Let’s Nail the Home Office’s Latest Smokescreen About Medical Cannabis
As the evidence and support for legal access to cannabis for medical use grows, so the Home Office adjusts and reframes its arguments in denial.
This should come as no surprise. The ‘hostile environment’ revealed by the Windrush scandal runs through the Home Office like a stick of rock. The culture of this department is defined by Theresa May and it reflects her character and personality. It is secretive, demands total control and micro management of everything it touches and whenever it is challenged it finds another excuse to maintain its iron rule. It is institutionally dishonest.
A Home Office spokeswoman said:
“We recognise that people with chronic pain and debilitating illnesses are looking to alleviate their symptoms. However, it is important that medicines are thoroughly tested to ensure they meet rigorous standards before being placed on the market, so doctors and patients are assured of their efficacy and safety.”
The truth is rather different. In every jurisdiction throughout the world where medicinal cannabis has been legally regulated, it is through a special system outside pharmaceutical medicines regulation. You cannot regulate a 500 molecule plant-based medicine in the same way as a single molecule synthesised in a lab.
Regulation by the MHRA is the final excuse, the last obstacle to a revolution in healthcare in the UK. We need an ‘Office of Medicinal Cannabis’ as there is in the Netherlands, or ‘Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations’ as administered by Health Canada. Colorado has its ‘Medical Marijuana Registry Program’ and other US states have similar arrangements. Israel’s Ministry of Health has its ‘Medical Cannabis Unit’. In Australia, its equivalent of the MHRA, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has established its own set of medical cannabis regulations.
Every other government that has recognised the enormous benefit that medicinal cannabis offers has come to the same conclusion: cannabis is a special case. It is far more complex but much, much safer than pharmaceutical products.
So next time you hear this, the last, lame excuse from a government ideologically opposed to this long overdue reform, treat it and them with the contempt they deserve. They prefer that people should continue in pain, suffering and disability than that they should do what science and medicine says is right.
UK Parliament Will Lose Its Legitimacy If It Fails To Act In Defence Of Palestine
Netanyahu is nothing but a murderer.
In Israel, he and his IDF gangsters use tear gas and live ammunition on people who are throwing stones because their land has been stolen from them. Israel calls this self-defence.
Anyone who stands idly by without at least speaking out is complicit in murder, most particularly our political leaders. If the British Parliament fails to act on this it no longer has any legitimacy. If Theresa May fails to act she bears personal responsibility and cannot be immune from revenge.
More Lies From The Home Office. A UK Government Department That Is Institutionally Dishonest.
This deceit from the Home Office needs to be called out straightaway. Andrew Gilligan, the Sunday Times journalist, did a great job of getting the Victoria Atkins cannabis scandal out into the mainstream and I thank him for that. I gave him a great deal more evidence of Home Office maladministration than he used but he managed to bring out yet more brazen dishonesty in the process.
The Home Office said: “When she was appointed . . . the minister voluntarily recused herself from policy or decisions relating to cannabis, including licensing.” This is absolute nonsense. It is a lie of the sort that you might expect from a small child that doesn’t really understand what is dishonesty.
Ms Atkins was appointed a Home Office minster on 9th November 2017. Since then she has spoken or provided written answers on aspects of drugs policy which either directly or indirectly concern cannabis. In fact, for decades our government hasn’t had a drugs policy, it has its inane drug strategy which treats all drugs exactly the same. The only difference as far as the Home Office is concerned are the penalties applied on conviction.
Ms Atkins has enaged on matters relating to drugs policy which either directly or indirectly concern cannabis on 23 occasions that I have been able to identify since she was appointed.
Organised Crime: Drugs. 23rd April 2018
Slavery: Children. 23rd April 2018
Organised Crime: Drugs. 16th April 2018
The UK Government’s Latest Excuse About Medicinal Cannabis Is Yet Another Deception.
Nick Hurd MP, Home Office Minister
Nick Hurd MP, the Home Office minister, said again this week that as far as any consideration of cannabis for medical use is concerned, the government will “await the outcome” of the report on cannabis due from the WHO in 2019 “before considering the next steps”.
In fact, the results of an FOI request show that the UK government has refused to take part in the WHO committee which will “review cannabis and cannabis-related substances on their potential to cause dependence, abuse and harm to health, and potential therapeutic applications”. This despite the WHO issuing a questionnaire to the Department of Health and Social Care “designed to gather information on the legitimate use, harmful use, status of national control and potential impact of international control”.
Aside from the obvious concerns this raises, it is quite extraordinary considering that the UK is the world’s largest producer and exporter of legal cannabis.
Fundamentally the government’s postion on cannabis for medical use hasn’t changed since 1971. Those who follow the Home Office’s statements will have noticed gradual changes but they all seek to reinforce the fundamental premise that cannabis is a dangerous drug of abuse with no therapeutic benefit.
Recent ‘adjustments’, shall we call them, of the official position have dealt with the now overwhelming weight of evidence that cannabis does have very real and significant medical value. The response has been to caution that all medicines must go through the etablished system of testing for safety and efficacy.
This is a deception as well. As CLEAR revealed at the beginning of 2018, in every jurisdiction throughout the world where medicinal cannabis has been legally regulated, it is through a special system outside pharmaceutical medicines regulation.
Theresa May is ideologically opposed to the use of cannabis as medicine, it’s as simple as that. She won’t permit it to be properly considered, discussed or investigated and every time something forces a response, such as a parliamentary question or an enquiry even from a fellow Conservative MP, another deceptive excuse is conjured up.
Victoria Atkins MP, Theresa May MP. Both Have Family Interests In Cannabis For Medical Use.
CLEAR can further reveal that the Home Office’s public position on prospects for licensed cannabis medicnes is also a deception. The statement that has been published is “As happened in the case of Sativex, the Home Office will consider issuing a licence to enable trials of any new medicine…” We can’t name names just yet but we now have first hand knowledge that at least one publicly-quoted company with established cannabis production facilities in two other G7 countries has been refused permission by the Home Office even to apply for a licence.
The UK government’s stance on cannabis becomes murkier and murkier the deeper you look. The stench of corruption becomes overpowering when you consider that Theresa May’s husband’s company is the largest single shareholder in GW Pharmaceuticals and the husband of Victoria Atkins MP, the drugs minister, holds a licence to produce 45 acres of cannabis for medical use.
Who Is Going To Jail For The Illegal Rendition And Torture of Mr & Mrs Belhaj?
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary At The Time Of The Rendition
This disgraceful episode shines a light on the true conduct of government ministers and the security services, particularly in the criminal Blair regime of which Jack Straw was a principal protagonist.
Abdel Hakim Belhaj
Fatima Boudchar (Mrs Belhaj)
That’s not to say that exactly the same, if not worse, isn’t going on right now.
If there was any justice then Jack Straw would be abducted in the middle of the night, hooded and flown to Guantanamo Bay for a few years of torture.
I don’t expect that but what we should all expect, what we are entitled to, is that he and his accomplices are charged and put before a jury. Only that way can justice be served.
There Was Grenfell, Then The Windrush Generation And Now Theresa May Fiddles While Alfie Dingley Faces Death
When Will This Tyrant Be Overthrown?
The campaign to save Alfie Dingley’s life looked to have succeeded on 20th March when 108 MPs met Alfie and family at Parliament. That same day, accompanied by Sir Patrick Stewart, a petition of over 370,000 signatures was delivered to Downing Street and Theresa May herself met with the family and encouraged them that everything possible would be done to help. Originally, the Home Office were suggesting that they might issue a licence to allow a bespoke trial of medical cannabis but that changed to a suggestion that they would consider issuing a licence on a ‘compassionate basis’. They also indicated that they might issue the licence for Alfie within days rather than weeks.
Home Office Minister Nick Hurd MP appears to support the petition delivered to Downing Street. Today (3rd May 2016) the petition has gown to over 650,000 signatures.
A formal application for a licence was submitted to the Home Office on 16th April 2018 by Alfie’s GP and a consultant neurologist. This was raised at Prime Minister’s Questions two days later and once again Mrs May expressed sympathy and promised that the Home Office would look at it “speedily”.
Now, Hannah, Alfie’s mother, has been told that it could take up to four months for the application to be considered and even then no one can be certain what the decision will be.
Apparently this is because the medical cannabis oil needs to be ‘tested’, whatever that means. Is this a U turn to requiring a full clinical trial to be undertaken? If so, how can a clinical trial be undertaken on one boy with a particular form of epilepsy so rare that he is said to be one of only nine boys in the world? Clearly a clinical trial with the normal double blind testing is impossible. So what other form of ‘testing’ needs to be carried out?
The oil has already been tested on Alfie under the supervision of a consultant neurologist in the Netherlands. There, having experienced up to 30 seizures per day in the UK, after taking three drops of oil per day he had only two seizures in two months. The oil is made by Bedrocan, the Netherlands government official contractor for the production of cannabis for medical use and already complies with international standards for Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).
The only conclusion that can be drawn is that this is yet more procrastination and deliberate delay by a government that is notorious for its inhumane treatment of many people. Theresa May has a long standing and well documented record of being opposed to any drug law reform and of dismissing the campaign for access to cannabis for medical use as ‘just an excuse to take cannabis’. With the sole exception of President Duterte of the Philippines, who is engaged in a murderous campaign of extra-judicial execution of suspected drug dealers, Mrs May is the only world leader still calling for the ‘war on drugs’ to continue.
After scandal after scandal after scandal it is difficult to see what will finally bring Mrs May down. In Britain, where the idea of democracy has become little more than a bad joke, it seems that infighting within the Conservative Party over Europe is a more likely reason for her downfall than the grave abuses of individuals for which she is ultimately responsible.
Let’s be 100% clear, the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 makes specific provision for any action that would otherwise be unlawful under the Act to be permitted under licence by the Home Secretary. It would take a single stroke of Sajid Javid’s pen to save Alfie Dingley’s life and Theresa May could have ordered that months ago.
Famously, Mrs May is a practising Christian. Surely, there must be a special place in hell reserved for her.
Source: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.clear-uk.org/taxukcan.pdf
The £900 million figure being touted around by the Taxpayers’ Alliance as the savings that could be achieved from legalising cannabis is a massive underestimate and isn’t based on the sort of model that is currently being implemented in US states.
CLEAR commissioned independent research in 2011 which shows that a model in the UK simlar to that in Colorado would produce a net gain to the UK economy of around £6.7 billion pa and perhaps as high as £9.5 billion pa.
Ben Ramanauskas, who authored the Taxpayers’ Alliance report, has referenced the research we commissioned in his study but has only considered the savings and not the massive opportunities for additional tax revenue which arise from bringing a £6 billion market out of the black economy.
Full study available here: https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.clear-uk.org/taxukcan.pdf