cannabisnews.com: Medical Cannabis To Be Legal Medical Cannabis To Be Legal Posted by FoM on February 07, 2001 at 13:26:35 PT Cannabis could be prescribed by doctors Source: BBCNews The government will legalise cannabis for medicinal use if trials show the drug can help patients. Home Office Minister Charles Clarke told peers that the government will change the law to allow doctors to prescribe cannabis if the drug is found to have therapeutic benefits. However, Mr Clarke insisted that recreational use of cannabis would remain illegal. Mr Clarke's comments came on the day that the government rejected the key findings of a landmark report which proposed the easing of penalties for possession of soft drugs and a reclassification of ecstasy and LSD. Therapeutic Benefits: The therapeutic benefits of cannabis are being studied in two trials in England - one by the Home Office and another by a private company. The private company, GW Pharmaceutical, hopes to have a licence to produce cannabis for medical use by 2003. Giving evidence to the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee Mr Clarke said: "If the clinical trials into cannabis are successful the government is clear that we are willing to amend the Misuse of Drugs Act to allow prescribing. "The Home Office and the Department of Health are very, very clear that once the trials outcomes are clear ... we will act very expeditiously that any approved treatment can be brought into circulation." But he emphasised the government would only act on the basis of scientific evidence and not on the testimonies of individuals who said cannabis had helped their condition. He said: "We must act on the basis of scientific tests. "To get to the position of changing the law we need to have a proper scientific judgement." Warning: But Dr Brian Davis of the Medicines Control Agency Licensing Division said even if the present trials had positive results more extensive trials would be needed before cannabis could be licensed for therapeutic use. He said there were still questions concerning cannabis and he referred to a study which suggested that the drug impaired the fertility of male monkeys. He said: "We feel this needs to be investigated further." Attempts by MPs to introduce a bill to legalise the medicinal use of cannabis have previously failed. Last week, Labour backbencher Paul Flynn, a chemist, accused ministers of indifference and political cowardice over their refusal to back his bill. Source: BBC News (UK Web) Published: February 7, 2001Copyright: 2001 BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Feedback: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/ Forum: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/forum/ Related Articles & Web Site:U.K. Medicinal Cannabis Project http://medicinal-cannabis.org/project/main.htmlCannabis: Time to Change The Law?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread8585.shtmlCannabis Laws Too Strict Say Doctorshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7524.shtml Cannabis To Be Legal as Painkiller in Two Yearshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread7342.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #15 posted by FoM on February 08, 2001 at 16:41:29 PT Thanks Dan! Glad you like it. I thought of a number of different names but that one fit for me. Getting my own domain name happened because where I upload and store my web sites is closing down, Disney and Go Network. So all the pages that I've made over the last couple of years are in jeopardy. Ron is really helping me. I never ftp'd anything and it is very hard. I have a bad cold or flu and my brain is exceptionally foggy. I probably should wait until I feel better and I just might take it easy the rest of the night. If I make mistakes posting or miss a good article please understand I just don't feel very well but I'll soon be back up and running again I hope because this is nasty. I haven't been sick like this in years so I'm being clobbered!Thanks Again, FoM! [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by Dan B on February 08, 2001 at 15:35:50 PT: Look GREAT, FoM! Wow! The site looks really good. I think I speak for everyone when I say that I really appreciate all of the hard work you have put into getting the word out. Great domain name, too!Dan B [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by FoM on February 08, 2001 at 15:01:02 PT My Own Name! - Freedom To Exhale Hi Everyone, Ron Bennett has been helping me get my own domain name for my personal home pages and I just started learning how to use ftp and thought I'd share it here. It isn't near done but at least it's a beginning.http://freedomtoexhale.com/mymain.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by bcg on February 08, 2001 at 10:36:06 PT: smokin monkeys The only experiment in which monkeys have taken cannabinoinds, they were self-administered by the monkeys i.v. after learning how to take cocaine in the same way. Monkeys CAN smoke, though. Some researchers have gotten monkeys to learn how to smoke crack cocaine from a glass pipe by puffing on it. (They don't have to hold the pipe, it is fixed, and the rock is heated by a heating element, so they don't have to "flick a bic" either.) I suppose the same is true of cannabis, as long as they could teach the monkeys the trick in the first place. Also, as a side note, at the primate research facility I work in, many of the chimps loved smoking cigarettes, before giving them such things was frowned upon. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Dan B on February 08, 2001 at 10:34:59 PT: No Problem, Nifty Believe me, I know what it is like to be told you're wrong when you know you should have known better to begin with. Happens all the time to me--as in the CB-1 comments I made in another thread.I appreciate your comments. You're dead-on 99.99% of the time.Dan B [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by foo bar on February 08, 2001 at 09:46:06 PT Sperm abnormalities ,But Dr Brian Davis of the Medicines Control Agency Licensing Division said even if the present trials had positive results more extensive trials would be needed before cannabis could be licensed for therapeutic use. He said there were still questions concerning cannabis and he referred to a study which suggested that the drug impaired the fertility of male monkeys. He said: "We feel this needs to be investigated further." There have been a number of studies that linked (or purported to link) cannabis consumption to sperm abnormalities in both humans and various animals. These fall into two major groups.The first group consists of uncontrolled studies of humans where the only variables examined are self-reported cannabis use and sperm count/motility/morphology. These suffer from the defect that the cannabis-using populations are generally polydrug users of low SES who have a variety of health problems, so they fail to establish a link between cannabis use and low sperm count, reduced sperm motility, or morphologically abonormal sperm.The second group consists of animal studies in which the animals are fed a substance called "crude marijuana extract" (CME) which is generally prepared using benzene as a solvent. Since the extract is crude (i.e. not purified) it contains many times the concentration of benzene that causes all sorts of problems in vertebrates, including sperm abnormalities, chromosome damage, etc. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by NiftySplifty on February 08, 2001 at 09:39:08 PT Aah, shucks! I guess I was thinking of what it would be like for me to smoke a joint with my foot. (It sucks to look like a dumb-ass. I should have known better)Thanks, Dan B. Nifty... [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by Dan B on February 08, 2001 at 06:57:50 PT: NiftySplifty, You're wrong. Sorry, but monkeys are primates and so, by definition, have opposable thumbs. Sorry to rain on yourparade.Dan B [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by NiftySplifty on February 07, 2001 at 22:23:32 PT No monkey has ever smoked a joint... This is a fact because they don't have opposable thumbs. See, they can't even make the universal symbol for "smokin'", you know, the "a-okay" hand gesture.Now, if there was a big scuba tank full of smoke that he was swimming with, well, that's a different story. Come to think of it, I'd like to use a self-contained-underwater-bonglike-apparatus.Nifty... [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by meagain on February 07, 2001 at 18:14:33 PT God save the Queen Geeee the Queen of England sure didn't need any court or scientific proof it had any uses she knew it from experience [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by SuperStoner on February 07, 2001 at 16:28:32 PT: How do you get a monkey to smoke ? I wonder who came up with the idea of gettin monkeys high?do their brains even have cannabiod receptors ? is love to see some footage of these stoned monkeys for the next time i get stoned heheh that is what i call quailty entertainment heheteach your kids about nature and i still say F*ck the government i dont care if they make it legal for medical use all us dope smokers are still subject to bein arrested..... "Livin life on a leash, locked up with no key, Got the smoke under cover mother FuPeace out SuperSToner [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by MikeEEEEE on February 07, 2001 at 15:37:14 PT Monkey Business While everybody else around them is going de-crim, at least one monkey says:"However, Mr Clarke insisted that recreational use of cannabis would remain illegal."History will report their folly and monkey business. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by drfist on February 07, 2001 at 14:33:33 PT proving cannibis useful in monkey control? we need less fertility in the world, population is the problem, Monkey population problems can cause problems for farmers in some areas maybe we have an answer here ! [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by jAHn on February 07, 2001 at 14:12:26 PT So... Are there studies that show the Ill-Effects of Cocainee's Sperm? Please Inform me! Aside from the proof that already exists as our Pres.W takes the podium to spew out a bunch of Illiterati Lies! [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by aocp on February 07, 2001 at 13:50:58 PT: You've got to be kidding me He said there were still questions concerning cannabis and he referred to a study which suggested that the drug impaired the fertility of male monkeys.And? Jeez, if that were true, wouldn't all pot smoking males not be able to reproduce? Further, wouldn't that be right up the gov't's alley wrt their attitudes toward pot smokers in general? Man, these guys are topsy-turvy. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: