Author Archive
Climate Change Jolly In Cancun
Cancun Conference
My blogger-in-arms, Tory Ardvaark, calls it a “cocaine and hooker-fest” and he’s probably right. Johann Hari, my colleague on The Independent, says that the “next crash will be ecological – and nature doesn’t do bailouts”. See here.
So, who has the more incisive angle on the gathering next week in Mexico’s top holiday resort? It’s a strange choice of venue and does raise questions as to the real reason that so many will be flying there on government expenses. As destinations go it must be a CO2 hotspot. Maybe it’s even got it’s own hole in the ozone layer to match the nasal damage that so many visitors will be suffering? Hopefully, condoms will protect them from any other consequences of their debauchery. As for the conference though, it will probably be a waste of time, just like Copenhagen.
That idiot, Professor Phil Jones, at UEA’s Climate Change unit has got an awful lot to answer for. His absurd and dishonest behaviour has discredited climate change science. I think that while it would be stupid to ignore the idea of man-made climate change, it would be equally unwise to listen unquestioningly to those corrupt scientists who are mainly concerned with securing next year’s research grant. Both extremes of the argument are as unreliable as each other.
Thankfully during my lifetime and my childrens’ we won’t see catastrophic effects from climate change, even if the scientists prove to be right. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren are around, science will have got its act together a little more – what shall we say – scientifically? Of course, it may be too late by then.
The only thing that is certain is that Tory Ardvaark is right. They’re going to have a hell of a good time down Mehico way and the drug dealers and pimps will be coining it.
The Bean Counter And The Ponce. A Pair Of Hypocrites.
There is no more integrity.
This government is even more corrupt than the last. Not just widespread financial corruption amongst MPs, now ministers have abandoned all pretence at listening or consulting. Britain has become an oligarchy and both politicians and the media are complicit.
I and many other Tories were prepared to accept and defend the financial squeeze but I can no longer support this government. I could not vote Tory again given the level of betrayal and arrogance from David Cameron. As for the LibDems, they have sacrificed their integrity completely. I see nothing unfair with the present proposals for tuition fees but deplore and condemn the LibDem’s broken promises. They are ruined. Clegg is beyond, in fact, beneath redemption.
Ministers in this government have become more remote than ever before. They sit in their feather-bedded ivory towers and just ignore correspondence. This is now par for the course in the respect and courtesy that our government pays us. One can write again and again, send email reminders and never get even an acknowledgement. This is disregard so serious that it is corruption.
Clegg’s “Your Freedom” website was canned as quickly as it started. No, no, no, that gave the people far too loud a voice.
And the press are involved too. They protect and serve only their own comfort in the politics bubble. The editors of the national newspapers follow their own agenda with no regard for their readers. Normal rules of supply and demand do not apply. They have so much power that most only know what they are given. They distort the truth as it suits them. Only what serves them gets published.
We have some recourse with the BBC. It is obliged to provide balance but the complaints system is worse than useless and the director-general receives a ludicrous bribe of £838,000 per annum.
Over just the last 12 months there have been massive demonstrations in London where tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets but we do not hear of them. It is entirely true that were it not for the violence we would never have heard of the 52,000 students that marched on Millbank earlier this month. The blood spilled and the damage caused is on the hands of the media. They are a corrupt and pernicious influence on our society. Much as I believe in smaller government, the media now have too much power. Effective regulation is needed.
The Tory promise never to allow more power to slip to Brussels has also been broken and Cameron is exposed as nothing more than a procedural clerk. All his bold, inspirational philosophy of freedom and fairness is gone. I have never seen such hostility from those who were previously firm Tory supporters.
This corrupt and self-serving government is going down the pan.
The British Medicinal Cannabis Register And Your Security
Apart from the misinformation and propaganda of government, there are two reasons why cannabis law reformers have met with little success in Britain.
The first is a lack of factual information about who uses cannabis, how and for what reasons. The second is a terrible record of disunity, squabbling and petty power games amongst campaigners.
My fervent hope is that the creation of the British Medicinal Cannabis Register (BMCR) will help to solve the first, at least for medicinal users. The second though may prove more difficult.
The BMCR has attracted the endorsement of a number of eminent individuals. Council members include people whose reputation is beyond reproach as well as medicinal users who, by definition, are described as criminals. There have already been scurrilous attacks on the integrity of some council members and cowardly abuse, anonymous or in disguise, from those who have a different agenda.
Regrettably, a well known campaigner with an honourable and courageous record in assisting medicinal users, has resigned from the council over concerns about data security. While he is a man of great integrity, the web site with which he is associated has hosted a series of paranoid and scaremongering attacks on the BMCR. The site is well known as a forum for cannabis growers who clearly have good reason to be concerned about their security.
The BMCR issued the following guidance:
Your Security
The purpose of the BMCR is to build a database of factual information. For that data to have any value it must be validated. Cannabis remains illegal in Britain so there will always be some danger in contributing to any website or source of information, even if you do so anonymously or under a pseudonym.
After careful consideration the BMCR has concluded that the minimum requirement for data to be validated is a name, a part post code and a verifiable email address. The name and postcode cannot be verified so there is nothing to stop you using an alias.
Clearly, the information about post code, condition(s) and method(s) of use is only of any value if it is truthful. All data will be stored on encrypted servers and/or storage devices and will not be released to anyone voluntarily. However, you must decide for yourself the balance between providing information and your own security.
Ultimately, medicinal users must decide for themselves whether they want to stand up and be counted or not. Personally, I put my name loud and proud alongside the BMCR and I will defend and keep confidential any information entrusted to me to the ultimate. I know the same goes for all those involved.
The BMCR website is at www.bmcr.org.uk.
Advisory Council On The Misuse of Drugs Meeting, 18th November 2010
I attended this meeting last Thursday at Church House, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament.
There were approximately 35 members of the council in attendance, sitting around a huge U shaped table with perhaps 20 people in the public seats. Inevitably, such a huge meeting could only touch on adminstrative matters and formalities. Clearly, most of the ACMD’s work is done in much smaller working groups. However, there was an interesting Q&A session and I was pleased to experience a council meeting. I wouldn’t recommend it for light entertainment though!
Prof. Leslie Iversen
Professor Leslie Iversen was in the chair for the last time. His post and those of eight other members have been advertised and their replacements will be appointed as from 1st January 2011. These are voluntary positions with members receiving only expenses and subsistence payments for their work. They undertake an onerous and important responsibility and I commend them for their public service.
Full minutes should be available on the Home Office website here within a few weeks. However the main items of interest were:
- the ACMD’s response to the Home Office’s drug strategy consultation
- a report on anabolic steroids
- a report on the issuing of foil by drug clinics as an alternative to injection
- a report on 2-DPMP, marketed as the “Ivory Wave ” legal high
- a request to report on khat, the herbal product from East Africa that contains cathinone, the same active ingredient as mephedrone
- a request to report on cocaine use after a recent report placed Britain at the top of the European league table
Then we came to the Q&A session and, of course, yours truly had a question prepared. First though there was a large contingent of the Somalian community present appealing for the prohibition of khat.
I have to say that nothing I have heard about either mephedrone or khat has interested me or persuaded me to experiment. There were a number of emotional and passionate speeches rather than questions; one from an ex-khat addict, one from a Somalian psychiatrist and others from community members. It’s clear that khat does cause harm but it saddened me that the only solution being suggested was prohibition. I understand this as a knee jerk reaction but it won’t work. All it will do is drive use undergroud and make the problem worse. Professor Iversen himself commented that the price of khat where it has been banned is 20 times that of where it is legal. If prohibition is enacted in Britain all we will be doing is playing straight into the hands of criminal gangs yet again.
I asked the council whether there wasn’t an urgent need for it to update its advice to the government on the medicinal benefits of cannabis. I cited the recent MHRA approval of Sativex which is, of course, nothing more than a tincture of herbal cannabis. I also mentioned that Arizona had just become the 15th state in America to introduce a medical marijuana programme and that Israel has recently announced a massive increase in growing facilities and dispensaries.
I am paraphrasing here, of course, but Professor Iversen threw up his hands in horror at being asked to review cannabis again when he has already done so three times. The general view from the council seemed to be that whatever was said to government on this subject, no notice would be taken. I shall be following up my oral question with a letter to Profesor Iversen. We have to expose this Home Office lie that there are no medicinal benefits from herbal cannabis and that this is based on advice from the ACMD. It isn’t. It’s a government deception.
For me the most important part of the day was the opportunity to introduce myself in person to Professor Iversen. I thanked him for agreeing to become a founder council member of the British Medicinal Cannabis Register. He said how enthusiastic he was about the register and that he has been an advocate of medicinal cannabis since the 1990s.
London Games – The Novel
Now On Sale Here.
It is 2012. Britain is slowly emerging from the longest and deepest recession for 100 years. It has been a dark and difficult time. The London Olympics are now just a few months away. The whole country is hoping that the games will provide the inspiration and renewal that it needs.
London Games follows five characters through the spring and summer of 2012, culminating as the games open at the Olympic stadium. It is a gripping tale of relationships and dramatic personal experience. It concerns an Afghanistan veteran suffering from combat stress, a disgraced ex-banker sent to jail amidst scandal and public outrage, a cocaine dealer with customers at the very top and the very bottom of society, a property developer on the cusp of making his fortune and a restauranteur starting to make his name as a celebrity chef. At times it plumbs the depths of London’s sordid underworld yet it also catches an uplifting mood and celebrates the city’s unique history and environment. It examines crime and punishment as well as food and drugs, love and ambition. Ultimately it reveals a bond between the most unlikely of friends, thrown together in an extraordinary and thrilling climax with a redemptive message of hope and optimism.
Sir Damian Fremantle experiences the shock of his first night in Brixton prison while Susan is confused between shoplifting in Sainsbury’s and bomb disposal in Helmand province. Clive Dumonde is still mourning the death of his parents as he struggles to understand what’s involved in developing a multi-million pound property in Notting Hill. His business angel Mark is also an investor in the uber-hip and trendy Vermont restaurant just around the corner. Meanwhile, Mo, or Big M as his customers call him, is living the hectic, stressed-out life of a cocaine dealer, supplying crack to streetwalkers one minute and top grade powder to city bankers the next.
John George is on the brink of becoming London’s top chef. It is a constant struggle to devise new dishes while coping with the relentless pressure for perfection. As the guests become ever more famous, so the financial pressures increase, the staff becomes more difficult and the vanilla vodka bottle in his desk becomes his best friend. Then, without warning, the scales fall from his eyes and the sous chef who he has barely noticed for months is transformed into the love of his life.
The pressure on Mo never lets up. His customers call all day and all night. He is always looking over his shoulder, expecting to see a blue light in his mirror or hear a knock on the door. Then, for no good reason, his principal supplier accuses him of passing counterfeit money and Mo is in a race for his life with both the police and violent gangsters.
Susan finds herself locked up and heavily sedated. She thought she was doing her duty but she has committed a dreadful crime that will have consequences for the rest of her life. What future or hope can there be for someone who has been a hero, trained as a killing machine but now behaves like a homicidal maniac?
Five characters, products of their time, all on an inevitable path as their stories intertwine and we glimpse a post-2012 Britain, rejuvenated, reinvigorated, ever more complicated, challenging and exciting – a Great Britain.
British Medicinal Cannabis Register
In California there are more than 500,000 medical marijuana card holders. How many people use cannabis as medicine in Britain?
The British Medicinal Cannabis Register aims to find out and provide a database of facts and evidence for doctors, scientists, researchers, campaigners, government and anyone with a bona fide interest. Users register via the BMCR website, providing details of their method of use and the conditions treated. While patient confidentiality is guaranteed and records held on the database will have the same legal status as any other medical record, users do not have to provide their full address. They can register with the first part of their postcode and a verifiable email address.
Of course, according to the British government, “cannabis is dangerous and has no medicinal benefits”. However, Sativex, a cannabis tincture, has been approved by the MHRA as a treatment for MS spasticity. Sativex is pharmacologically identical to cannabis. It is cannabis – with the addition of ethanol and a little peppermint oil. (A tincture is an alcoholic extract.)
There is no more common sense in US federal law where cannabis is a schedule 1 drug with “no medicinal uses”, yet the US government has held a patent (no. 6630507) since 2003 for “cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants, for example, in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”
If you can make any sense of either the British or US governments’ position then please educate me? I think they are irrational and cruel. They actively deny people in pain and suffering the relief they need which is comprehensively proven both by science and experience. On both sides of the Atlantic this amounts to nothing less than an evil injustice and oppression of vulnerable people.
Thank God and the US constitution that in America 14 states have introduced a regulated system of medical marijuana. Two-thirds of Europe permits medicinal cannabis and Israel has just introduced a major programme including new growing facilities and dispensaries. In Britain there is no such compassion and the Home Office ducks and dives and manipulates and dissembles to evade EU law that would permit cannabis as medicine. In the UK there is appalling wickedness and cruelty perpetrated on the back of political cowardice.
Baroness Meacher
The BMCR was launched this week and received an immediate boost with the announcement of Baroness Molly Meacher, Paul Flynn MP, Matthew Atha and Dr Michael Vandenburg as members of its governing council. Baroness Meacher has a distinguished career in health and social care. Paul Flynn has long campaigned for drug law reform. Matthew Atha is the director of the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit and Dr Michael Vandenburg is the pre-eminent expert witness in the courts on pharmaceuticals and drugs.
Whether the BMCR succeeds in its aims depends entirely on whether those who use cannabis as medicine have the courage to register. Only then will sufficent evidence be available to embarrass the government into essential and overdue reform. The danger is that those who find relief will prefer to keep quiet and say nothing. No one could blame them if they do.
It is time for all those concerned to grasp this nettle and make a stand. Are we seriously going to continue to imprison sick and disabled people for using a medicine that is proven to be effective and far less costly, dangerous and harmful than pharmaceutical alternatives?
I urge all those concerned to register at the BMCR website: www.bmcr.org.uk.
SECOND UPDATE On Legal Medicinal Cannabis In Britain
This is the third instalment in this story.
1. Legal Medicinal Cannabis In Britain
2. Update On Legal Medicinal Cannabis In Britain
Eventually The Guardian took some notice. See here.
Despite the pleas of those in pain and suffering, the Home Office was talking to Mary O’Hara of The Guardian but not to them. Dozens if not hundreds of medicinal cannabis users had written to the Home Office asking for confirmation that they could go to Holland for a prescription. Not a word was heard.
Jim Starr, the subject of this story, wrote to his MP, and then he wrote again. He heard nothing. He wrote to the Home Office, chasing up his application for a personal import licence. He heard nothing. He wrote again.
Dilatory
Richard Drax, the first timer, newly elected Tory MP for Dorset South just happens to be my MP too, so I wrote to him on Jim’s behalf.
Jim has heard nothing. Richard Drax asked me not to mention his name in any article about Jim. Jim wrote again. I wrote again. We have heard nothing.
Jim’s medicine has run out. We told the Home Office and Richard Drax that it was an urgent medical emergency. We have heard nothing.
I spent the last week on the telephone and exchanging emails with the Home Office. This is the result:
A Home Office spokesperson said:
The UK’s position is clear – cannabis is dangerous and has no medicinal benefits in herbal form. It remains illegal for UK residents to possess cannabis in any form.
Britons benefit from reciprocal laws which allow EU nationals, in limited circumstances, to travel with controlled medicines. We are working with European authorities to ensure the system is robust and not open to abuse.
The Home Office says you can import cannabis to the UK and use it without restriction provided you “are resident in a country where that drug is legally prescribed”. So it’s OK for the Dutch and the Belgians and the Spanish and the Italians and the Czechs and the Poles (and many others) to smoke weed in Britain but not if you’re British.
We Won't Give Up
This is clearly unequal, discriminatory, unjust and unsustainable in law but the Home Office is not about to give in. The only way to resolve this is that either someone must appeal a conviction all the way to the Supreme Court or there must be an application for judicial review.
Stay tuned for the next exciting instalment.
In the meantime, Jim and thousands like him will manage as best as they can.
He’s still heard nothing from either the Home Office or Richard Drax.
Vive Brittania, Rule La France. The End Of The United Kingdom.
Non! C’est impossible. This treaty is treason.
Ratty & Mr Toad
I don’t want the French having anything to do with the defence of my country. I’m happy to have them as allies but at arm’s length, please. They have shown all too often how ready they are to turn and run, to pursue their own obscure and strange ideas and to fail to support us. We don’t need the French and we don’t want them. David Cameron has betrayed us.
It is ridiculous. It is a shabby politician’s compromise. With a searing bolt of shining light I realise the danger of the coalition. This is a disastrous fudge by two Euro-politicians intent on a grubby deal to reinforce each other. I thought David Cameron was so much more his own man yet the longer the coalition continues I see that it promises little more than mediocrity and mutual back scratching. Nick Clegg has become a poodle. David Cameron is just a committee chairman and all politicans are now even more focused on their own personal advantage and gain than they were in the days of the expenses free for all. There is no integrity left in parliament at all.
This shameful abdication of our sovereignty is the worst of all worlds. It is politicians doing all they can to lock themselves into power with no regard or concern for the people, for our honour or our independence. It is all about politicians and nothing to do with the people.
This devious scheme has been cooked up behind closed doors without any recourse or consultation. It is undemocratic, un-British and a disgrace. I can no longer support the coalition. I cannot vote for Mr Toad. He is a liar, a cheat and a conman.
Peter Reynolds 