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Hague's call to legalise cannabis rejected by government
The government has rejected a call from Lord Hague to consider legalising the recreational use of cannabis. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, the former Tory leader said the war on cannabis had been "irreversibly lost" and a change of policy was needed. His call was prompted by the case of a boy with epilepsy who was given a special licence to use cannabis oil.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid has told MPs there will be a review of the medical use of cannabis in the UK. The Home Office has set up an expert panel to review the rules on the therapeutic use of the drug, but a spokesman stressed that the existing laws on the recreational use of cannabis would not be changed.
[...] Last week officials at Heathrow Airport confiscated Billy Caldwell's cannabis oil, which the 12-year-old's mother Charlotte had been attempting to bring into the UK from Canada. The Home Office returned some of the medicine after protests from Ms Caldwell, and assurances from the medical team treating Billy that the treatment was necessary. [...] Lord Hague said the debate about Billy Caldwell was "one of those illuminating moments when a longstanding policy is revealed to be inappropriate, ineffective and utterly out of date". By returning the medicine to the Caldwell family, the Home Office had "implicitly conceded that the law has become indefensible", he said.
[...] Prime Minister Theresa May remains firmly opposed to legalisation or decriminalisation of the drug because of the harm she says it does to individual users and communities.
Guardian editorial. Also at The Telegraph.
See also: Cannabis: What are the risks of recreational use?
(Score: 5, Informative) by pTamok on Friday June 22 2018, @10:28AM (5 children)
I don't believe it. This fairly comprehensive report on the The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, Health Division:The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research (January 2017) [nationalacademies.org] says that:
A document listing the comittee's full conclusions is available here: National Academies: Cannabis Health Effects: Conclusions [nationalacademies.org]
You can find out more about the National Academies of the Sciences, Engineering and Medicine on their 'about' page:National Academies:Who We Are [nationalacademies.org]
As for why there is a such a difference between cannabis smokers and tobacco smokers, I don't know the answer. It could be down to smoking habits, the contents of the smoke, lifestyle confounders, or many other possible reasons - but the epidemiological statistics are clear. Cannabis smokers and tobacco smokers have different incidences of lung cancer.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday June 22 2018, @10:36AM (3 children)
We'll see when the MJ smoking will be as usual a habit as tobacco smoking - with cannabis being illegal, I don't think the statistics have the same relevance.
Until the, that's a nice info there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by CoolHand on Friday June 22 2018, @01:10PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 4, Informative) by digitalaudiorock on Friday June 22 2018, @01:27PM
A huge factor you're omitting completely is this: Even if the theoretical cancer risk etc from pot smoke where the same as tobacco, just how much pot do you think people will smoke? Smokers often smoke 1/2 to 2 or more packs a day. Typical weed these days will bake someone for hours with like three hits. I just don't see the comparison. And also, as others have pointed out, there are edibles as well.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday June 22 2018, @04:10PM
Marijuana simply is not physically addictive the way tobacco is, so it'll never be as usual a habit as tobacco smoking. There's outliers of course, but the vast majority of MJ users just don't use very much. Even the heavy users don't use as much as a typical cigarette smoker; the effect just doesn't lend itself to wanting to get another hit every hour like with tobacco.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @09:24PM
As for why there is a such a difference between cannabis smokers and tobacco smokers, I don't know the answer.
Nor do I, but there is a growing mountain of (admittedly anectdotal) evidence that cannabis has curative properties for most forms of cancer. I myself fought stage IV colon cancer for 6 years, and was given 2-6 months (tops) to live almost 3 years ago, when the cancer moved into my lungs (all 4 lobes riddled with the stuff). After 18 rounds of intense chemo (12 FolFox, 6 Folfiri for those to whom that means something), numerous sugeries, oral chemo & radiation, etc. the jig was up, I was going to die and there was nothing to do about it.
Except, my oncologist mentioned that the palliative care department had seen curative value in some high-THC cannabis oils, and another of her patients had cured himself using it. I went on a 6-month intense course of Rick Simpson cannabis oil (had to go on leave from work, obviously, because you're high about 20 hours/day, which might sound like fun but is actually quite a miserable experience). It's no cakewalk, but it sure beats chemo, and it definitely beats dying of cancer. I am now in complete remission, and am my oncologist's second patient to survive thanks to medical marijuana. My experience is not unique; there have been thousands of people with late-stage cancers who have survived, gone into remission, and cured themselves using this stuff. Current thinking is that it works by regulating the endocannabinoid system (ECS) and marshaling your own immune response to kill the cancer, but since the FDA has blocked pretty much all studies on the subject, the only studies I was able to reference were a small one in California, a couple if Israeli studies, and one from Spain. It's valid science, but not the gold-standard, double-blind statistical study required to have any chance of allowing it to become an FDA-approved and doctor-prescribed treatment. Which will probably not happen, since the FDA blocks said studies.
Which of course sucks for cancer patients, but is really nice for those who profit from the $5+Trillion dollar chemo industry.
Now, to prepare Rick Simpson oil you have to keep the temperatures low or you destroy many of the life-saving chemicals you need, so smoking and vaping are right out. You ingest the oil, or take it sublingually, but it may be that, even smoking it, some of the anti-cancer benefits remain and offset the carcinogenic effects of smoking. This would actually go a long way toward explaining those otherwise surprising, and very non-intuitive, results.