Legal highs are becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs with many young people wrongly believing they are safe.
Alan Andrews, an ex-heroin addict who runs a Llanelli-based drug intervention centre, said some legal drugs were stronger than illegal counterparts.

The programme has investigated the issue of legal highs, more than a year after the drug mephedrone, or meow meow, was banned.

Legal highs are substances that are manufactured in a laboratory which do not fall under the current legislation of banned substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act, according to Dr Mohan Da Silva, lead clinician for charity Kaleidoscope Wales.

Undercover recording has found shops breaking the law by selling some of these drugs for human consumption.

Mr Andrews, managing director of Chooselife, said: “It’s becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs because… the message ‘legal’ means safe, which it’s not.

He said some of the legal high drugs “are stronger, more potent than the illegal drugs and it’s quite scary. There’s a generation of young people who are being sold a lie that legal means safe.”

“There has been a lot of talk about whether things are appropriately classified and I think the development of these new compounds at the rate they’re being developed probably warrants a second look at how we control all drugs,” he said.

Legal highs are not new but there are more of them and there are concerns they are getting more potent.

Last month the monitoring centre which records drug use across Europe said new highs were appearing at an “unprecedented” pace.

Some 41 new substances emerged in 2010, 16 of which were first reported in the UK.

The most high profile has been mephedrone, which has been linked to a number of young people’s deaths.

The UK government is planning to bring in temporary banning orders, to allow time for legal highs to be tested.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13846006

Researchers at the University of Reading have discovered that three compounds found in cannabis leaves can help to reduce and control seizures in epilepsy.
They are now using extracts from the plants grown in huge industrial-sized greenhouses in the south of England to develop new drugs that could ease the misery of millions of epilepsy sufferers around the world.

In the UK alone there are more than 500,000 people who suffer from epilepsy.

Dr Ben Whalley, who is leading the research at the department of pharmacy at the University of Reading, said tests in animals had shown the compounds effective at preventing seizures and convulsions while also having less side effects than existing epilepsy drugs.

He said: “There was a stigma associated with cannabis that came out from the 60s and 70s associated with recreational use, so people have tended not to look at it medicinally as a result.”

“Cannabis is thought of being a treasure trove of compounds that could be used for pharmacological development. We have a list of around a dozen potential candidates for epilepsy and have tested three that show promise.”

“These compounds are very well tolerated and you are not seeing the same kind of side effects that you get with the existing treatments.”

Epilepsy is caused by sudden bursts of electrical activity in the brain that disrupt the normal way in which messages are transmitted. This can cause debilitating seizures and fits that can lead to sufferers injuring themselves.

Dr Whalley, together with his colleagues Dr Claire Williams and Dr Gary Stephens have been working with drug company GW Pharmaceuticals to develop and test new treatments for the disease from cannabis.

Two of the compounds they have identified, one called cannabidiol and the other called GWP42006, have been highly effective at controlling seizures in animals and the researchers now hope to begin clinical trials in humans within the next three years.

Neither of the compounds produce the characteristic “high” associated with cannabis use.

The scientists, whose latest findings on the compounds are published in the scientific journal Seizure, believe they work by interfering with the signals that cause the brain to become hyper-excitable, which leads to epileptic seizures.

Until now the main medicinal use that has been explored for cannabis has been in treating Multiple Sclerosis and for pain relief in cancer patients.

GW Pharmaceuticals has been given a license to grows around 20 tonnes of cannabis a year at its facilities in a rural part of southern England for medicinal research. In each glasshouse the temperature is carefully maintained at 77 degrees F while the crops are protected by electric fences and 24 hour security.

Mark Rogerson, from GW Pharmaceuticals, said: “Medicinal cannabinoids can treat a wide range of diseases like MS and pain.

“The work by Dr Whalley and his team is taking us into a whole new area where there is a real unmet need. The stigma is counterbalanced by the fact that it is a serious medicine for a serious condition.”

A spokesman for Epilepsy Action said: “Epilepsy is a condition that can be very difficult to treat.

“We are aware of some people with epilepsy who have used cannabis for medicinal purposes. However, it should be noted that although taking cannabis may reduce seizures in some people, it could actually increase seizures in others.

“We therefore welcome research into this treatment area. It could help our understanding of alternative therapies and may prove useful in the long-term for people whose epilepsy does not respond to more traditional methods.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Cannabis-could-be-used-to-treat-epilepsy

The “war on drugs” has failed and should be abandoned in favour of evidence based policies that treat addiction as a health problem, according to prominent public figures including former heads of MI5 and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Leading peers – including prominent Tories – say that despite governments worldwide drawing up tough laws against dealers and users over the past 50 years, illegal drugs have become more accessible.

Vast amounts of money have been wasted on unsuccessful crackdowns, while criminals have made fortunes importing drugs into this country.

The increasing use of the most harmful drugs such as heroin has also led to “enormous health problems”, according to the group.

The MPs and members of the House of Lords, who have formed a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, are calling for new policies to be drawn up on the basis of scientific evidence.

It could lead to calls for the British government to decriminalise drugs, or at least for the police and Crown Prosecution Service not to jail people for possession of small amounts of banned substances.

Their intervention could receive a sympathetic audience in Whitehall, where ministers and civil servants are trying to cut the numbers and cost of the prison population. The Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, has already announced plans to help offenders kick drug habits rather than keeping them behind bars.

The former Labour government changed its mind repeatedly on the risks posed by cannabis use and was criticised for sacking its chief drug adviser, Prof David Nutt, when he claimed that ecstasy and LSD were less dangerous than alcohol.

The chairman of the new group, Baroness Meacher – who is also chairman of an NHS trust – told The Daily Telegraph: “Criminalising drug users has been an expensive catastrophe for individuals and communities.

“In the UK the time has come for a review of our 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. I call on our Government to heed the advice of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime that drug addiction should be recognised as a health problem and not punished.

“We have the example of other countries to follow. The best is Portugal which has decriminalised drug use for 10 years. Portugal still has one of the lowest drug addiction rates in Europe, the trend of Young people’s drug addiction is falling in Portugal against an upward trend in the surrounding countries, and the Portuguese prison population has fallen over time.”

Lord Lawson, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1983 and 1989, said: “I have no doubt that the present policy is a disaster.

“This is an important issue, which I have thought about for many years. But I still don’t know what the right answer is – I have joined the APPG in the hope that it may help us to find the right answer.”

Other high-profile figures in the group include Baroness Manningham-Buller, who served as Director General of MI5, the security service, between 2002 and 2007; Lord Birt, the former Director-General of the BBC who went on to become a “blue-sky thinker” for Tony Blair; Lord Macdonald of River Glaven, until recently the Director of Public Prosecutions; and Lord Walton of Detchant, a former president of the British Medical Association and the General Medical Council.

Current MPs on the group include Peter Bottomley, who served as a junior minister under Margaret Thatcher; Mike Weatherley, the newly elected Tory MP for Hove and Portslade; and Julian Huppert, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cambridge.

The group’s formation coincides with the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which paved the way for a war on drugs by describing addiction as a “serious evil”, attempting to limit production for medicinal and scientific uses only, and coordinating international action against traffickers.

The peers and MPs say that despite governments “pouring vast resources” into the attempt to control drug markets, availability and use has increased, with up to 250 million people worldwide using narcotics such as cannabis, cocaine and heroin in 2008.

They believe the trade in illegal drugs makes more than £200 billion a year for criminals and terrorists, as well as destabilising entire nations such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

As a result, the all-party group is working with the Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust, to review current policies and scientific evidence in order to draw up proposed new ways to deal with the problem.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/War-on-drugs-has-failed-say-former-heads-of-MI5-CPS-and-BBC

The results of a Phase III trial have shown the ability of GW Pharmaceuticals’ cannabinoid based medicine Sativex to reduce severe spasticity associated with Multiple Sclerosis.
According to the data, published in the European Journal of Neurology, about half of MS patients who had failed to respond to standard therapy experienced an improvement in spasticity after taking Sativex Oromucosal Spray (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol).

The trial hit its primary goal of demonstrating that Sativex induced a significant improvement in the scores of spasticity, spasm frequency and sleep disturbance related to spasticity compared to a placebo.

Following a four-week, single-blind therapeutic trial period involving 572 patients, Sativex was shown to have reduced the mean score for spasticity, with 48% of patients achieving a clinically meaningful improvement of =20% in spasticity severity.

Of these responders, 241 took part in a 12-week, randomised, placebo-controlled trial phase, at the end of which the number of patients reporting an improvement in spasticity scores of =30% was significantly greater in the Sativex group (74%) than in the control arm (51%).

“We have been aware for a long time that cannabinoid medicines can significantly improve spasticity, which is a common, complex symptom of MS, and now the results from this study prove the positive impact they can have on patients’ symptoms, and ultimately their lives,” said Professor John Zajicek, Honorary Consultant in Neurology, Derriford Hospital and Chair of Clinical Neurosciences at PCMD, University of Plymouth, commenting on the findings.

MS affects around 100,000 people in the UK, and spasticity is a common symptom that is considered to be a major cause of disability, interfering with many every day activities such as walking, picking up objects, washing or dressing.

Sativex was approved by health regulators in the UK and Spain last year, but only in patients who have not responded to other medication and who show a clinically significant improvement in symptoms during a trial run of therapy.

Overall, GW Pharma is celebrating a stellar year with 27 sales hike GW Pharma s cannabis-based MS drug approved in Spain GW rolls out cannabis-based MS drug Sativex in UK Sativex deemed approvable by regulators in UK Spain. GW Pharma’s share has also received a boost on initial Sativex research on reducing cancer pain data.

From: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Study_backs_use_of_cannabis-based_Sativex_to_treat_MS

High Society- a drug education exhibition by the Welcome TrustWith the illicit drug trade estimated by the UN at £200 billion a year and new drugs constantly appearing on the streets and the internet, it can seem as if we are in the grip of an unprecedented level of addiction.

Yet the use of psychoactive drugs is nothing new, and indeed our most familiar ones – alcohol, coffee and tobacco – have all been illegal in the past.

From ancient Egyptian poppy tinctures to Victorian cocaine eye drops, Native American peyote rites to the salons of the French Romantics, mind-altering drugs have a rich history.

‘High Society’ will explore the paths by which these drugs were first discovered – from apothecaries’ workshops to state-of-the-art laboratories – and how they came to be simultaneously fetishised and demonised in today’s culture.

You can watch the online video at: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/high-society.aspx

You can also try their free “High society” quiz at: http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/exhibitions/high-society/high-soceity-quiz.aspx Test your knowledge of drugs. Faster answers mean higher scores. Play again for more questions.

High Society: Drugs in Victorian Britain on Friday 11, 19.00-21.00 & Saturday 12 February 2011, 10.30-17.30

Victorian Britain: a global Empire and a culture awash with drugs. Opium, morphine, cocaine and cannabis are on sale in every high-street pharmacy. Join us for this special event where we will explore these drug-addled and dissolute times and discover the origins of today’s drug controls.

FRIDAY: MAGIC LANTERN PERFORMANCE, 19.00-21.00

Immerse yourself in the era at an evening of authentic Victorian entertainment. The evening will include a performance of the marvellous Magic Lantern with piano accompaniment, a complimentary drinks reception so you can get to know your fellow guests and a chance to enjoy the ‘High Society’ exhibition away from the crowds.

SATURDAY: TALKS AND DISCUSSIONS, 10.30-17.30

It is the 19th century. The advances of science, combined with unfettered global trade, are making drugs stronger, more available and more dangerous than ever before. Something must be done – but what?

Join experts from the worlds of history, literature and pharmacology to explore the drug-addled Victorian metropolis in a series of fascinating talks. Our speakers include ‘High Society’ curator and writer Mike Jay, Stuart Anderson, Associate Dean at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and historians Louise Foxcroft and Michael Neve.

Tickets must be booked in advance.

£30 full price/£20 concession for both days, including drinks on Friday evening and lunch, tea and coffee on Saturday.

£5 early bird discount on top-price tickets – if you book by Friday 21 January

Please call 020 7611 2222 to book.

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/events/drugs-in-victorian-britain.aspx

The current ban on hallucinogenic drugs are holding back vital research into their medical benefits.
Last week, the news took on a decidedly trippy tinge. First, Professor David Nutt, sacked as an adviser to the Labour government for criticising its policy on drugs, sparked controversy when he published research suggesting that heroin was less damaging than alcohol.

The following day, Californians went to the polls to vote on a proposal to legalise cannabis. In a dramatic move, President Obama and his Attorney General, Eric Holder, threatened to intervene if the outcome was a “yes” (it wasn’t).

It is timely then that today the Wellcome Trust opens it’s doors on High Society, an exhibition exploring the history of mind-altering drugs.

In keeping with the Wellcome ethos, the exhibition blends a scientific and cultural approach, with curiosities such as a 20 metre opium pipe – an installation by the Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping – sitting alongside more scientific (if no less bizarre) exhibits, such as a Nasa experiment that studied the strange webs spiders spin after they are given different types of drugs.

Amid the debate about drugs, one thing is often ignored: their surprising potential in medicine.

Most people are familiar with the idea that cannabis can be used therapeutically, chiefly in relieving pain or the nausea caused by chemotherapy, but also to moderate autoimmune and neurological disorders.

But according to Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and director of the Beckley Foundation – a charity that promotes research into drugs and consciousness – we have not fully harnessed its potential.

“The prohibition of the past 50 years has dramatically slowed the advancement of knowledge in the area,” she says. “In combating the recreational use of cannabis, the baby has been thrown out with the bath water.”

More surprising is the fact that harder drugs may also have therapeutic potential. Class A substances such as LSD and ecstasy, Feilding claims, may have a wealth of health benefits.

“We need to wash these substances of their taboo by using the best science,” she says. “Opium and heroin are already widely used in hospitals. Hallucinogenic drugs, however, are victims of a prohibition that came into place in the Sixties.”

“The potential of Class A hallucinogens for clinical use is tantalising,” says Mike Jay, curator of the exhibition. “Psychedelic drugs have been subjected to the most stringent legislation. Yet when administered clinically, they are non-addictive, non-toxic and effective in the smallest quantities.”

LSD was discovered in 1943 by Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist. Hofmann, the story goes, was carrying out experiments and got a tiny amount of LSD on his fingers. As he was riding his bicycle that evening, the world “transformede_SLps dissolving into a flux of kaleidoscopic spirals and fountains”.

“In the 1950s, the advent of LSD sparked a furious interest in psychedelic psychotherapy,” says Dr Ben Sessa, a consultant psychiatrist involved in organising the conference. “Then the substances leaked to recreational users, the drug revolution started, and the government halted the supply, even for therapeutic use.”

These may sound like the views of a crank. But Dr Sessa points out that he is not “a fringe figure in a wacky tie”, but a “serious, grey-suited scientist” who has “no interest in decriminalisation”.

There is, he adds, particular excitement over research into MDMA, the active component of ecstasy. “MDMA is an incredibly clean substance when administered in a controlled setting. It’s very unlikely to cause a bad trip. There is no evidence that it is physically addictive. And it is extremely effective in psychotherapy, and to ease the anxiety experienced by cancer sufferers.”

This doesn’t mean that we should dispense MDMA over the counter at Boots. But the drug, which was developed in 1976, has proved its mettle in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist from South Carolina, has carried out extensive research in this area.

He found that for the 30 per cent of PTSD sufferers who were too traumatised to talk about their experiences, therapy was useless. The administering of a small amount of MDMA, however, enabled them to talk freely about their trauma, allowing them to “move on”.

The British Government maintains that its rules on drugs do not mean that legitimate research is being curtailed. “The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 recognises the importance of research into drugs such as MDMA,” says a Home Office spokesman, “and allows it to take place under licence.”

Anecdotal evidence, however, points the other way. “It can be frustrating,” says Dr Celia Morgan, a psychopharmacologist at University College London who is engaged in research into cannabis. “Our work is funded by the Medical Research Council, but it was hard to come by. I’d like to see fewer restrictions and more scope for real research.”

The Government’s restrictive attitude, she says, is highlighted by a proposed amendment to the 1971 Act that will give ministers the power to ban “legal highs”, without any scientific evidence that they are harmful. “Prohibition should be based on proper evidence,” she says. “Science should not be circumvented or curtailed.”

Morgan and her co-researcher, Professor Val Cullen, have found that an element of marijuana called cannabinadol, or CBD, which has a beneficial effect on psychosis, anxiety, inflammation, nausea and cancer cell growth, is being bred out of commercially available cannabis. “Only 30 per cent of cannabis on the street contains any CBD at all,” says Prof Cullen. “That makes it far more dangerous.”

From the point of view of the Wellcome Trust, the societal forces that influence drugs policy must also be taken into account. According to Mike Jay, every drug has its own history.

“Traditionally, we tend to be suspicious of drugs associated with other cultures, while being tolerant of those identified with our own,” he says. “For example, we don’t take alcohol very seriously, despite its dangers. Cannabis, however, with its historical links to Caribbean immigrant communities, has been viewed as far more dangerous.”

This is illustrated in the High Society exhibition by two pre-war posters. One reads, “Guinness is good for you”. The second states that “marihuana” is a “weed with roots in hell” and leads to “weird orgies, wild parties and unleashed passions”.

“Another good example is kava, a narcotic drink that has a central role in cultures across the South Pacific,” says Jay. “It encourages cordial conversation and comfortable silence. Yet in 2001, the EU banned it, on the flimsiest of evidence.” The ban has now been lifted.

“Every society is a high society,” he says. “The question is, what are we going to do about it? If illegal drugs can be used as effective medical treatments, it would be wrong not to research that rigorously.”

The High Society exhibition runs from today- 11 November to 27 February 2011 and is being held at the
Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE with FREE admission.

Sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt publishes investigation in Lancet reopening debate on classification.Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink.

Led by the sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt with colleagues from the breakaway Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the study says that if drugs were classified on the basis of the harm they do, alcohol would be class A, alongside heroin and crack cocaine.

Today’s paper, published by the respected Lancet medical journal, will be seen as a challenge to the government to take on the fraught issue of the relative harms of legal and illegal drugs, which proved politically damaging to Labour.

Nutt was sacked last year by the home secretary at the time, Alan Johnson, for challenging ministers’ refusal to take the advice of the official Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which he chaired.

The committee wanted cannabis to remain a class C drug and for ecstasy to be downgraded from class A, arguing that these were less harmful than other drugs. Nutt claimed scientific evidence was overruled for political reasons.

The new paper updates a study carried out by Nutt and others in 2007, which was also published by the Lancet and triggered debate for suggesting that legally available alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous than cannabis and LSD.

Alcohol, in that paper, ranked fifth most dangerous overall. The 2007 paper also called for an overhaul of the drug classification system, but critics disputed the criteria used to rank the drugs and the absence of differential weighting.

Today’s study offers a more complex analysis that seeks to address the 2007 criticisms. It examines nine categories of harm that drugs can do to the individual “from death to damage to mental functioning and loss of relationships” and seven types of harm to others. The maximum possible harm score was 100 and the minimum zero.

Overall, alcohol scored 72 – against 55 for heroin and 54 for crack. The most dangerous drugs to their individual users were ranked as heroin, crack and then crystal meth. The most harmful to others were alcohol, heroin and crack in that order.

Nutt told the Guardian the drug classification system needed radical change. “The Misuse of Drugs Act is past its sell-by date and needs to be redone,” he said. “We need to rethink how we deal with drugs in the light of these new findings.”

For overall harm, the other drugs examined ranked as follows: crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine/speed (23), cannabis (20), GHB (18), benzodiazepines (15), ketamine (15), methadone (13), butane (10), qat (9), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7), buprenorphine (6) and magic mushrooms (5).

The authors write: “Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm. They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harm is a valid and necessary public health strategy.”

Nutt told the Lancet a new classification system “would depend on what set of harms ‘to self or others’ you are trying to reduce”. He added: “But if you take overall harm, then alcohol, heroin and crack are clearly more harmful than all others, so perhaps drugs with a score of 40 or more could be class A; 39 to 20 class B; 19-10 class C and 10 or under class D.” This would result in tobacco being labelled a class B drug alongside cocaine. Cannabis would also just make class B, rather than class C. Ecstasy and LSD would end up in the lowest drug category, D.

He was not suggesting classification was unnecessary: “We do need a classification system – we do need to regulate the ones that are very harmful to individuals like heroin and crack cocaine.” But he thought the UK could learn from the Portuguese and Dutch: “They have innovative policies which could reduce criminalisation.” Representatives of both countries will be at a summit in London today, called drug science and drug policy: building a consensus, where the study will be presented.

UK reformers will be hoping the coalition government will take a more evidence-based approach to classification and tackling drugs than Labour did. The Liberal Democrats supported Nutt over his sacking, while Conservative leader David Cameron, who got into trouble at Eton, aged 15, for smoking cannabis, acknowledged the Misuse of Drugs Act was not working during his time as an MP on the Home Affairs select committee.

Nutt called for far more effort to be put into reducing harm caused by alcohol, pointing out that its economic costs, as well as the costs to society of addiction and broken families, are very high. Taxation on alcohol is “completely inappropriate”, he said – with strong cider, for instance, taxed at a fifth of the rate of wine – and action should particularly target the low cost and promotion of alcohol such as Bacardi breezers to young people.

Don Shenker, the chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said : “What this study and new classification shows is that successive governments have mistakenly focused attention on illicit drugs, whereas the pervading harms from alcohol should have given a far higher priority. Drug misusers are still ten times more likely to receive support for their addiction than alcohol misusers, costing the taxpayer billions in repeat hospital admissions and alcohol related crime. Alcohol misuse has been exacerbated in recent years as government failed to accept the link between cheap prices, higher consumption and resultant harms to individuals and society.”

“[The] government should now urgently ensure alcohol is made less affordable and invest in prevention and treatment services to deal with the rise in alcohol dependency that has occurred.”

The Home Office said last night: “We have not read the report. This government has just completed an alcohol consultation and will publish a drugs strategy in the coming months.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “In England, most people drink once a week or less. If you’re a women and stick to two to three units a day or a man and drink up to three or four units, you are unlikely to damage your health. The government is determined to prevent alcohol abuse without disadvantaging those who drink sensibly.”Two experts from the Amsterdam National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research point out in a Lancet commentary the study does not look at multiple drug use, which can make some drugs much more dangerous – such as cocaine or cannabis together with alcohol – but they acknowledge the topic was outside its scope.

They add that because the pattern of recreational drug use changes, the study should be repeated every five or 10 years.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/alcohol-more-harmful-than-heroin-crack

Health Direct has long complained about the inconsistent approach goverments have had over drugs and drugs classifications.

On Aug 02, 2006 we posted: Risks of taking drugs compared- Scientific review of dangers of drug taking- we reproduced the first ranking based upon scientific evidence of harm to both individuals and society. It was devised by government advisers – then ignored by labour ministers because of its controversial findings.

Billionaire financier George Soros has donated $1m to the campaign to legalise marijuana in California.California’s campaign to legalise marijuana received a major boost with a $1m donation from billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros.

The cash infusion, one week before Californians vote on a measure tomorrows that would let anyone over 21 grow and possess up to an ounce of marijuana and allow local councils to tax sales of the drug, marks the first major investment by Soros in the mid-term elections.

Soros, a prominent donor to Democratic organisations in 2004, 2006 and 2008, told the New York Times that he was sitting out these elections because the prospects were so bleak.

“I don’t believe in standing in the way of an avalanche,” he told the Times. Soros has focused instead on funding research into climate change policy, committing to spending $10m a year over the next decade.

But in an article posted in the Wall Street Journal, he argued that, no matter what the outcome on 2 November, California’s legalisation campaign was a winner.

“The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimised public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago,” he wrote.

Soros is a longtime proponent of legalisation. He spent $3m on initiatives that led to the legalisation of marijuana for medical use in the 1990s.

Recent opinion polls suggest, however, that Californians are unlikely to opt for full legalisation – although some commentators have speculated that people may just be reluctant to come out in favour of marijuana in public.

The Soros donation could alter that dynamic. The donation became public 48 hours after the no side began television and radio ads warning that legalisation would be an utter disaster, with truck drivers and hospital personnel doing drugs on the job. “Imagine coming out of surgery and the nurse caring for you was high,” said one ad.

For its part, the legalisation campaign is running ads featuring former police chiefs claiming that bringing marijuana into the open will prevent the rise of Mexico-type cartels and generate revenue for cash-strapped town councils.

The Soros donation is the largest from a single individual since Proposition 19′s sponsor, Richard Lee, put down $1.5m of his own money in support of legalisation.

Lee, a former lighting technician for Aerosmith, has made a fortune from indoor grow houses and dispensaries for marijuana in Oakland.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/26/soros-marijuana-donation

Decriminalising drug use could drastically reduce crime and improve health, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians has said.
Sir Ian Gilmore said the laws on misuse of drugs should be reviewed and that their supply should be regulated.

He had formed his view after seeing the problems caused by dirty needles and contaminated drugs, the BBC’s health correspondent Adam Brimelow said.

In a parting e-mail to 25,000 RCP members, which Sir Ian said expressed his own views rather than those of the RCP, he wrote that he felt like finishing his presidency on a “controversial note”.

He endorsed a recent article in the British Medical Journal by Stephen Rolles, from the think tank Transform Drug Policy Foundation, which argued that the policy of prohibition had harmed public health, encouraged organised crime and fuelled corruption.

Sir Ian told the BBC: “Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success.  There are really strong arguments to look again.”

Sir Ian said he had had a longstanding interest in the subject, stemming from his work as a liver specialist.

“Every day in our hospital wards we see drug addicts with infections from dirty needles, we see heroin addicts with complications from contaminated drugs,” he said.

He argued that many of the problems health staff encountered were the consequences not of heroin itself, but of prohibition.

In his e-mail, Sir Ian wrote: “I personally back the chairman of the UK Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, when he calls for drug laws to be reconsidered with a view to decriminalising illicit drugs use. This could drastically reduce crime and improve health,” he wrote.

In his recent report to the Bar Council, Mr Green said there was growing evidence that decriminalising personal use could free up police resources, reduce crime and improve public health.

Mr Rolles – whose recent BMJ article Sir Ian cited in his e-mail – told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme their arguments were “built on a critique of the failure of the last 40 or 50 years”.

He said the “punitive criminal justice-driven war on drugs” had delivered the opposite of its goals.

“It hasn’t reduced drug use, it hasn’t prevented the availability of drugs, but it has created a whole raft of secondary problems associated with the illegal market, including making drugs more dangerous than they already are and undermining public health and fuelling crime.”

“That is provoking a debate on what the alternative approaches are and the one that we are calling for is legally regulated production supply.”

From:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-10990921

The first licensed medical drug containing whole cannabis plant extracts has been launched to treat symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Sativex will be made widely available after it was approved by the medicines regulator last week.

Taken as a mouth spray, it is used to help alleviate symptoms of spasticity – involuntary muscle stiffness and spasms – associated with MS and is said to be the first symptom relief drug specifically for those with the condition.

It is the first cannabinoid medicine derived from whole plant extracts of the cannabis sativa plant, and is only the second cannabinoid drug to be licensed by the Medicines and Health care products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Cannabis is a Class B drug and using it for medicinal purposes remains illegal in the UK.

But doctors can prescribe Sativex to MS patients experiencing the spasms and cramping associated with spasticity.

MS charities welcomed the regulator’s approval of the drug, which was developed by UK-based GW Pharmaceuticals.

Pam Macfarlane, chief executive of the MS Trust, described today’s launch as a milestone.

She said: “We have been aware for a long time, based on comments from people with MS, that cannabis-based medicines can significantly improve spasticity, which is a common, complex symptom of MS.

“For this reason, the MS Trust has campaigned for the availability of a licensed medicine that can be properly controlled and prescribed.”

She added: “The launch of Sativex is a milestone for the NHS and the MS Trust and we are delighted. It will now be down to specialist professionals to assess people and we hope that this can happen quickly.”

Ed Holloway, head of care and services research at the Multiple Sclerosis Society, said: “Sativex can help alleviate one of the most distressing symptoms of MS and its licensing is good news for people with progressive forms of the condition, for whom drugs and therapies are sparse.

“We’d like to see it made available to anybody who might benefit.”

Doctors have been able to prescribe the drug to named individuals at their own risk since 2006, the Home Office said.

About 2,000 people in the UK are already prescribed it on this basis but any MS patient will now be able to request a prescription for the drug from their doctor, meaning many more will be able to obtain it.

About 100,000 people in the UK have MS, a condition of the central nervous system.

It is most often diagnosed in those aged between 20 and 40, with women nearly twice as likely to develop it as men.

It can cause a wide range of symptoms besides spasticity, including fatigue, visual problems, cognitive problems and mood changes.

The only other MHRA-approved drug containing cannabinoid – a compound found in cannabis – is Nabilone, which was licensed in February 1995 for the treatment of nausea and vomiting suffered by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Unlike Sativex, the cannabinoid’s it contains are synthetic.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/MS-sufferers-welcome-first-licensed-cannabis-based-drug