Archive for the ‘Health’ Category
Courage and Cannabidiol
The story of how brave British small-businesses created a £1.7 billion market and now face destruction at the hands of the overbearing Food Standards Agency and its big business sponsors.
Hundreds of people who set up small businesses selling CBD products face the looming deadline of 31st March 2021 that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has imposed for its ‘novel foods’ regulations to come into force.
These people, the essence of the British entrepreneurial spirit, are being crushed by misguided over-regulation that is not based on any evidence and which will gift the market to big business while removing from shelves the products which millions of people have gained great benefit from.
The FSA has not consulted with the industry in any meaningful fashion and is imposing draconian new rules which even at this late stage remain unclear, confusing and require enormous, unnecessary and wasteful expenditure in pointless bureaucracy.
To be clear, if you are one of those millions who discovered that CBD could help with anxiety, pain, insomnia and or a host of other conditions, the products you rely on may not be available much longer. But there is a way through this. Read to the end of this article to find how you will still be able to access the ‘real CBD’ that you need.
The most important thing to understand is that there is no evidence anywhere in the world that anyone has ever come to any real harm from using CBD products. Despite this, the FSA is forcing businesses to put their products through an incredibly complex series of tests which cost a huge amount of money, in some instances hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Even the smallest companies are having to submit a dossiers on individual products which cost around £5000 each to produce. Imagine how many bottles of CBD oil a small shop or website has to sell to pay for just one of these. And they are completely pointless. There is no need for them at all. The FSA has just invented them and it’s nothing to do with public safety because there is no danger from any of the products concerned.
The Association for the Cannabinoid Industry
What this is really about is that big business missed out on the CBD boom. They turned their corporate noses up at it, didn’t want to get involved because of the stigma and prejudice associated with anything to do with cannabis. Then, within the space of a few years, they found that all their big customers, the multiples, were starting to stock CBD and it was selling very well indeed. So much so that the value of CBD sold in Britain is now more than the value of all vitamin C and vitamin D products combined. It’s a huge market with estimates of its size ranging from £300 million to £1.7 billion per year (New Frontier Data).
So big business is now calling the shots. A sinister organisation, the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI), run by a man, Steve Moore, with connections to the sleaziest end of the Conservative Party, is supporting the FSA in this scheme and his aim is simply to price small businesses out of the market and hijack it for his big business friends. Never has a bigger confidence trick been pulled on consumers. The small businesses that created the CBD market had established trade associations from within their own ranks which charged a few hundred pounds for membership and did an excellent job of representing the industry. The ACI demands membership fees of £25,000 per year, pricing out the small businesses and using its funding to bully and intimidate any business that doesn’t want to sign up.
Steve Moore of the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry
There are problems in the CBD market that need addressing. It does need better regulation. There are disreputable businesses selling products that are not what they claim. They don’t have the amount of CBD in them that is advertised and they are certainly not medicines which can treat cancer, diabetes, depression and serious illnesses. But these problems are already covered by existing laws. The problem is they are simply not being enforced. The regulators who should be acting against these rogue companies include the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Trading Standards. Despite reputable CBD businesses delivering hundreds of reports about rogue suppliers, virtually nothing has been done. To be fair the MHRA and Trading Standards just don’t have the resources to carry out this work, so the idea of giving them even more work, with incredibly complex regulations to enforce, is just barmy. It makes no sense.
The Human Medicines Regulations 2012
Even our largest newspaper publishers have been allowed to get away with breaching the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 which prevent anyone from making a commercial gain out of claiming medicinal benefit for a product which is not a licensed medicine. This criminal offence can result in a two year prison sentence, yet the Daily Mail runs such ads every day. So do most of the tabloids and those newspapers that like to call themseleves ‘quality’, do something equally illegal. They run advertorials or sponsored reviews of products which if you click and buy pay the publishers commission.
These crimes have been reported to the MHRA and to the ASA but they have done nothing about it and the illegal advertising continues to this day. As for the confidence trickster companies making these illegal medicinal claims, nothing has been done about them either and they continue to scam people with cancer cures and miracle medicines. Now the ACI is using this conduct as part of the justification for their ‘novel foods’ scam. Of course the two issues are completely unrelated.
But all is not lost. Undoubtedly, the ‘real CBD’, the whole plant extract, containing all the goodness and nourishment extracted from low-THC cannabis plants, will be taken off the shelves of the multiples but there will be a flourishing ‘grey’ market, mainly online and there will be nothing that the FSA, ACI or their enforcers will be able to do about it.
The FSA’s understanding of CBD and cannabis is virtually non-existent. The original CBD trade associations spent years trying to educate FSA’s people and urging them to co-operate on appropriate regulation but they didn’t want to know. Now the FSA has chosen to listen to its own and ACI’s ‘experts’ who are trained and indoctrinated in the prohibition mindset. Consequently its statements and rulings on its new regulations are so poorly drafted that they leave a gaping hole for the brave, pioneering businesses that created this market. A genuine, whole plant oil that preserves the natural proportions of the compounds in the hemp plants from which it is extracted is molecularly identical to those plants and hemp is specifically excluded from novel foods regulations.
So ‘whole plant’ is what you must look for if you want ‘real CBD’, the product that so many people benefit from. The ACI and FSA are pushing nasty, ineffective isolates and synthetics that are useless in comparison and require far higher doses to achieve the same results as a few drops of whole plant oil.
One More Problem as the Home Office Steps In on THC Levels
CBD originally took off because more and more people were becoming aware of the medicinal benefits of cannabis. CBD was seen as a way to enjoy some of these benefits legally and without getting ‘high’ from the THC in cannabis. But CBD was always a euphemism to avoid the stigma around cannabis and to reassure people they weren’t buying something illegal. In fact, whole plant CBD products are low-THC cannabis oil. Under a provision of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations, a trace amount of 1mg of THC per bottle of CBD oil has been allowed. It’s far too little to get anyone high. You’d have to drink about three bottles in one go before you felt anything.
But surprise, surprise, now the Home Office has started to get involved too. Again, without a shred of evidence of any harm, it is considering reducing this limit very substantially.
Why?
Undoubtedly this is co-ordinated with the FSA and the ACI. The aim is the same, to destroy the small businesses that created this market, to ramp up the costs of selling CBD so high that only big business can afford it and to prohibit the sale of the whole plant, low-THC cannabis oil that is so valuable for so many people. And there is no credible evidence to support any of it, except what the FSA has cooked up to support its pre-determined conclusion. There is no evidence that the trace amounts of THC in whole plant oil have or could cause anyone any harm and it is all part of the same scam.
So remember, if you want ‘real CBD’, you’re going to have to go online. Look for those courageous businesses that provide whole plant extracts and avoid isolate or synthetic products which are a waste of money.
Review. ‘Drug Use for Grown-Ups’ By Dr Carl L. Hart
“I discovered that the predominant effects produced by the drugs discussed in this book are positive,” Carl L. Hart writes in his new book. “It didn’t matter whether the drug in question was cannabis, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine or psilocybin.”
Carl Hart is a tenured professor of psychology at Columbia University, an experienced neuroscientist and a father. He believes that if “grown-ups” like him would talk freely about the role of drugs in their lives, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in, a mess brought about by our ruinous drug policies, which have had such profound — and profoundly unequal — consequences for those who fall afoul of them.”
Review. California Hybrid CBD Oil
If you’re one of the millions of people in Britain who have found CBD oil helpful, there are some big changes on the way and they’re not good news at all.
On the basis of no evidence at all, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has decided to impose massively expensive new regulations on CBD suppliers and it may mean the products you find most effective will no longer be available.
This excellent, THC-free oil, from CBD-UK, should be OK. Its manufacturers have applied for a ‘novel foods authorisation’ which means they can continue to sell it. It’s what the FSA calls a ‘novel food’ because it has had even the smallest traces of THC removed. Now you might think the authorities would regard that as making it safer. After all, for decades they have been treating THC as the devil’s potion but you shouldn’t expect any logic or real responsibility from this regulator. The FSA is simply acting on behalf of the big companies that missed out on the CBD boom. They have applied pressure and so these new regulations have been drawn up for no other purpose than to shut out the smaller businesses.
Thankfully, some smaller companies have managed to source supplies that will meet the new regulations but still work effectively. California Hybrid oil is a good example of this and over the past six weeks or so I’ve been testing it. It’s delicious and that is one of the most important qualities of CBD oil because unless you take it, little and often, on a regular basis, it will never work effectively. The taste but also its effectiveness is because it is a whole plant extract (just with the THC removed). Under these new FSA regulations, most products are going to be ‘isolates’ where all the goodness has been stripped out. Avoid these at all costs. They are just a waste of your money.
As well as the taste, it’s also a sensible level of concentration. It’s a 12% oil which means in this 10ml bottle there are 1200mg of CBD, providing about 6mg per drop, so two or three drops, two or three times a day, is just about ideal dosage. It is for me anyway. I weigh about 90 kilos, so you may need to adjust the dose if you’re bigger or smaller than me.
The inside information I can give you is that 12% is an “honest” extract. It’s about what you would expect from a straightforward extraction with no messing about. Weaker concentrations have been diluted. Stronger forms have been processed to increase concentration.
So I would strongly recommend this product if you want ‘real CBD oil’ but without any THC. That will be very important to you if you’re subject to drug testing at work because even tiny amounts of THC, which will have no effect on you, can show up in a drug test.
In a few weeks time, high street stores are going to be stripped of good products like this. Always check the label first. Do not buy isolates. They are nasty, ineffective and a waste of time and money. Only buy products that are labelled ‘whole plant’, ‘full spectrum’ or ‘broad spectrum’. That may well mean you have to shop online.
Buy California Hybrid oil here.
As the Best of Britain Dies, the Evil Spectre of Anslinger Rises in Steve Moore, Government Stool Pigeon and Traitor to the Cause.
Harry Anslinger. Steve Moore.
They say bad news comes in threes and this morning we were greeted with the appalling news of another ignorance-based clampdown by the Home Office on CBD products. Then, shortly after lunch, we heard that the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI) which has been collaborating with the Food Standards Agency to destroy all the small businesses that created the CBD market, has gone into partnership with Trading Standards. It will train Trading Standards officers to assist them with enforcement action against the small businesses which compete with ACI’s big business clients. These small businesses sell ‘real’ CBD, genuine whole plant extracts, while ACI is bulldozing regulators towards nasty, ineffective, isolate and synthetic-based products.
Finally we hear the terrible but not unexpected news that Captain Sir Tom Moore has succumbed to pneumonia, exacerbated by Covid-19.
RIP Captain Sir Tom Moore
Where Captain Sir Tom Moore represented the very best of British and was a symbol of hope and endurance for us all, the gone-to-seed figure of Steve Moore, head of the ACI, is the very opposite. What cruel irony that they share the same surname! When Paul Birch, the multimillionaire stoner, gave Steve Moore the funding he needed to launch his Big Pharma-inspired assault on the British cannabis market, he cannot have realised that he was unleashing a tyrannical, bullying monster, almost the reincarnation of Harry Anslinger, the evil force behind ‘reefer madness’ and the father of the war on drugs. The Birch-Moore cartel now has its tentacles into every aspect of the British cannabis market and is eyeing Europe as its next target. We must see that our neighbours are warned. A tie up with the EU bureaucracy would be exactly in line with Moore’s modus operandi.
Birch, who is known to suffer psychotic episodes, once resulting in an intervention from anti-cannabis advocate Lord Monson, provided Moore with the cash to buy up a long list of highly qualified scientists, lawyers and PR consultants. They have taken his thirty pieces of silver and set about the systematic destruction of the wonderful story of British enterprise and innovation that led the world in CBD products. The contrast between the great Captain Tom and the ignoble, self-serving Moore could not be greater. The coronavirus has taken so much from us and only an individual tied to the sleaziest end of the Conservative Party could exploit it and turn it to his own disgusting advantage.
We should not lose heart though because now the enemy has revealed himself in all his sordid reality. Across the Atlantic, a new, decent administration is about to decriminalise cannabis federally. Moore’s advantage will be shortlived. The prohibitionists in the Home Office and British establishment will shortly be trounced by market forces that are more powerful even than their dead hand, with resources that far exceed anything that Birch and Moore can muster.
It may be a few years yet but the immense benefits of real cannabis which for few short years as ‘real’ CBD have helped so many people in Britain will return. When the day comes for Birch, Moore and their Gestapo of assistants to meet their maker, they will not do so with the honour and righteousness of Captain Tom but with a squalid record of ignominy and disgrace.
WWIII against COVID19. The EU against the People of Europe
If this was the Battle of Britain, the BBC would be the Nazi’s Best Weapon
Don’t watch the catastrophe news.
We know how serious this is. We’ve heard the same answers to the same questions repeated over and over again on all channels. Special reports from intensive care units are unbearable once you’ve seen them a dozen times. Its almost like glorifcation of the suffering. Would such constant, unremmitting catastrophising have given us the backbone to get through the Blitz?
For all the blathering about ‘mental health’, nothing could be worse than the neverending repetition of suffering from the news channels. Not the way to develop the strength and perseverance we need.
Journalism pretends to high ideals but again and again it lets us down with its self-serving exploitation of news. We need information, truth, analysis, insight. What we do not need is hour after hour of pandemic porn.
My Predictions for Cannabis in the UK in 2021
On medicinal cannabis, the senior clinicians and bureaucrats at NHS, NICE and the professional medical bodies will continue to do all they can to block access. Until key individuals are offered fat fees to run clinical trials they will continue to insist that this is the only form of evidence that is acceptable. They will continue to ignore and reject all evidence from overseas. The clamour from more and more patients will grow. The private clinics will boom but our political ‘leaders’ will continue to be impotent in the face of the vested interests of the medical establishment.
The Cancard will take off and police forces will welcome it as a sensible solution. More and more people will grow their own and cannabis will become completely decriminalised by default. Only if you’re behaving like an idiot or are engaged in large scale commercial grows and/or gangsterism will the police be interested. Again our political ‘leaders’ will be useless and too scared of the tabloid media and their bigoted, poorly-informed backbenchers to do anything. Meanwhile the cannabis trade will continue to drive county lines, knife crime, prostitution, modern slavery, all off the back of profits from cannabis but Boris and his buffoons will refuse to understand this or follow the evidence that legal regulation is the solution.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA), in collaboration with the big business lobbyists, The Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI) , will succeed in getting all the multiples and major retailers to stop selling whole plant CBD extracts, which are what work and what consumers want. Dozens of small CBD companies who actually built this market will be put out of business by the FSA/ACI and hundreds of people will lose their jobs. FSA/ACI will continue to ramp up their false propaganda that CBD can be toxic despite a complete absence of any real world evidence – all this with the intention of pricing small, artisan suppliers out of the market. Nasty, ineffective, isolate-based products will come to dominate the high street. Despite this, whole plant extracts will continue to be available online and the FSA will discover that it can’t enforce its rules because its definition of ‘novel food’ doesn’t actually fit genuine whole plant extracts. They will bring prosecutions against some suppliers but these will fail once expert evidence is adduced.
The legal British cannabis market will continue to develop in faltering steps because of the obstacles inherent in the way the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is applied. The government is terrified to undertake the wholesale reform that is urgently needed because of outdated and ignorant attitudes. It’s so transfixed by the drugs issue that it won’t even make the small tweaks to regulations on industrial hemp, exempt products and licensing that would give a massive boost to business prospects. I can see no chance of any progress until the Covid crisis is over and ministers have more bandwidth to look at other issues. Even then it’s going to need some new blood in cabinet. Although Boris Johnson himself probably does have the instinct for reform, he is surrounded by third rate ministers, most of whom could never be considered progressive and are hardly visionary or ambitious thinkers.
The Birch-Moore cartel will continue to try and monopolise the entire British cannabis space. Paul Birch, the multimillionaire stoner who landed a fortune from shares in his brother’s business, provides the cash and Steve Moore, former architect of David Cameron’s damp squib ‘Big Society’ project, runs the show. Volteface, Centre for Medicinal Cannabis, the ACI, Hanway Associates, Familes4Access are all different faces of the same core team, all characterised by generous funding, a young, aggressive team and an arrogant disdain for everyone else in the market. Birch’s money has definitely brought some welcome benefits and was the missing ingredient in achieving the media coverage which led to the legalisation of medicinal cannabis in 2018. They took ideas and policies developed by other groups and added a well-funded PR operation because the reality is that however important your message, without the hard cash you just don’t get coverage on daytime TV and the main news programmes. Aside from causing great division, particularly amongst the families campaigning for their epileptic children, the negative and malevolent aspects of their work is best demonstrated by the ACI’s manipulation of the CBD market and bullying of many small businesses.
I’m hopeful that at least in Scotland, which has the worst drug deaths record in Europe, there will be some progress on dealing with problematic hard drug use and its consequences. The heroic actions of Peter Krykant, who is illegally running a mobile drugs consumption room in Glasgow and saving lives every day, have had a big impact. This man deserves every bit as much praise as Captain Tom, Marcus Rashford or anyone else who has engaged in altruistic campaigning in 2020. He deserves a knighthood. As I write this, the latest reports suggest Nicola Sturgeon might even defy the dinosaurs in Westminster and fund appropriate harm reduction measures which are so desperately needed.
Until our political ‘leaders’ wake up to the fact that the entire criminal drugs market and the tens of billions it costs the UK are driven by the prohibition of cannabis there will be no real progress either on reducing the cost or improving public health. The kids who are being stabbed on London’s streets, the young people who are trafficked and the vulnerable hard drug addicts who are being cuckooed as part of county lines dealing, it all starts with the criminal trade in cannabis. That’s where the money comes from and until the market is taken away from the gangsters and properly regulated, things will only get worse.
Although we’ve all despaired about some aspects of the US political system, the progress on cannabis, even in Republican states, shows what real democracy can achieve. Local ballots have forced reluctant and often hostile politicians to comply with what the people want and make cannabis legally available. The Biden-Harris team have promised federal decriminalisation and expungement of criminal records for all non-violent cannabis offences. I think this will happen. Even if the Republicans retain control of the Senate this issue has built up a head of steam that won’t be stopped. Remarkably, the one issue that transcends the terrible divides in American politics is cannabis. If the Senate goes Democrat we could see much more far-reaching change. And once the federal law on cannabis changes, you watch all the slimeball politicians throughout the rest of the world pretending that’s what they wanted all along.
Overall, I am optimistic. Hopefully, as we head through summer and into autumn next year, Covid will be behind us, we’ll all be back to earning a proper living and a lot closer to enjoying our cannabis in freedom, for pleasure, medicine or both. My very best wishes and the compliments of the season.
Review. Karma Coast CBD
Karma Coast 1500mg CBD OIl
I hope you’ll take my word for it, that here are two of the best tasting and most effective CBD products on the market. Karma Coast’s CBD oil and vape pen cartridges are as good as you can get and I have the experience and knowledge of this market to be able to make that statement with confidence.
Karma Coast CBD Vape Cartridge
I first sampled CBD oil back in about 2012. Nobody knew anything about it back then and I wasn’t at all sure that this new angle on cannabis wasn’t just another scam or some internet myth. There were some pretty extraordinary claims being made around Real Scientific Hemp Oil (RSHO) but with its deliberate play on the famous RSO (Rick Simpson Oil), that simply reinforced my scepticism.
Then a good friend of mine with an appalling catalogue of health problems, fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis, sciatica and more, started to experience some amazing results. It wasn’t quite raising Lazurus from the dead but it he did get up out of his wheelchair and walk across the room – something he hadn’t been able to do for years.
Fortunately, I’ve never had any severe health problems myself but I’d already been campaigning on medicinal cannabis for many years and this felt like a breakthrough. Back then there was little prospect of legal access to medicinal cannabis but here was something that was legal and offered many of the same benefits. It was revolutionary.
It was the medicinal benefits of CBD that caused this market to take off. Still today the reason people buy CBD is to deal with health problems and whatever the law and the medical establishment says about it, it works very effectively for millions of people.
One issue that has always been a problem is the taste of CBD oil. It can be vile and although some like their medicine to taste bad, it’s been something that has put many people off.
So I am delighted to have discovered Karma Coast products. The oil is delicious. Not just bearable or OK but quite genuinely it has a gorgeous cannabis flavour. It won’t be any hardship taking this every day and holding it under your tongue for four or five minutes to absorb it most effectively. It’s also supplied in sensible strengths and sizes at reasonable prices. The basic 10ml bottle contains 1500mg of CBD in a genuine whole plant extract for £75.00. That means that each drop is equivalent to 7.5mg of CBD. For me, four or five drops per day is the perfect dose and this little bottle will last well over a month.
The crucial point is that this is a genuine whole plant extract. It preserves all the compounds that were in the low-THC cannabis plants (industrial hemp) from which it was extracted. Experience and an increasing amount of research shows that this is how to deliver the benefits of CBD. Isolate-based products simply don’t work as effectively. The bad news is that if the Food Standards Agency (FSA) gets its way then isolate-based products are going to take over and dominate the market. It is being supported by a big business lobbyist organisation, the Association for the Cannabinoid Industry (ACI), which is intent on taking over the market and wiping out the small businesses like Karma Coast that are delivering products that actually work. The good news is that the FSA has slipped up in its definitions. It doesn’t really understand what CBD products are and a genuine whole plant product like Karma Coast won’t be subject to the ‘novel foods’ rules it has introduced.
So to the vape cartridges. Vaping CBD is the most effective method of absorption there is. It can get three or four times more CBD into your bloodstream than ingesting the same amount of oil. The effect doesn’t last as long though, so if you’re using CBD for pain, anxiety or as a sleep aid, you should take your main dose as oil and use a vape to top up or accelerate the effect you need.
The brilliant thing Karma Coast offers is a range of flavours and, harking back to my hash smoking teenage years, I chose the Moroccan Hash variety. Wow! It really does bring back memories and the taste is exactly right. This is achieved by addng terpenes to the oil to match the cannabis flavour you’re looking for – and it really works.
So I’m very fortunate in that I get offered a lot of CBD products to try. The best I can say is that I am very happy to spend my own money on Karma Coast. I highly recommend these products. Go to the company website for more details and to order: https://www.karmacoastcbd.co.uk/
Review. ‘The CBD Book. The Essential Guide to CBD Oil’ by Mary Biles
If you are looking for a basic guide to CBD, then this is the book for you. If you’re looking for a more advanced guide, with in-depth detail about research, then this is also the book for you.
In fact, even if you’re a doctor or scientist, looking for the most comprehensive, user-orientated information about CBD, this is a remarkable achievement by the author, Mary Biles, who I am fortunate to count as a friend and she can justifiably be very proud of it.
As writers in the cannabis space, Mary and I have followed similar paths, so I understand exactly the challenges she will have faced in writing this book and she has handled them wisely. It is easy-to-read, not in the least dry but manages to pack in a great deal of valuable information, clearly explained scientific evidence and sensible advice which will be of great benefit to all readers.
Contents include the basic science of cannabis, cannabinoids, CBD and the endocannabinoid system; an excellent section on research into using CBD for many medical conditions; wellness; how to take CBD and some useful case studies.
Mary sticks to the science but has a deeper understanding that is not found in simplistic objectivity. Experience, both her own and learned from others, shows that the absence of evidence does not mean CBD doesn’t work but also that more extreme claims need to be treated with healthy scepticism.
Highly recommended and I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
Professor Les Iversen, Tightrope Walker and Unsung Hero of Cannabis Law Reform
Leslie Iversen, born October 31 1937, died July 30 2020
Daily Telegraph obituary ‘Leslie Iversen, pioneering neuroscientist who studied the effects of drugs on the brain’
I’m sad that the latter years of Les Iversen’s life have been skipped over in this obituary. As with so many scientists who have had some influence in the political field, he had to tread a tightrope between scientific evidence and the ignorance, bigotry, prejudice of those in politics who are far more concerned with tabloid headlines than facts.
His chairmanship of the ACMD was conducted with great skill and enormous patience as politicians took decisions which were diametrically opposed to evidence. If Les had had his way, the medicinal benefits of cannabis would have been acknowledged far sooner and his knowledge would have cut through the vested interests of senior clinicians which are currently stalling progress on uptake of this most valuable medicine.
Les was appointed chair of ACMD following the disgraceful sacking of David Nutt who had the temerity to tell government the facts about relative drug harms. Les was less of an abrasive character than David Nutt although their professional opinions on government drugs policy were closely aligned. He continued to speak truth to power and, as he told me many times, was completely frustrated by politicians’ attitude to cannabis and their preference for the Daily Mail’s guidance on drugs policy rather than science.
From 2010, as the campaign for cannabis law reform became far more professional and began to attract support from more and more backbench MPs, it was immensely valuable to have someone who was strong and certain in advising ministers of the facts, even if they chose not to act on them. He must take a huge amount of credit for the legalisation of medicinal cannabis in 2018. He was immensely skilful at remaining in post in order to provide the best advice while actually telling ministers that their polices were foolish. He has never received the recognition for this that he is due.
Today’s ACMD is supine in comparison, crippled by legislation which has effectively castrated it and turned it into a committee that will confirm whatever the Home Secretary of the day requires. Scientists and clinicians, more than ever, are controlled by the big businesses and fat cats who want to determine drugs policy based on self-interest and prejudice rather than science. Les was one of the last of the noble breed of scientists who told the truth without fear or an overriding concern for their bank balance.
Peter Reynolds 