If Runruff has any electronic copies of articles about his case, I'd encourage him to e-mail me a copy or direct me to the archives where I could find them. The book I am writing focuses on California, but I will include stories like Runruff's from Oregon, Washington, Colorado and Hawaii -- at minimum.

I am especially interested in cases where local authorities invited the feds to do what their state's medical-marijuana law prevented them from doing. I'd also be interested to know whether or not Oregon has a constitutional provision like California's Article 3, Section 3.5 that requires local authorities to uphold a state law in conflict with federal law unless it is overturned at the appellate level.

A big difference between Oregon and California is that the Oregon attorney general actually sued the feds over its challenge of the Death With Dignity measure. Sadly for qualified California patients, former Attorney General Dan Lungren cooperated with the feds rather than defend Proposition 215 from federal assault. His explanation? "You look for areas you can cooperate."

I could not find Runruff's documentary on the CCRH web site. If you could pass along a URL address for the documentary, I'd be pleased to watch it. I am too broke to buy anything at this point.

Thank you for asking, I'll send you my video "Let My people Grow" For the price of the postage. Or go to CRRH.org in documentries and see it for free.

I'm interested in hearing from California medical users who have run afoul of the law since Proposition 215 passed in 1996 -- especially if the arrest never made the papers.

The evidence of not only the importance of the cannabis plant to the planet but also of its' symbiotic relationship with humankind is overwhelming. I believe the cannabis plant is so important in the design of the planet that it wasn't allowed to be eliminated or forgotten.

We need hemp to replace petrochemicals for the production of fuel and plastics, we need hemp seed to replace the essential fatty acids we can no longer get from our contaminated fish, and we need cannabis for the health and welfare of humankind.

I believe we're going to find out that millions of people arrested and caged for cannabis had been using the cannabis to regulate some cannabinoid deficiency or imbalance. In other words they weren't criminals but were jailed for being sick.

My nephews were very hyper and wouldn't sit still for anything. It was annoying as heck and I'm guilty just like all of our family of getting on to them for not listening to us and behaving.

My nephews were later diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome and we all felt like crap. I still feel horrible about punishing them for something they couldn't help.

That is going to be the future of cannabis prohibition ... how in the hell could we have made such a mistake?

Over a plant.

The entire bunch...but some more than others seem as mad as Nero.

It's wrong and painful to me personally to stand by and watch people persecuted.

It's a lie that our movement is based on reformers just wanting to legally toke. That's outrageous.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Mary/starrett53.htm

New Mexico and Tennessee studies, with efficacy rates of 90%. In ...

REVIEW OF HUMAN STUDIES ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA by Dale H. Gieringer, Ph.D.

SUMMARY: HUMAN STUDIES ON MEDICAL USES OF MARIJUANA HUMAN STUDIES ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

There have been hundreds of studies on the medical uses of cannabis since its introduction to western medicine in the early nineteenth century. A review of the literature reveals over 65 human studies, most of them in the 1970's and early 80's. * The best established medical use of smoked marijuana is as an

http://www.marijuana.org/DalesReport.html#foot2

Perhaps the stress is what raises the anandamide levels.

Like when people run. Runners have high anandamide after a run. In response to the stress of running.

But running doesn't make people psychotic.

If high anandamide made people psychotic, then I would think running would also make people psychotic.

Pharmaceutical antipsychotic medications can have the following side effects: severe muscle spasms, diabetes, aplastic anemia

People who take Clozaril have to have blood tests twice a month to check whether their blood count is abnormal, signalling the development of aplastic anemia, so that the medication can be withdrawn in time to save their lives.

August 25, 2004

A Cannabis-like substance produced by the brain may dampen delusional or psychotic experiences, rather than trigger them.

Heavy cannabis use has been linked to psychosis in the past, leading researchers to look for a connection between the brain's natural cannabinoid system and schizophrenia. Sure enough, when Markus Leweke of the University of Cologne, Germany, and Andrea Giuffrida and Danielle Piomelli of the University of California, Irvine, looked at levels of the natural cannabis-like substance anandamide, they were higher in people with schizophrenia than in healthy controls.

The team measured levels of anandamide in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of 47 people suffering their first bout of schizophrenia, but who had not yet taken any drugs for it, and 26 people who had symptoms of psychosis and have a high risk of schizophrenia. Compared with 84 healthy volunteers, levels were six times as high in people with symptoms of psychosis and eight times as high in those with schizophrenia. "This is a massive increase in anandamide levels," Leweke told the National Cannabis and Mental Illness Conference in Melbourne, Australia, last week. And that is just in the CSF. Levels could be a hundred times higher in the synapses, where nerve signalling is taking place, he says.

But were the high anandamide levels triggering the psychotic symptoms or a response to them? Leweke and his colleagues found, to their surprise, that the more severe people's schizophrenia was the lower their anandamide levels. The team's theory is that rather than triggering psychosis, the substance is released in response to psychotic symptoms to help control them. People with the worst symptoms might be unable to produce sufficient anandamide to prevent them.

At some point in their lives, between 5 and 30 per cent of healthy people have had symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations, which can be triggered by something as simple as sleep deprivation. "All of us are potentially psychotic," says David Castle of the University of Melbourne. So for the body to have a system that prevents these experiences getting out of hand makes sense, he says. The new findings suggest antipsychotic drugs could be developed that target the anandamide system, but it will not be simple. The active ingredient in cannabis, THC, binds to anandamide receptors. But people with schizophrenia who use cannabis actually have more severe and frequent psychotic episodes than those who do not. This may be because THC makes anandamide receptors less sensitive. Leweke's team also found anandamide levels lowest in people with schizophrenia who used cannabis more frequently, suggesting it may disrupt the system in other ways too.

Up to 60 per cent of people with schizophrenia use cannabis. A study by Castle, also reported at the Melbourne meeting, has found that people use the drug to get rid of unpleasant emotions associated with the disease such as anxiety and depression.

This article appears in New Scientist issue: 28 August 2004 -- http://www.newscientist.com