PRESS RELEASE - 14th DECEMBER, 2003

Edition 24.

Cannabis News Items From Around the World

NIMBIN "KNOW YOUR RIGHTS" RALLY

Date: 10th December, 2003

A rally and gathering in Nimbin's Allsop Park is planned for Wednesday 10th December at 2.p.m. to protest the extraordinary neverending inability of most police to understand and work with the Nimbin alternative Community, and to make sure citizens know their rights.

Speakers at the rally include Steve Bolt from the Northern Rivers Community Legal Centre who will spell out your legal rights and answer any questions about the law.

Lately non-local police have been road blocking the village entrances for revenue raising and also seem to enjoy giving parking fines without even getting out of their vehicles. The alternative Nimbin Community has suffered thirty years of police oppression, largely because we just do things a little
differently, and many of us prefer to self medicate with herbs rather than fermented substances.

For years the plantation squad has terrorised communities with their low flying helicopter, sometimes with a skull and cross bones painted on the door. They should stick to their proper task, looking for plantations, instead of harassing innocent people growing a couple of personal plants.

We estimate ninety percent of Australia's cannabis is grown indoors now anyway and the annual chopper budget is really a Byron Bay holiday for Sydney cops who justify it by claiming every plant they find is worth two thousand dollars. That's why they raid before the male plants are pulled out, and they just love seedlings! It's time to spend taxpayers money more wisely. Real plantations of cannabis are easily detected by aerial surveillance or satellite photography.

For further information contact
nimbin HEMP embassy
51 Cullen St
Nimbin NSW 2480
ph/fax 02 6689 1842
archives.hempembassy.net

The Rally was held peacefully, this day.

Quotes from Paul Recher .......

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? . . . We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts that you're up against - and then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it . . . . .
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor
objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of lawbreakers – and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

From Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.

“Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in Fascist mentality.”
Wilhelm Reich

nimbin HEMP embassy Letter to Editors

Dear Editor,

Illegal cannabis turnover in Australia is estimated at around $8 billion this year! It's a wonder John Howard isn't tempted to legalise it just to get the GST!

The War on Drugs is such an obvious failure to those who know, yet remains the only option it seems, to those who have no experience. In the 1970's cannabis law reform nearly happened and there were many protestors against prohibition all over Australia. Since then our governments have been more conservative, only recently introducing cautioning for small amounts because of the sheer numbers of people caught smoking pot.

In Europe, and now Canada, cannabis is clearly and quickly now being seen as a health issue. Probably because of our close ties to America these days, Australia is lagging behind, but fear not, it won't be long before smoking a joint in the evening will be as legal and acceptable as having a beer.

There are few groups left speaking out for cannabis law reform and we wonder if the people of Darwin realise what an intrepid, courageous crew you have in your midst in the Network Against Prohibition (NAP). They deserve to be taken seriously and given all the support you can muster. It's easy for us here in Nimbin, a kind of cannabis capital, but up there in the land of the big stubbie, this group should be seen as true heroes.

In recognition of that, we are inviting them as honoured guests to our annual MardiGrass Cannabis Law Reform Rally Weekend in May next year.

Your sincerely,

Michael Balderstone
Inez Price
nimbin HEMP embassy
51 Cullen St
Nimbin NSW 2480
ph/fax 02 6689 1842
archives.hempembassy.net

A Medical Marijuana Clinic Guide to Buying Marihuana Wholesale

Newshawk: The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation Medical Marijuana Clinic
Pubdate: Wed, 19 Nov 2003
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)
Column: Cannabinotes
Copyright: 2003 Anderson Valley Advertiser
Contact: ava@pacific.net
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667
Author: Fred Gardner
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

THE WHOLESALE BUYER'S CRITERIA

Management at a successful Oakland cannabis club (91 employees, days when the gross exceeds six figures) has developed a handy one-page checklist for use by buyers as they evaluate the pounds of dried herb brought in by growers. The so-called medical marijuana movement is really a business, dear reader, and only the efficient maximize their profits.

The checklist contains nine categories in a vertical column. The buyer samples the grower's cannabis and awards points based on his assessment in five of the categories.

First and foremost is 'aroma/smell.' If the buyer has to 'pinch 4 smell,' he awards the product one point. If the smell reaches him when the bag is first opened, two points. If the scent wafts through the closed bag (typically the heavy-duty type used for roasting turkeys), the grower gets
the maximum: four points.

'Crystal content' is the second criterion. The grower gets one point for 'on the inside of bud,' two for 'on inside and outside,' and four for 'All over bud & bag.'

Third is 'cure/dryness/texture.' One point is given for 'spongy with crackle, no clear snap.' Two for 'bends slightly, no crackle, clear snap.' Three for "slight to no bend with a clean [sic] snap.'

Fourth is 'consistent size of bud.' One point for 'all small buds,' two for 'mix of small and big buds,' three for 'all tops.'

Fifth comes 'length of flavor.' One 'bonus point' is awarded for 'full flavor every hit.'

The minimum total score for an acceptable product is four points, which gets the grower $3,100 a pound --or did, as of a month ago, when this checklist was provided to C-Notes. The price offered to the grower increases $100 for every point awarded; five points = $3,200/lb, six points
- - $3,300, and so on. If a sample is deemed top-grade --14 or 15 points-- management approval is required prior to a pay-out of $4,100 or $4,200/lb.

The checklist designates four other categories 'for market use only.'

Presumably the info collected is to be shared with prospective customers, but will not influence the price paid to the grower. The additional categories are:

* 'Characteristics.' The options are 'smooth,' 'spicy,' 'harsh,' 'green,' 'hash-like,' 'sage [or sugar],' and 'fruity.'

* 'Buzz type.' The options are 'sleeper high,' 'creeper,' 'head,' and 'body.'

* 'Growing Conditions,' broken down into 'hydroponic,' 'hormone,' 'soil,' 'inside,' 'outside,' and 'organic.'

* 'Strain origin.' In addition to filling in a name, the buyer is to distinguish between pure lines and crosses.

Philip Denney, MD, was shown the buyer's checklist and remarked that the priority given to smell reflects the triumph of marketing, since cannabis gets its aroma from terpenes, which, although not inert, are not as significant as the cannabinoids in determining medicinal effect. It also appears that there's no pay-off for organic production, which is a shame, and that plants grown outdoors, which contain the fullest expression of trace elements (thanks to full-spectrum sunlight) actually command a lower price (as a result of wind 'damage'). Cannabis grown outdoors accounts for
only about 10% of the total bought by the Oakland clubs.

The checklist list makes no reference to medical conditions for which a given strain might be particularly effective. Presumably the buyer-grower dialog does not touch on this subject. Which is also a damn shame.

The thought and effort that went into developing the buyer's checklist could have gone into --maybe still could go into-- developing procedures that promote bona fide medical research. Soon after Prop 215 passed, a number of club proprietors, lawyers, and patients' advocates began meeting regularly to plan a trade group --the Medical Cannabis Association-- to pursue the mutual interests of its members. The stated goals included lowering the price of cannabis and conducting research to identify and develop plant strains best suited for treating specific ailments.

Such work was already being done in England by G.W. pharmaceuticals, under license from the Home Office. G.W. scientists had identified several chemically active cannabinoids, and were developing strains in which those 'of interest' were present in different proportions. They hypothesized that Cannabidiol (CBD, which exists only in trace amounts in the marijuana
available in California), would turn out to be the sedative, anti-convulsant component of the plant.

If the Medical Cannabis Association had lived up to its name, the dispensaries --being the link between growers and patients, and having the physicial and financial resources at their disposal-- would have attempted to do in California, however crudely, what G.W. was doing with government backing in a civilized country.

The clubs could have distributed high-CBD seeds (obtainable in Europe) to participating growers, and hired an analytical chemist to identify the cannabinoids of interest. California growers could have developed strains with different cannabinoid ratios, and the dispensaries could have
encouraged their patient/customers to take part in n = 1 trials to test their efficacy. ('Try this strain for the next three weeks and report back.")

Instead, club personnel share with patients vague generalizations like "sativa is more cerebral" and "indica more physical;" or 'Train wreck' is supposedly more effective for a given condition than 'Purple skunk.' But the truth is, seven years after the passage of Prop 215, there is no organized collection of medical data going on at the club level. Instead of emulating G.W. Pharmaceuticals, the club proprietors tend to badmouth and resent their corporate counterpart.

Recently an activist who should know better said that Dr. Ethan Russo, in deciding to work full-time for G.W., had 'gone over to the dark side.' Thus the small shopkeepers and their 'activist' allies deride the ambitious Brits while secretly wishing that they themselves stood to make billions instead of mere millions. A Marxist might call it a split between the petit bourgeoisie and the big bourgeoisie... Or a case study in how a potentially radical movement gets co-opted, contained, and turned into a fancy facade for a profitable industry.

SINGAPORE - HAS THE OPIUM MYTH GONE UP IN SMOKE?

HAS THE OPIUM MYTH GONE UP IN SMOKE?

LONDON - British Home Secretary David Blunkett has reclassified cannabis to the lowest grade on the scale of controlled substances. The British government - and others including Canada and several US states - are re-evaluating their narcophobic views which took root a century and a half ago in China and led to the Opium Wars.

Governments are realising that not all drugs are an unmitigated evil and a difference is being drawn between synthetic hard drugs that threaten society and purified natural substances with medicinal values and a place in Asia's traditional cultures.

The war that Western imperialism forced on the decaying Qing empire, and which identified China as the original victim - Patient Zero - of a global drug plague, actually coincided with the conviction among both the Chinese and British governments that drugs were bad and
required suppressing.

Understandably, the opium trade has been called 'the most long-continued and systematic international crime of modern times' perpetrated by the West on a vulnerable Asian nation. But what exactly was the effect of this supposedly pernicious substance?

Opium's impact on health has been dramatised. Medical evidence points to only one effect - mild constipation. In Britain, frequent users did not suffer any detrimental effects. On the contrary, they enjoyed good health into their eighties.

South Asians took opium pills without any serious social or physical damage. In contrast, imported European spirits faced strong opposition from India's Hindus and Muslims. Contrary to folklore, few opium users in China or elsewhere lost control of themselves.

In the late 1930s, when prices soared in Canton, most users halved their consumption to make ends meet. Obviously, spiralling addiction was not the inevitable result of smoking.

China's elite in the tumultuous 1800s regarded opium as the new status symbol - like fine calligraphy in traditional society. Connoisseurship was a carefully cultivated gentleman's art and 'Patna opium' the exotic indulgence. Smoking paraphernalia became collectors' items, much like Europeans collected Wedgwood tea sets. Expensive pipes fashioned out of precious blackwood or jade and inlaid with ornate silver decoration became social markers.

Rock-bottom prices in the late 19th century nationalised an elite pastime without any of the sinister effects that haunt the lay imagination. A British consul in Hainan reported that 'although nearly
everyone uses it, one never meets the opium skeleton vividly depicted in philanthropic works, rather the reverse - a hardy peasantry, healthy and energetic'.

Seeking the dismal opium den of lore, Somerset Maugham found clean and tidy places, as a League of Nations report in 1930 noted, where the only customers were an elderly rubicund gentleman reading a newspaper, two friends chatting over a pipe, and a family with a child!

'Opium was our medicine, it was all we had,' cried an ex-Kuomintang soldier. Opium was the only pain-killer available to Britain's working classes until penicillin appeared in the 1940s.

In the early 1820s, a painful global cholera epidemic proved opium to be the perfect analgesic though, admittedly, it also caused constipation.

So why did the world engage in what Professor Frank Dikotter of London's School of Oriental and African Studies calls a narcophobic discourse?

As modern medicine developed, the new European medical associations sought moral authority and legal power by transforming opium from a European and Asian folk remedy into a controlled substance.

At the same time, narcophobia became an effective scapegoat for China's rulers. Opium was both the enemy within - morally depraved and physically weak addicts - and the enemy outside - conniving foreign powers bent on enslaving the country.

But the cure proved worse than the disease. Smokers incarcerated in detoxification centres died often within days after relying for years on opium to combat various diseases.

Tragically, the ban encouraged smuggling of hard drugs like morphine, heroin and cocaine which are a menace to stability. They did not require complicated user paraphernalia. What was needed were syringes, which the poor re-used without disinfecting. Needles spread disease and hundreds of bodies with injection marks were found by the road in Manchurian cities.

In trying to erase an unhappy past, communist China also stamped out a sophisticated smoking culture that had evolved over centuries. Europeans introduced tobacco in the 16th century, the Chinese laced it with opium in the 18th century, and dropped the tobacco in the 19th as the quality of British opium improved and stabilised.

The circle closed in the 20th century with a return to tobacco in the form of cigarettes. Deng Xiaoping attributed his longevity to cigarettes. 'Young Asia no longer smoked (opium) because grandfather smoked,' noted the famous French philosopher Jean Cocteau.

Mr Blunkett is forcing Britain to shake off a century of narcophobia by downgrading marijuana and focusing on the very real danger posed by synthetic substances. That is well and good. What is still required, though, is more examination of Patient Zero's example and experience, and a truly effective global drug policy that protects public health without counter-productive alarms and excursions.

UN REPORT CONTRADICTS AUSTRALIAN PM'S INJECTING ROOM CLAIMS

Pubdate: Fri, 05 Dec 2003
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2003 The Sydney Morning Herald, Page: 5
Contact: mailto:letters@smh.fairfax.com.au
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Author: Paola Totaro, State Political Editor
Cited: International Narcotics Control Board http://www.incb.org/

A United Nations report has contradicted claims by the Prime Minister, John Howard, that drug harm-reduction programs such as Sydney's heroin injecting room breach Australia's international treaty obligations.

The report, prepared by the legal arm of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), reiterates the body's commitment to demand reduction programs, but also concludes that drug policy must come up with new strategies to cope with new health threats like growing rates of intravenous-related HIV transmissions.

"It could even be argued that the drug control treaties . . . have been rendered out of sync with reality, since at the time they came into force they could not have possibly foreseen these new threats," the report found.

In a letter to the Premier, Bob Carr, Mr Howard warned that the INCB had reinforced its opposition to the medically supervised drug injecting room and that potential breaches of international treaty obligations could spark sanctions against Australia's $100 million a year legal opiate industry.

"I am concerned that actions to continue trials . . . could constitute a breach of Australia's international treaty obligations," he wrote.

The INCB report, submitted to a UN conference in Vienna 10 months ago, examined the status of harm-reduction programs, including syringe exchanges and drug injecting rooms in the context of existing international drug control treaties.

On drug injection rooms it stated: "It would be difficult to assert that, in establishing drug injection rooms, it is the intent of parties to actually incite or induce the illicit use of drugs, or even
more so, to associate with, aid, abet or facilitate the possession of drugs.

"On the contrary, it seems clear that in such cases the intention of governments is to provide healthier conditions for IV drug abusers, thereby reducing their risk of infection with grave transmittable diseases and, at least in some cases, reaching out to them with counselling and other therapeutic options."

Last night Mr Carr said: "It is clear the Prime Minister has got it wrong. He appears to be using the medically supervised injecting centre for political purposes."

The UN's drug control bodies are led by three major arms: The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (UNCND), effectively the policy making body; The UN Office on Drugs and Crime, the operational arm; The INCB, which consists of 13 appointed individuals, the majority of whom
are known to hold conservative views on drug control policy. The INCB monitors the implementation of treaties.

Dr Alex Wodak, director of Alcohol and Drug Services at St Vincents Hospital, said Mr Howard quoted selectively from information and research on other drug programs.

"During the heroin trial debates, he kept quoting one document or small paragraphs from one expert panel convened by the World Health Organisation which quite appropriately noted the shortcomings of the Swiss studies," he said. "But he consistently failed to note the final paragraph which recommended more scientific research on heroin trials."

"This is selective and misleading quotation to support his argument. It is disappointing that comments by politicians in these very technical areas are not properly scrutinised by the media."

THINGS GET WORSE FOR RUSH LIMBAUGH

Rush Limbaugh, America's Alan Jones, is in trouble.
Limbaugh, a staunch supporter of being tough on drugs, has not been exactly drug free himself.
Does any reader know how we can achieve a national drug free status when we cannot even keep our zero tolerance fundamentalists drug free?

Pubdate: Fri, 05 Dec 2003
Source: Newsday (NY)
Webpage:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usrush053571367dec05,0,2613522.story
Copyright: 2003 Newsday Inc.
Contact: mailto:letters@newsday.com
Website: http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: Jon Burstein

RAIDS ON RUSH ARE DETAILED

Warrants: He Broke Drug Laws

West Palm Beach, Fla. - A Palm Beach County law enforcement task force investigating whether Rush Limbaugh illegally obtained prescription painkillers seized the talk show host's medical records from three doctors, according to search warrants made public yesterday.

Authorities are looking into whether the conservative commentator violated the state's "doctor shopping" law by getting doctors to write him overlapping narcotic prescriptions and failing to tell them about each other.

Records from one pharmacy near Limbaugh's Palm Beach mansion show that during a six-month period in 2003, he picked up hundreds of addictive painkiller pills prescribed by four local doctors, court documents state.

From March to September, Limbaugh picked up 1,733 hydrocodone pills, 90 OxyContin pills, 50 Xanax tablets and 40 pills of Kadian (time-release morphine), search warrant records show. The court documents indicate that sometimes less than a week would lapse between him getting different doctors' prescriptions.

"Doctor shopping" is a third-degree felony under Florida law, punishable by up to 5 years in prison.

Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer said yesterday that Limbaugh still is under investigation and "is presumed innocent at this time."

The Nov. 25 searches - two at the Jupiter Outpatient Surgery Center and a third at a West Palm Beach doctor's office - happened a week after Limbaugh came back on the air following a stint in a drug-rehabilitation program. Limbaugh admitted in early October he was addicted to painkillers, a week after media reports first surfaced that his former housekeeper had supplied him with OxyContin and other powerful prescription drugs.

A few hours before the search warrants were filed yesterday, Limbaugh alerted his listeners that he had just learned his medical records had been seized. Limbaugh read a statement written by his attorney denying any wrongdoing and saying "what should be a responsible investigation is looking more and more like a fishing expedition.

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW FOLKS!