There’s no question that early teenage smoking is linked to these other things. Now whether it’s causing it or not, I think the jury is probably still out on that.”

Smokers ages 12 to 17 are more apt to meet the diagnostic definition for drug abuse or dependence in the previous year – 26 per cent compared to two per cent, the researchers said.

The report noted that marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug among teenagers, with government data from 2005 showing seven per cent of those aged 12 to 17 used marijuana.

Of these, current cigarette smokers are 13 times more likely to use marijuana than those who do not smoke.

The younger a child starts smoking, the greater the risk, the Columbia team said.

Children who start smoking by age 12 are more than three times more likely to binge on alcohol, nearly 15 times more likely to smoke marijuana and almost seven times more likely to use other drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Teenagers who smoke also have a higher risk of depression and anxiety disorders, the study found.

The report cited scientific studies showing the nicotine in tobacco products can produce structural and chemical changes in the developing brain that make young people vulnerable to alcohol and other drug addiction and mental illness.

This includes effects on the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin and changes to brain receptors associated with an increased desire for other addictive drugs.

Reuters

A poverty of reason.

Columbia University’s National Centre on Addiction and Substance Abuse have identified that naughty kids do naughty things…. (see MRC: Medical Rearch Council – News Antisocial behaviour in kids key to alcohol trouble in teens )

Like protecting the ‘vulnerable’ is the American way! Balderdash.
When we [NZ included] arrest someone for pot, we turn an otherwise normal person into a ‘victim’ purportedly to save them from themselves.

This study is evidence ‘pot laws’ protect and arguably, promote early entry into the ‘harmful’, albeit legal drug markets.

Worse, it avoids discussing the social ecology, the set and setting of poverty along with the toxic laws that create both the opportunity/incentive for early entry and rejection of social values/alienation and any subsequent ‘deviancy amplification’.

If pot wasn’t illegal, rather controlled by legal regulation, these kids would in all likelihood come to little or no harm. Isn’t that the desired ‘harm minimising’ outcome here?.

Consider; If ALL youth smoked pot and didn’t binge drink or inhale nicotine, the ‘life time’ prognosis would be entirely different.

As I have said on many occasions, prohibition couldn’t promote pot use to kids more efficiently than if pot was made compulsory.

The best advertising to prevent youth uptake would be to say cannabis is really good for rheumatism and other (over 50) age related stuff. It would turn them right off!

A bit of intellectual honesty is the ‘cure’. /Blair

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Russell Brown sells ‘Anti Violence’ campaign?

From: Kevin O’Connell

I am not sure that Russell Brown has done much for his credibility by being the first guy lining up earnestly on the family commission’s new tv commercials preaching (along with people like radio personality Phil Gifford and half a dozen other ordinary Kiwis) that ‘family violence is not ok’

…the target audience is alienated by government and its do-gooder sycophants and agencies. Russell, how much did they pay you and do you really believe the campaign (telling people to tell on their neighbours) is going to work? ( narc’ing up / blair)

Also you are lining up with government’s feeble and scientifically invalid ‘separate issue’ mentality where NZ social problems are all separate and can be alleviated by funding the various community programmes and government agencies and early intervention initiatives. (which co-incidently is good for the economy, but i digress…)

Labour seem to genuinely believe or are at least implying that family violence

• has nothing to do with ‘youth crime’
• has nothing to do with ‘binge drinking culture’
• has nothing to do with ‘criminality in general’
• has nothing to do with ‘drunk driving’
• has nothing to do with ‘gambling addiction’
• has nothing to do with ‘police corruption’
• has nothing to do with ‘kiwi underclass’
• has nothing to do with ‘drug harm prevention’,
• has nothing to do with ‘matrix of dysfunction’
• has nothing to do with ‘closing the gaps’…

If you get my drift: the problems in NZ are intrinsic and the family commission is looking at things ‘peicemeal’ IE THEY’VE GOT IT WRONG, and the adds cost heaps but aint worth shit.

I guess Russel’s ‘getting older’ and becoming more and more a ‘safe pair of hands’ for authorised media (eg Radio NZ) to get opinions from. How about focusing on the inequity and alienating factor of NZ’s drug laws Russell – you know there’s a lot of bullshit and injustice and hypocrisy goin on in this particular area of the kiwi experience. (i know because i’ve posted your insights to this forum (cclr-public), many a time)

(i do not have Russel’s email so if someone can foward this to him…)

Regards
Kevin O’Connell

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