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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
A serious professional, [Laura] Kam [Founder and CEO of Kam Global Strategies, a Jerusalem-based public relations firm] has embarked on a very serious mission to make the State of Israel – where medical cannabis is legal and used therapeutically every day – the world’s center for research and further development of the plant. One thing she knows from the outset is that, for the moment at least, we need not worry about competition in this area from America.
“In the US, cannabis is regulated as a ‘Schedule 1 drug,’ akin to heroin, so there is virtually no research going on with it,” Kam says.
“No institution with ties to the federal government, such as the National Institutes of Health, will do any kind of research on cannabis. Israel has much more liberal cannabis research policies than the US, so investment money has been pouring into Israel for research.
Source: http://www.jpost.com/Metro/On-a-crusade-for-cannabis-456932
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Sunday June 19 2016, @10:46PM
This is a great opportunity for Israel, or any nation that recognizes the medicinal power of cannabis. It is a plant primed for an explosion of market activity around its uses that we've barely begun to scientifically explore.
We are currently experiencing a public health crisis in the USA from opioid abuse. Many addicts are sufferers of legitimate injuries needing some form of palliative care. Many are addicts seeking to use recreationally drugs that were manufactured for legitimate use. In the effort to dissuade the latter group from abusing we've further restricted legal opioids. Newer opioids like fentanyl are more potent, more concentrated. The iron law of prohibition means that black markets will centralize around the most physically concentrated form of the substance being delivered. This was seen in the movement from beer and wine to hard liquor during alcohol prohibition. Newly minted addicts, cut off from their low-dose vicodin and oxy then move to illicit heroin or diverted fentanyl. Purity and concentration varies between batches, leading to many dead addicts from overdose.
How many of these lives could have been spared from addiction or death if cannabis had been an option for palliative care? I'm a Democratic Socialist and even I recognize this is a perfect case where the market can step in and improve human life if the government would simply step back and let things work out as they will. There's little risk, since humanity has been testing cannabis on itself for thousands of years with virtually no mortality attributed to its use directly. It works, for many ailments. It's in demand. The government's disposition to cannabis should be the same as towards ibuprofen; set minimum standards for production quality, purity, and safety, then let the market work.
This would appear to be a rare situation where liberals and conservatives could agree on something to benefit everyone. Liberals want to end the racist, classist, war on drugs. Conservatives value free markets and less government involvement in business (who want to grow and sell cannabis). We are throwing away a huge market by keeping cannabis Schedule I, and millions of people are denied life improving medication. This insanity needs to end, or the sane people will simply take their dollars to sane countries like Israel.
As an American, I'd rather that didn't happen.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday June 19 2016, @11:08PM
But butbut butbutbut pleasure is BAD! All forms of it, even the ones that don't actually hurt anyone! Especially if it's cheap and doesn't make someone else shedloads of money right now!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 20 2016, @02:11AM
http://www.google.ca/patents/US6630507 [google.ca]
The hypocrisy goes to 11
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday June 20 2016, @05:13AM
https://xkcd.com/670/ [xkcd.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by tractatus_techno_philosophicus on Monday June 20 2016, @02:03PM
I wish I could mod your post above 5.
No moral system can rest solely on authority. ~A.J. Ayer