Dope smokers not so mellow

More than a third of people who present at Sydney emergency departments after smoking cannabis are violent and half have mental health problems such as severe anxiety and suicidal thoughts, shattering the image that dope smokers are relaxed and sleepy, researchers have found.

( another laughable clinicians falacy /Blair )

The data, collected by the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, at the University of NSW, indicates that cannabis users can be as aggressive as crystal methamphetamine users, with almost one in four men and one in three women being violent toward hospital staff or injuring themselves after acting aggressively. Almost 12 per cent were considered a suicide risk.

“It flies in the face of what people typically think of cannabis – that it is a natural herb that makes people mellow,” the centre’s director, Professor Jan Copeland, said yesterday.

“The reality is that it can make people highly agitated and trigger acute episodes of anxiety.”

She said the study, which covered two hospitals from 2004 to 2006, revealed that more than 9 per cent of cannabis users had depression or bipolar disorder, 5 per cent had schizophrenia and 4 per cent had paranoia and a history of self-harm.

“It’s the first time we have ever gathered this data and it is highly surprising. It’s apparent that we need a higher level of early intervention to pick up these problems before they get to the emergency department,” Professor Copeland said.

The head of emergency at St Vincent’s hospital, Gordian Fulde, said yesterday most people still believed marijuana was a soft drug, but “the old image of feeling sleepy and having the munchies after you’ve had a smoke is entirely inappropriate for modern-day marijuana”.

“The grass we smoked in the ’60s could have been lawn clippings compared to this completely different breed of nasty cat,” he said.

“With hydroponic cannabis, the levels of THC [the active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol] can be tenfold what they are in normal cannabis so we are seeing some very, very serious fallout.”

Cannabis use was soaring among young professionals in the city and inner west, Dr Fulde said, but users rarely needed sedation.

Kate Benson Medical Reporter / July 30, 2008

This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/07/29/1217097241179.html

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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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Cannabis dealer can keep farm

An Orinoco man convicted of drug dealing and money laundering has won his fight to keep his farm, which is potentially worth $1.5 million, but has been ordered to pay $200,000 to the Crown instead.

The Crown had applied for the 107ha property in Thorpe-Orinoco Rd to be forfeited after wood merchant Graham Donald Sturgeon, 50, was found guilty by a jury in July 2005 of 13 charges. These involved cultivating cannabis at the property between 1997 and 2002, selling cannabis to people over 18, possessing cannabis for supply, money laundering and possessing offensive weapons.
Sturgeon, a former Nelson Bays representative rugby player, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in September 2005, and is now out of jail.

In a written decision, Judge David McKegg dismissed the solicitor-general’s application, saying forfeiting Sturgeon’s property would cause undue hardship to him, his partner, and to Sturgeon’s father, who planned to eventually move to the farm with his wife so they could have some oversight because of physical disability.

“The impact on Mr Sturgeon at 50 years of age of being deprived of his home, his future livelihood and his only asset is, in my view, distinctly out of the ordinary,” Judge McKegg said.

“In submissions, it is put to me that such an order could force a man who is capable of supporting himself and his wife into a state dependence circumstance and would be a disruption to the entire family.”

Sturgeon bought the property which includes a two-bedroom home and farm buildings in 1991 for $145,000, and worked hard to develop it. 4MORE SEE Local News – The Nelson Mail – Printable

[see also ‘five years for his clandestine trade’ Stuff.co.nz September 3rd 2005]

While people were looking up to Orinoco man Graham Donald Sturgeon as an example to youth and a “pillar of the community”, the former leading sportsman was secretly growing and dealing in drugs. Now, he’s been sent to prison for five years for his clandestine trade.
Sturgeon, 47, a wood merchant, was sentenced in the Nelson District Court on Thursday on 13 charges a jury found him guilty of in July. They were three counts of cultivating cannabis, two of selling cannabis, a charge of possessing cannabis for sale, two charges of possessing offensive weapons – two loaded semi-automatic rifles – and five counts of money laundering. Judge David McKegg sentenced Sturgeon to five years’ prison and ordered that $20,000 found by police in a freezer at his Orinoco home be forfeited, Full Forfeit….

This man would otherwise be conducting his farming practices as per normal if it wasn’t for prohibition.

It is a myth that legalised cannabis would encourage dealers to move onto other criminal activities.

Indeed… this is but one more arrest statistic that speaks of prohibitions failure. The perverse claims by Police ‘forfeiture’ by over over stating the values ‘only created by prohibition’ such vociferous assertions bring the Police into disrepute. There are 500,000 cannabis consumers and many other libertarian minded folk who in all likely hood say Sturgeon’s a hero. He faces the same kind of risks that confronted Tony Stanlake (hence the precautionary weapons, not required at bottle stores or dairy’s selling cigarettes) so see this, amongst many other things about this case for the absurdity it is.

Besides, how can property be guilty of anything?

No wonder the Judge saw the bigger picture. However, it is still double jeopardy and that doesn’t make it right.

Blair Anderson
http://mildgreens.blogspot.com

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