Archive for the ‘Business’ Category
“New LCA” – Call For Nominations
“New LCA” is in the process of drafting its constitution and revising its aims and principles in accordance with the results of the leadership election. The immediate plans following the election are set out here.
The management committee is considering a new name which will better reflect the aims of the party. Nominations are invited from everyone.
This is not a competition and there are no prizes, guarantees or rewards. We are looking for suggestions and ideas. The committee will decide the name that it will recommend to the membership as part of the new constitution.
The main consideration is how to advance our cause, ending the prohibition of cannabis, and who we have to communicate with and persuade in order to achieve that. That means looking outwards at people who do not use cannabis and particularly at MPs, opinion formers and the media. These are the people we must influence.
We need a name and identity around which we can rally supporters but we are not the main concern. For instance, “legalise” is a word that frightens people. Our target audience thinks that it means a free for all, whereas our intention is a system of regulation based on facts and evidence which protects children and the vulnerable and maintains quality and safety standards.
“Cannabis” is a word that people are concerned about having linked to their online and Facebook profiles but it is the essence of our cause. It is difficult to see how any name could be successful without including the word. Our new campaign theme is “Reform Regulate Realise” but it needs a payoff to say clearly what it is about.
Please think about how the name will sound when you write to your MP . Will it be an immediate turn off or will it invite interest? When Jeremy Paxman talks about us on Newsnight will it be with a sneer or with some respect, that here is a serious party with a serious proposition?
Please post your ideas here as comments. I promise that every suggestion will be considered. Here are some ideas to start off with.
Cannabis Party
Cannabis Tax & Regulate Party
Cannabis Tax Party
Cannabis Law Reform Party
End Cannabis Prohibition Party
Reform Regulate Realise Party
Safer Access Party
British Cannabis Reform Party
Barclays Pays £113 Million Tax, £2800 Million Bonuses
Seeker After Truth
Congratulations to Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who has exposed the truth about the organised crime syndicate known as Barclays Bank. See here for the full story.
Far from contributing to the British economy, in 2009 the bosses of this criminal gang paid themselves nearly 25 times as much as they paid in tax on their ill gotten gains.
Barclays Boss = Liar & Cheat
Nothing better illustrates the deception, fraud and misrepresentation that this den of thieves has perpertrated on the British people. It also highlights the weakness and compromise of Dr Vince Cable, once held up as the champion of the people, now revealed as weak, ineffectual and useless in the face of Barclays’ corrupting influence. As for Cameron, his poodle and all the other cowardly members of our once honourable House of Commons, they are all two-faced, impotent and in shameful, sycophantic awe of the vast piles of shekels that the banker robbers accumulate.
Who Is Secretly Working To Keep Pot Illegal – Big Pharma?
This is an extract from an article by Steven Kotler, a science writer who lives in New Mexico. The full article can be read here.
In 2009, the global pharmaceutical market was worth $837 billion—and it’s on track to top $1 trillion by 2014. This is a lot of money to spread around, so when it comes to lobbying efforts, very few have this group’s clout. Mostly, Big Pharma gets what Big Pharma wants. And one thing it wants is for marijuana to remain illegal.
It’s not hard to figure out why. You can’t patent a plant—and that’s a big problem for pharmaceutical companies when it comes to medical marijuana.
Why?
Imagine a wonder drug able to provide much-needed relief from dozens and dozens of conditions. Imagine it’s cheap, easy to grow, easy to dispense, easy to ingest and, over millennia of “product testing,” has produced no fatalities and few side effects—except for the fact that it “reportedly” makes you feel really, really good. That would be quite a drug. Knowing all this, it’s easy to see why the pharmaceutical industry worries about competition from marijuana.
And besides its palliative prowess, researchers consistently find that patients prefer smoking marijuana to taking prescription drugs. In another study run by Reiman, 66 percent of her patients used cannabis as a substitute for prescription drugs; 68 percent used it instead of prescription drugs to treat a chronic condition and 85 percent reported that cannabis had fewer side effects than other medicines.
Miracle Medicine
Early on, the pharmaceutical industry fought back by spending money on anti-pot efforts, but the same NORML investigation that fingered the alcohol and tobacco industries as heavy backers of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America found that Big Pharma was doing so as well. “They were so embarrassed by that revelation” says MAPS founder Rick Doblin, “that they mostly stopped spending money on anti-marijuana lobbying efforts.”
Since then, the pharmaceutical industry has shifted its focus to developing alternatives to medical cannabis, often taking the traditional reductionist approach. Specifically, these days, if a pharmaceutical company wants to turn a plant into a medicine they isolate the most active ingredient and make what’s known as a “single-compound drug.” Morphine, for example, is really just the chemical core of the poppy plant. This too has been tried with marijuana. Out of the 400 chemicals in marijuana, 80 of them belong to a class called “cannabinoids.” Out of those 80 cannabinoids, a number of pharmaceutical companies have tried reducing marijuana to only one: THC. But the results have been unsatisfactory.
“There are certain cases,” says Doblin, “where the single-compound formula works wonders. But it’s just not true in every case. The pharmaceutical industry keeps claiming they’re not worried about medical marijuana because they make a better product, but when you reduce cannabis to just THC, you lose efficacy and gain side effects.”
This Vile Punk Needs To Be Stripped Of His Arrogance, His Dignity And His Title!
“Tory Peer: Bus Drivers And Waitresses ‘Unimportant'”, The Daily Telegraph, 9th February 2011
Oaf
A senior Government adviser employed to monitor former ministers working in business has claimed bus drivers, waitresses and people in other “unimportant” jobs would be unfit to join his panel.
Lord Lang, the Conservative peer, said people in ordinary jobs were not sufficiently qualified to pass judgement on the employment of former ministers in the private sector.
The Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Business appointments has come under pressure to dilute the “Establishment” make-up of his panel, which comprises four peers, two knights and a dame.
But he defended the composition of his committee, despite accusations the arrangement was too “cosy”.
Lord Lang told MPs he would be prepared to accept a “lay member”, but added that is should be someone “who had experience and proven success in a relatively important profession or trade – somebody who had achieved distinction – rather than a waitress or bus driver.”
The Commons Public Administration Committee, which is looking into the employment of former ministers in big business, did not receive his comments well.
Paul Flynn, a Labour MP who formerly worked as a bus driver, said: “Speaking as a bus driver of long standing who married a waitress, could you explain why neither I nor my wife have any contribution to make to your committee?”
Lord Lang, who was himself a trade secretary and now has sizeable business interests, said a committee made up of people who “knew nothing at all about the issues involved” would make the wrong decisions.
See the full story by Nick Collins here.
Banking Cancer
Rare Integrity
We need radical surgery. The corrupt and avaricious arrogance of the bankers is beyond belief. Project Merlin (see here) is a confidence trick and our weak, pathetic government is knowingly complicit in it.
Bob Diamond of Barclays, Stephen Hester of RBS and Eric Daniels of Lloyds are all rogues, thieves and charlatans. The excuse of “I was only following orders” was thrown out at Nuremberg. These men are even worse than the Nazi war criminals because their motivation is the most base and venal of all. They cannot even claim the excuse of some sort of perverted political philosophy. Their only concern is selfish greed. They are parasites and a scourge on our society. They should be rotting in jail rather than heaving their replusive, corpulent frames into another disgustingly expensive dinner or self-indulgent debauchery.
Banking is one of the greatest evils in our world. It takes over our society with insidious, insistent and poisonous infection. It produces corrupt and distorted growth that is entirely false, only a deception for the immediate and personal gain of the individuals in charge. These people are pirates and their adventures destroy decent people, honest businesses and the whole basis of our economy and society.
We must cut them out and we must cut deeply to ensure that every last vestige of the putrification is gone. It will hurt. It will even endanger our existence but there is no other option. To continue as we are is to buy into their corrupt plan, to feed them even more obscene amounts of money while the poor, vulnerable and needy in our society suffer.
There is no other option. We must inflict this huge damage on ourselves in order to be rid of the cancer. Recovery will be long and difficult but at least it will be honest and healthy.
The only man with any integrity left in parliament was Lord Oakeshott and he has now resigned. Cameron, his poodle, Dr Cable and babyface Georgy Porgy are carcinogenic agents. We must take the knife to them without mercy.
PM MP
Originally Published In Homegrown Outlaw's Blog
By Jason Reed
To all that support change in current policy, I invite you to take part in: PM MP.
What is PM MP? Well, I am hosting a letter that I am encouraging as many people as possible to post one copy to the Prime Minister, and one copy to your MP. It is through weight and numbers that points are grasped and policy changed.
It is also worth sending to the Home Secretary – Theresa May, and James Brokenshire – Minister for Crime Prevention at the Home Office.
If you would like to add your name and address so as to receive a reply, all the better. If you wish to remain anonymous, then that’s also fine, but please do take the time to send just two letters to the Prime Minister and your MP at this address:
Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA
Your MP can be found here:
And your MP’s address will be:
MP’s NAME, or James Brokenshire, or The Home Secretary Theresa May
House of Commons,
London SW1A OAA
Below you can find the template letter that has been created to address the current law & policy that surrounds cannabis in Britain. It is with a great deal of thanks to the Drug Equality Alliance for directing the wording to address this issue correctly.
Please do support this; please send the letters. Fellow bloggers, please also host the letter and send forth.
Either copy & paste the below text into a letter, or I have provided downloadable links at the end of this blog post. Thank you all. Jason.
Dear
I am writing to state my view that continuing prohibition of all private interests in cannabis is not in the best interest of society or the individual. Current policy is in many regards counter-productive and a drain on the country’s resources. The administration of Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is mandated to be under constant review & evidence based; it’s concern is solely to reduce social harm caused by drug misuse. I submit that there can be no justification in law for the blanket ban on accessing a substance that many persons use responsibly, and many use to experience the amelioration of symptoms caused by various medical disorders.
The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 seeks to regulate human action re any harmful drug, it does not provide a mandate for prohibition, indeed when one examines the obligations of the ACMD one can see that the law seeks to make arrangements for the supply of controlled drugs. The legislative aim is to control responsible human action and property interests through the regulation of the production, distribution and possession of any harmful drug; this being proportionate and targeted to address the mischief of social harm occasioned by misuse. I note that the law does not prohibit the use of cannabis at all, and this often ignored fact was Parliament’s way of opening the door to facilitate a suitable and rational regulatory structure. I place it on record that I wish the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to be used properly, and neutrally; specifically; (under Section 1) – “(2) (a) for restricting the availability of such drugs or supervising the arrangements for their supply.”
The prohibition of all private interests in cannabis & the denial of the possibility of responsible use has failed:
- The estimated expenditure of £19 billion on the judicial ‘controls’ over UK drug policy is a large sum that cannot be justified in the current fiscal climate. I do not believe it can be proven to be a valid policy even if the nation could easily afford it; it has a high price on liberty, and a paradoxical effect upon the health of all drug users – it has proved futile in almost every way, save for the government’s blind adherence to the international treaties it chooses to fetter it’s discretion to.
- There is an estimated street value of £5 billion profit going directly to gangs and cartels, and this in turn funds organised crime, human trafficking, and all manner of hard-line criminality.
- Children have easy & ready access to cannabis. Children are dealing cannabis and using cannabis with relative ease.
- There is an estimated 165 million responsible and non-problematic cannabis users worldwide. There is anything from 2 – 10 million adult users in the UK. There is no societal benefit to criminalising such a large portion of society, these are generally law-abiding persons who wish to use a substance that is comparatively safer than many drugs that government choose to exclude users of from the operation of the MoDA 1971 (despite the Act being neutral as to what drug misusers are controlled, the most harmful drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are excluded by policy, but this is not reflected in the Act itself).
- Under prohibition, as in 1920’s America, quality control has suffered giving way to hastily harvested cannabis which acts as the modern day equivalent of the infamous Moonshine & Hooch. The UK media terms this bad product simply as “Skunk”. Cannabis is now being cut with harmful drugs, glass, metal fillings, and chemicals to give false potency, and to add weight for profit motivations.
- To criminalise personal actions that do not harm others within the confines of privately owned property is at best draconian, and at worst futile & irresponsible.
I wish to encourage the adoption of a regulatory system that provides:
- An age-check system to prevent the young and vulnerable from obtaining cannabis with the ease they currently have.
- The partial saving from the £19 billion drug enforcement budget, alongside the estimated street worth of £5 billion potentially collected from cannabis. This would be a considerable sum in aiding the country in fiscal crisis.
- Quality control that can be accorded to cannabis production and sale, thus ensuring that there are no dangerous impurities and that the correct balance of cannabinoids are present (according to the needs of the user) to minimise potential harms.
- Potency & harm reduction information can be provided to adults, ensuring education is the forefront of the regulatory model.
- A restriction on marketing and the creation of designated discreet outlets. As seen in many countries, given a place of legitimacy, the cache of cannabis is lessened in favour of responsibility.
- The freedoms and rights for non-problematic users to be respected.
I do hope that you will give this matter the urgent attention it warrants.
Yours
The LCA Leadership Election
The ballot papers have been mailed to members today. The candidates are Stuart Warwick and myself. Voting closes a week today. The result will be announced shortly afterwards.
Peter Reynolds
Dear LCA member,
I am seeking election as leader of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance.
I have been campaigning for an end to the prohibition of cannabis for more than 30 years.
If elected, I can promise you radical change in the way that LCA goes about its business. We will launch a new campaign based around the theme: REFORM, REGULATE and REALISE.
That is REFORM the law to end prohibition, REGULATE production and supply based on facts and evidence and REALISE the huge benefits of the plant both as medicine and as a £10 billion net contribution to the economy.
This will be a tightly focused campaign aiming for the urgent availability of cannabis for those who need it as medicine and a properly regulated supply chain for the millions of British citizens who use it recreationally. That means we will take the business out of the hands of criminals, allow commercial growers to produce the plant under properly regulated conditions and permit small scale personal cultivation of up to six plants.
We will advocate sales of cannabis through licensed outlets such as tobacconists and/or coffee shops to adults only. It would remain a criminal offence to supply cannabis to under 18s. We accept that cannabis should be taxed, partly to cover the costs of the regulatory system and a health advisory service but also so that the entire country will benefit from bringing this huge market out of the black economy. Based on research by the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit and the Transform Drug Policy Foundation we estimate that with reductions in law enforcement costs and new tax revenue, there will be a net contribution of approx £10 billion to the UK exchequer.
We will not be diverted by peripheral issues such as the many uses for industrial hemp, although we will be glad to see progress in that area. We will run a campaign focused on achieving practical change, not promoting a philosophy. That means that our main concern will be to educate and influence MPs and get our message across in the media. MPs are the only people who can change the law and it is through the media that we can influence voter opinion so we will deal with them on their terms, in Westminster, in newspapers and television studios. We will bring a new professionalism to this issue and demand the attention and respect that our proposals deserve.
The prohibition of cannabis is unjust, undemocratic and immoral. Most cannabis users are reasonable, responsible and respectable people and I will demand our right to be heard and treated fairly.
I shall stand for parliament in every by-election and in the next general election on this single issue. Being realistic, we do not expect to win a seat but we will put cannabis back on the political agenda and we will be taken seriously. No longer will we allow the Daily Mail or other media to publish lies and propaganda uinchallenged. No longer will we allow prohibitionists like Debra Bell and Peter Hitchens to misinform and promote scare stories without any balance.
I want to transform the LCA into a professional, effective campaign that will achieve results. I believe that I am the right man for this job. Please vote for me. Vote to REFORM, REGULATE and REALISE.
My website at http://www.peter-reynolds.co.uk contains a wealth of information about cannabis and many articles that I have written on the subject. If you want more detailed information about me and what I stand for, that is the place to look.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Peter Reynolds
Stuart Warwick
Dear Member,
As one of the candidates seeking election for leadership of the LCA, I’ve been asked to write a short letter outlining my plans for the direction and actions I’d like to see the LCA take.
As Leader I would not seek to limit our campaign to the medical and recreational issues only (although I believe this should be our focus) but use the plethora of other applications that cannabis has in industry to gain support from as wide a demographic as possible.
I intend to campaign for legalisation, regulation & taxation.
Legalisation, done properly would remove the cannabis market from the hands of criminals and terrorists and open it up to legitimate businesses & entrepreneurs, giving the substantial profit back to society.
Regulation will help prevent dangerous contamination, ensure good quality and be more effective at keeping it out of the hands of children.
Taxation to put some of the profit back into the country – everyone benefits.
I think licensed outlets and growers is what we should be aiming to achieve. Licensing should cover not only the supply of cannabis but should also cover growing set-ups to ensure electrical and fire safety as this is a known hazard with some badly fitted installations. This would allow local growers to provide more variety in outlets, allowing users to clearly identify the strain that suits their needs the best.
Licenses should be available to cover a wide range of grow sizes to encourage both local and national business opportunities.
I think fact-based policy is a must, with genuinely unbiased research. To base policy purely on knee jerk emotional and moral arguments while ignoring scientific research is unjust and unproductive.
We know there are people in power who understand this but are forced to repeat the same prohibition mantra.
We need to let people know that if they decide to make a stand against prohibition we will be there to back them up. They will not want to make a move unless they know that when they do, they are not left hanging, We just have to give them the nod and be ready when they do.
By standing for elections, I hope to challenge not only my local MP’s and the other candidates but also policy on a national level. As leader of the LCA I hope to unite all of the voices in our community to achieve just that.
I have 2 sites that I have used to promote my ideas so far. Feel free to visit them, although there are some very early attempts on there, so quality isn’t always great, sorry.
http://www.youtube.com/user/NovictimNocrime08
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hunar-for-Prime-Minister/238421977309
Thanks for your time – , this wasn’t as easy to write as I thought it would be!
Regards
Stuart Warwick.
Good Riddance To The Tabloid Muck Raker
You live by the sword. You die by the sword.
Never was disgrace or the end to a career more richly deserved. When you play the disgusting game of distortion, propaganda and misinformation that newspaper editors do, then you can expect your karma to get you in the end.
Newspaper editors and media owners sustain the oligarchy with their chums in parliament that oppresses the people of Britain, controls the news agenda and promotes its own self-interest.
He won’t be missed by anyone.
Bank Run On “Revenge Wednesday”, 26th January 2011
FROM INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTRE UK
On Wednesday 26 January 2011, thousands of people in the UK will try to cause a bank run by withdrawing money from their bank accounts, in person, at high street bank branches.
The hope is that the movement will snowball.
Everyone is welcome. Just print out this article, fill in your details at the bottom, and take it to your bank, preferably around lunchtime, e.g. about 1pm. Even better, print out multiple copies and hand them round. Use email, Twitter, Facebook too.
When the first bank branch says it won’t pay out people’s money, let everyone know, using every means possible. Take photos. Use mobile phones, send tweets, get the journalists in on the picture. This movement is decentralised. It is what you and we make it.
Note that this idea was tried last December, after being suggested by Eric Cantona. Unfortunately it didn’t go very far, mainly because the organisers asked people to “sign up” online. We’re not asking you to sign up to anything. In particular, you do NOT have to give any personal details to anyone. The form below is just for giving to your BANK.
If you can only afford to withdraw 10 pounds, please do it. If you can afford to withdraw thousands of pounds, do that too. EVERY LITTLE HELPS. Banks cannot withstand everyone withdrawing even a tenth of what they’ve got in the bank. LET’S SEND THESE PARASITES A MESSAGE THEY’LL NEVER FORGET. It’s an open secret that they’re holding the country to ransom. Let’s kick ’em where it hurts.
This is the financial system’s MAJOR WEAK SPOT. That’s why the Dutch government is considering making it illegal to call for a bank run. Because they’re SCARED. In 2009 there was a bank run against a Dutch bank. This was considered to be a particularly unpleasant bank, which had been encouraging millions of Dutch people to get into debt who couldn’t afford it. People did a run against it, and it went bankrupt. How sad.
In Britain, you’d be hard pushed to name a bank which DIDN’T try to get people into massive debt they can’t really afford.
Here’s the bottom line: THE BANKS HAVE GOT IT COMING TO THEM.
So please take part. Spread the news. Distribute this article. Print your own. Just do a little bit to help, and we’ll be strong and we’ll blast the damn banks like they’ve never been blasted before.
Please complete the details, and hand it to your bank around 1pm on 26 Jan 2011.
**********************************
NAME: __________________________
ADDRESS:_____________________________
________________________________
ACCOUNT NUMBER: ___________________
SORT CODE:______________________
NAME OF BANK:_____________________
To: the Branch Manager
Dear Sir,
I wish to withdraw ____________ pounds from my account in cash, immediately.
Yours sincerely,
__________________ (signed)
Peter Reynolds 