DdC

Holy cannabis. This stuff is everywhere, so what's the big dilemma? Oh yeah… it's not legal.

There are still a lot of bureaucrats and bored politicians who still honestly believe that marijuana is dangerous. Usually, their only arguments pertain something to the likes of it's harmful effects on the body or how it hurts the nation's youth. Moreover, the main beef is that the supposed addictive nature of the substance will get you to experiment with more extreme drugs. I'll wait until you're done laughing before I continue.

I base my life on one philosophy: If it doesn't affect anyone else, then do it.

More and more people, especially college students, are beginning to see that marijuana is everywhere, and will stay that way. Weed, ganja, dank, Mary Jane, hash; the countless slang for marijuana is just another indicator of just how common it is. How many of you reading this article could get some marijuana right now if you wanted to? Better yet, how long would it take you to get it? The truth is that it's practically easier to get your hands on some sticky green than it is to go to the local convenience store and buy some Trident.

Now, it's gotten to the point where marijuana is treated less like a drug and more like a joke. Smoke and Toke, High Times and the countless cluster of businesses that don't sell marijuana, but sell accessories, challenge legislation. And God bless them for that.

What's more dangerous than someone high on marijuana? I'll take bar-hoppers for $500 Alex. Millions of people suffer from the effects of alcoholism, so why not outlaw alcohol? Every possible danger that comes with marijuana is just as possible with alcohol. Driving while intoxicated, health problems, addiction and change in behavior are all risks of both substances. The difference is, we expect individuals to be responsible with alcohol, but it should also be the case with marijuana.

Amsterdam's citizens relish in the fact that they can enjoy marijuana, even in the airport. Responsibility is key because it lets us do whatever we want, even if it means hurting ourselves, without hurting others. It's a brilliant concept, but there are still people who can't quite get it. I mean, is it just me, or does anyone else cringe with frustration anytime a truth.com commercial comes on? People choose to smoke cigarettes like they choose to smoke pot, but tobacco is more harmful than marijuana.

In the grander scheme of things, maybe it's just in our nature to deviate from a constant perspective. And until we finally say yes to legalizing marijuana, people are going to continue doing it illegally, because it's just how we are.

President Lincoln once said, "Prohibition…attempt s to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes." Maybe we can learn from our mistakes.

Complete Title: Marijuana Smokers Still Toke Despite Its Illegality
Source: Daily Cougar (U of Houston, TX Edu)
Author: Shaun Pour, Opinion Columnist
Published: Vol. 69 - Issue 17 - September 17, 2003
Contact: dclettrs@pop.uh.edu * Website

CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archives

NORML Canada

CANADIAN MARIJUANA POSSESSION LAWS CRUMBLE
On September 4, British Columbia became the fourth Canadian province where a court has ruled that there is no law against marijuana possession.



GRASS IS AVAILABLE FOR THE ASKING

HYDERABAD: Marijuana -- ganja in common parlance -- has come out of the closet. No more a clandestine trade, pan and cigarette shops are passe, the stuff is now openly sold from houses too.

The reason: they have the tacit approval of the local cops, and some politicians too. In fact, a close relative of a minister too peddles ganja.

To procure it, all one needs is the right contact. Sometimes, even that is not necessary, if one can bluff with a straight face.

But the drug-peddler knows his customers well. When an addict goes to him for the `maal', he does not need to ask for it by name. He just hands over a currency note and indicates that he wants the `round substance'.

When this reporter, posing as an addict, tried the code, the drug-peddler sitting in his pan-shop near a theatre in Secunderabad was initially suspicious. "Inthakumundhu eppudaina theesukunnava?" (Have you ever taken it from me before? he demanded to know after a while. "Poyina nela," (Last month) I replied. And he handed over a round ball of paste, neatly packed in a small sealed plastic packet. On it was the marking `Ayurvedic Oushadhi'.

In fact, peddlers introduce ganja to first-timers as `medicine'. "Kotirogalanivaranak u mandhu," (cure for a crore diseases), says another peddler, dressed as a sadhu. Take this medicine twice a day, and you will live for 130 years. "A sadhu at Bolarum who used to take it lived that long," he explains.

As he reveals how he himself has been addicted to it for the last 24 years, two of his regular customers come to him and after an invocation, they puff the substance together. "Take it for free this time. But you'll have to pay Rs 100 per packet if you come back to me again," the peddler offers.

At a small shop at Bansilalpet, family members running the place have no qualms filling a cigarette with ganja before giving it to a `new customer'.

Subject: India: Grass Is Available For The Asking
Author: Ch Sushil Rao
From: "D. Paul Stanford" stanford@crrh.org
Pubdate: Mon, 15 Sep 2003
Source: Times of India, The (India)
Contact: times@giasdl01.vsnl. net.in

DdC

RX - A SMALL DOSE OF CANNABIS

First-time visitors to The Netherlands are surprised to note sharply-pointed cannabis-leaf symbols at coffee-houses and pubs; places often frequented by people lighting up or eating hash omelettes and drinking hash tea.

The Dutch have a laissez-faire attitude to cannabis. Holland ignores personal possession of up to 30 grams of such substances as marijuana (the dried flower, or "ganja"), hashish (the dried resin, or "charas") and bhang (the dried leaf).

When the EU opened internal borders, Holland started receiving weekend "potfans" from France, Belgium and Germany. In effect, Dutch liberality led to the Eurozone easing its stance vis-a-vis soft drugs, though users from other nations risk punishment.

Holland is now offering over-the-counter prescription sales of cannabis -- useful for victims of cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis and amputees. It controls pain and nervous spasms with fewer side-effects and less addiction-related problems than the alternatives.

Two Dutch companies have been issued licences to grow cannabis to sell to the health ministry, which in turn packages the drug in small tubs for supply to pharmacies. The drug is packaged as dried marijuana flowers (grass).

As well as pharmacies, 80 hospitals and 400 doctors will be allowed to dispense five-gram doses of SIMM18 medical marijuana for 44 euros ($ 48) a tub and more potent Bedrocan at 50 euros. The health ministry recommends patients dilute the cannabis into tea or adapt asthma inhalers.

Some doctors say cannabis increases risks of depression or schizophrenia; other studies suggest it has few side effects. If it is smoked, you're inhaling carcinogens including nicotine and tar.

The cannabis plant contains over 60 cannabinoids, alkaloids that affect physical functions. The cannabinoids bind to two cannabinoid receptors in the body: CB1 and CB2.

CB1 enhances appetite, reduces pain and eases muscle spasms -- and also produces psychotropic effects. CB2 is expressed by immune and inflammatory cells, acts as an anti-inflammatory and reduces irritable bowel syndrome.

This combination of CB1 and CB2 alleviates the nausea associated with chemotherapy, reverses appetite loss in AIDS patients, and controls CNS motor diseases and certain types of pain.

There are researchers, notably Jerusalem's Hebrew University professor Raphael Mechoulam, in university and pharmaceutical labs elsewhere who are trying to isolate specific effects.

Mechoulam was the first to isolate tetra-hydra-cannabinol (THC), which causes the "high". He is now working on "THC-less" cannabis, though he believes that such drugs will be less effective at treating CNS problems.

Cannabis is also offered in countries such as the UK, Canada and Australia as well as in a few US states. However, cannabis is available from a few sources and distribution is more controlled. Canadian cannabis-users have complained that the official "baggies" that are offered to members of a subscription programme, are of terrible quality.

The UK is moving towards decriminalisation. A recent commission, the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs, sent a recommendation to the Home Secretary that cannabis should be treated as a "Schedule C" drug. Schedule C is of the same risk/criminal status as growth hormones or steroids. Possession is non-criminal.

Class A drugs including ecstasy, cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin accounted for 99 percent of "the cost to society of drug use", according to the UK release. Analysts estimate that relaxing British cannabis laws could save about $ 71 million per annum and free up 500 police officers for other duties.

Decriminalisation could be similarly beneficial to India, where scarce policing resources could be concentrated on chasing more dangerous substances such as heroin or RDX. In fact, cannabis was sold at state government shops until the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. This treats all drugs as equally dangerous.

Decriminalisation would enable research into the medical properties of cannabis and help India cope with the flood of HIV cases that will emerge over the next few years.

Since it is possible to make a strong scriptural case for religious use by practising Hindus, is it too much to hope that the relegalisation of cannabis will feature on Hindutva-vadis' future agenda?

Subject: India: Rx: A Small Dose Of Cannabis
Author: Devangshu Datta
From: "D. Paul Stanford" stanford@crrh.org
Source: Business Standard (India)
Pubdate: Thu, 18 Sep 2003
Contact: editor@business-standard.com



A Whiff of Freedom
September 20, 2003
By Daphne Gordon
Source: Toronto Star

The Hot Box Café is nestled quietly among butcher shops and vintage clothing stores in Kensington Market and, like most cafés, it's a place for meeting friends, talking philosophy and getting a fix.

But while caffeine is readily available here, the substance of choice is a little more chill: weed, pot, marijuana, grass, herb. Call it what you will, people are smoking it, sharing joints with people they've never met before.

Read More... http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17364.shtml

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