FINALLY THE HERB COME AROUND...

Cannabis is the world's favourite drug, but also one of the least understood. Can cannabis cause schizophrenia? Is it addictive? Can it lead you on to harder drugs? Or is it simply a herb, an undervalued medicine?

Addiction specialist Dr John Marsden discovers that modern science is finally beginning to find answers to these questions. John traces the cannabis plants' birthplace in Kazakhstan; finds the origins of our sensitivity to cannabis in the simple sea squirt; and shows just what it does to our brains.

He meets people who have been changed by this drug in drastically different ways - from those whose lives have been shattered to those who lives have been revived.

..

JAH RASTAFARI INTERVENES

Anyone with the remotest non conformist tendency may well snigger about this...

EXPERIMENTATION

via Paula


also:

Channel 4: The UN report says the lenient treatment of celebrities is regrettable and sends wrong messages to young people.

Dope

The discussions about a reclassification of cannabis begin tomorrow:

the Daily Telegraph front page headline ... says "Abuse of cannabis puts 500 a week in hospital", and it turns out they're actually quoting a figure from a report on the number of people having contact with any drug treatment service of any variety. The colossal majority of these, of course, are outpatient appointments for drugs counselling, not hospital admissions. So there are not 500 people a week suddenly being put into hospital by cannabis...

Channel 4 News reach a different conclusion in their report

Also read Skunk and Psychosis:

"I'd legalise normal dope, but turn skunk into class A," says Julie Lynn-Evans

Cor 'limey who'd have thought it?

...The data, complied from 35 different studies and published in The Lancet, shows that taking the drug just once increases the risk of mental illness by 41 per cent. For frequent users, this rose to between 50 per cent and 200 per cent.

Scientists found heavy cannabis users were the most likely to suffer a psychotic breakdown marked by delusions, hallucinations or disordered thoughts...

...rime Minister Gordon Brown is currently mulling whether the drug should be returned to class B status after his predecessor Tony Blair had cannabis downgraded to class C, meaning possession was not an arrestable offence.

Alternatively, a class B rating could be reserved just for the extra-potent form of cannabis known as "skunk"...

Suddenly it all makes sense...

Though cannabis can provoke psychotic symptoms, these effects appear to be caused chiefly by one of its components; and another compound that damps down its effects has potential as a medicine, scientists said.

The findings, to be announced at a conference that opens in London today, offer a possible explanation for anecdotal reports of increasing cases of psychosis and schizophrenia triggered by the drug.

As concentrations of tetra-hydracannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive element that can provoke psychosis, have risen, levels of the beneficial chemical, cannabidiol (CBD) have fallen. This could mean that users are being exposed to higher doses of the damaging chemical, while receiving less CBD, which tends to balance THC’s effects.

“There is a possibility that there are good guys and bad guys in cannabis,” said Markus Leweke, of the University of Cologne.

“THC is the bad guy, but there is a small body of literature that suggests CBD may prevent the induction of psychotic symptoms. Our study supports that view.”

SORRY

I've never really got the notion of responsibility for your ancestors evils. I'm not responsible in any way for the slave trade. If I had to say sorry, it would be only the English half of me which should have to admit responsibility so I would be half sorry.

I suppose Tony Blair can't say "sorry" for the same reason those responsible for the Bopal disaster can't officially apologise, in that if they apologised they would become culpable legally and therefore open to claims of damages.

In other "Apology news" I totally missed The "IoS" backtrack on their ten year campaign for Cannabis legalisation. Maybe I was too stoned to notice. I don't really understand this either.

From the printed edition:

A report published in The Lancet last week showed how cannabis is more harmful than drugs such as LSD and Ecstacy- but less so than Alchohol and tobacco

But are the IoS calling for Alchohol and Tobacco to be reclassified? No. So Skunk is ten times more powerful and undoutably linked to addiction and scizophrenia but are they calling for the legalisation of normal home grown ganja and hash? No.

Anyway, I'm sorry. Alright?

GANJAFARMER

Somewhere in my archive is a blog where I promised myself that when all my filming with Abdullah, Hamza and co was over I would make a really nice little film about people growing weed in a hot country.

Here it is and its dedicated to David Cameron.

Visit Jamaica. Its fantastic. When people greet you it sounds like they are going to kick your head in, but they are just saying hello.

The intro music is Marlon Ashers version of Ganjafarmer, the outro is Buju's version.

It annoys me that I've had to blank the faces, maybe one day society will sort itself out.

If you aren't interested in ganja, there are scenes of new born goats in this one.