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.
Politics.Co.Uk, Comment: The War On Drugs Is Already Lost
An excellent article by Ian Dunt here that argues that the prohibitionists are already defeated.
My comment:
There is a deep, deep inertia about drugs policy amongst all politicians. Well that’s the polite way to put it, the political way. The truth is they’re all a bunch of self-serving, hypoctical cowards who don’t give a damn about the misery, suffering and death which their policies cause.
Of course the intellectual argument is won. It was won 20 years ago. Every single life lost, ruined, corrupted and wasted since then is the responsibility of those who have waged the “war on drugs” because it was never a war on drugs, it was a war on people. It pretended to be in those people’s interests but it was exactly the opposite. It was based on lies and propaganda.
It is not over yet. David Cameron and Nick Clegg both have a long record of claiming liberal and enlightened views on drug policy. Now they have their ministerial cars everything has changed. In the front line they have placed the snide and obnoxious James “Broken Britain” Brokenshire. He is playing the repressive, Ronald Regan, hang ’em and flog ’em role with glee. Of course he will be dumped as useless cannon fodder if Proposition 19 passes and sets off a wave of reform but I am not optimistic, even though I want to be.
We have a serious fight on our hands still. Until we can expose and overturn the lies and deceit of people like Brokenshire the people have not yet won.
Home Office Plays A Cruel Game Of Media Spin
There is no logic nor common sense nor science nor rationale in UK government drug policy. Everyone knows that. Nearly every commentator, scientist, doctor, even most politicians in private, acknowledge that there is no reasonable basis for our current drug laws. They do more harm than good and in the process they waste billions of pounds in law enforcement costs and create massive harm to society and to public health. The report issued today by Professor Nutt and his colleagues reveals the appalling incompetence of our drug policy. See here.
Monster
Unlike every other country in Europe, the UK places drug policy in the hands of the Home Office rather than the Department of Health. Nothing reveals the idiocy of this more than the current debacle over medicinal cannabis. See BBC Inside Out London tonight at 7.30pm or here on the iPlayer tomorrow.
What is truly disgraceful about the Home Office is the way it plays the media game with complete disrespect for and by ignoring citizens to whom it owes a duty of care. While it issues conflicting messages to the media, it fails to respond at all to dozens of individuals suffering from debilitating diseases who have sought its advice on obtaining their medicine. Hundreds of individuals have written repeatedly to the Home Office but have received no reply. The conduct of the minister responsible for this scandalous episode, James Brokenshire, can only be described as cruel, negligent and irresponsible. While the rest of us may debate the political issues around drug laws, thousands continue in pain and suffering while this monster continues his game of media spin.
There is no justice or truth in government drug policy but in this instance there is blatant evil and disregard for human suffering in James Brokenshire. The man is a disgrace and not fit to hold public office.
BBC Blanks Proposition 19
According to the Home Office there are six million regular users of cannabis in the UK. I have seen just one report on the BBC news about the Proposition 19 vote in California on 2nd November which promises legalisation.
Compare this with the recent wall to wall coverage of the Pope’s visit. How many regular supporters of the Catholic Church are there in Britain? Just 887,000.
This is an appalling failure by the BBC and a dereliction of its duty to provide fair and balanced coverage. Please make a complaint. It will take you less than five minutes and it will make a difference if enough of you take the time.
Here is a direct link to the BBC complaints website. Please do it now!
The Guardian Dances To The Home Office Tune
An astonishing article in The Guardian today on the Home Office’s attempts to prevent UK patients gaining access to medicinal cannabis. See here.
The Home Office’s position is no surprise. What is astonishing is The Guardian’s inaccurate and poodle-like treatment of the story. The article is little more than an obedient reproduction of a Home Office press release. It takes no account of the gross injustice and cruelty perpetrated by Home Office ministers. Neither does it challenge a position that is cleary unsustainable under EU law.
No one can have expected the Home Office to give in on this issue without a fight. I think we would all have expected far more courage and support from The Guardian.
The Guardian’s editor is Alan Rusbridger. His email address is: alan.rusbridger@guardian.co.uk. I would urge everyone to write to him now to protest at this weak and rather pathetic coverage of an important story.
This is my email. Feel free to copy, edit or use it as you will.
Paradise Valley
Come with me into the crisp, sparkling air of the Dorset countryside. Let the salted breeze blow away your cobwebs and the sheer beauty still your soul.
This is real life. All the rest is illusion.
Go here.
Nineteen Nervous Breakdown
I am worried about the neck and neck race in California. The polls are getting tighter and tighter. If Proposition 19 fails it will be a disaster for the cannabis campaign. Certainly in Britain, no politician will want to know. They will say if you can’t get California to vote for it, there are no votes in it at all.
It could knock us back at least five years.
That’s why it’s essential that we win. Whatever it takes. The polls say it depends on turnout by young voters so please, get the lazy stoners off their backsides and down to the polling booth.
Now is the time to get serious and take responsibility. Don’t let us down now!
GO CALIFORNIA! We’re depending on you!
The Robin Hood Tax
Isn’t Bill Nighy absolutely fantastic?
Go here for more information and to sign up to the campaign.
Peter Reynolds 