The Purple Brain: America's New Reefer Madness

[Al B. Fuct]

Yet back in the seventies they were still preaching how bad it was. So if they were lying back then why should I trust that they are not lying now?

 

You are no longer able to detect government lies because THC broke your chromosomes and paraquat twisted your sense of patriotic allegiances. Trust your government- you're not capable of anything else, ya commie druggo.

[gman]

You are no longer able to detect government lies because THC broke your chromosomes and paraquat twisted your sense of patriotic allegiances. Trust your government- you're not capable of anything else, ya commie druggo.

 

I've been researching a book since about 2002 and following the Reefer Madness scare since 2003.

 

This is a long read but it busts open what is occurring at the moment. The DEA, American Fed Gov and the UN are essentially in bed with each other and have manufactured a scare campaign to demonise cannabis. The campaign has been occurring globally since 2000.

 

Please spread this around to your friends and feel free to post where ever you like. It is worth a read although it's 15 a4 pages long. I have this in PDF format if anyone wants a copy.

 

Namaste

 

 

The Great Cannabis Swindle (copyright the author 2007)

 

G.Low

 

I was in the UK in March of 2007 when Theodore Leggett, the expert behind the 2006 UNODC report (or, at least the cannabis aspects of the report – Chapter 2), sent me some excerpts from various British media surrounding an apology by the ‘Independent on Sunday’ (IoS) Newspaper for its past stance on cannabis Law reform.

 

 

Leggett and I had been trading notes for some time. He was perplexed by why THC levels had doubled in under a decade and I was perplexed by whether this was actually the case. Was there a “new” cannabis or was this a “new” approach to an old debate (the second coming of Reefer Madness)?

 

The Independent had made calls in the late nineties for the legalization of cannabis. Their campaign had culminated with a 16,000 person strong march by advocates for cannabis legalization/reform through London’s Hyde Park and undoubtedly played a role in the Blair government’s decision to downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug. Now the Independent, ten years on, was backtracking with a public apology, saying they had got it wrong – new information had come to light which had seriously undermined their earlier assertions that cannabis was a relatively harmless drug and should be legalised.

 

The situation was turning surreal – Reefer Madness had found me in Britain. I flew out (legged it) two days later. Once bitten…..

 

Leggett’s email was headed “Interesting Development.”

 

 

“Paper 'sorry' for cannabis stance

 

The Independent on Sunday has carried a front-page apology for its 10-year campaign to legalise cannabis.

The newspaper says it has changed its stance in the face of growing fears over addiction to the drug.

There are now more than 22,000 people a year, almost half under the age of 18, being treated for cannabis addiction.

And the paper says mental health problems and psychosis affect thousands of teenagers who use high-strength cannabis, known as "skunk".

When the Independent on Sunday's then editor Rosie Boycott launched a campaign to decriminalise cannabis in 1997, 16,000 people marched through central London to support it.

Then, the paper says, it was "leading a consensus", but now its editorial says that "the growing evidence of the risk of psychological harm" has forced it to do a U-turn.

 

The Police Federation's Jan Berry told BBC One's Sunday AM program she welcomed the apology.

 

"Many people only read one newspaper or maybe a couple of newspapers and their views of the world are formed by what you put in those papers," she said. "So 10 years ago, the Independent on Sunday said that cannabis should be legalised, should be decriminalised. And today they're putting in an apology and I think that's great if they acknowledge they've done wrong."

 

'Schizophrenia link'

The paper says that in 1997 there were just 1,600 people in the UK being treated for cannabis addiction compared to many times that now.

It quotes several senior scientists, including the head of the Medical

Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore, who backed the campaign, but has now changed his mind.

Professor Robin Murray, from the London Institute of Psychiatry, also tells the paper that at least 25,000 of the UK's 250,000 schizophrenics could have been spared the illness if they had not used cannabis.

And the paper points to research to be published in this week's Lancet

which says cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.

 

The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal

acts as an important social restraint.

 

Independent on Sunday

 

In 2004, the government downgraded cannabis from a class B to a class C

drug.

The Independent on Sunday says it believes the current classification and level of police enforcement is "about right".

"The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal acts as an important social restraint," it adds.

The paper says skunk smoked today contains 25 times more of the active

ingredient than was typically found in cannabis during the 1980s.

It also says cannabis is more easily available, having fallen in price from about £120 an ounce in 1994 to £43 today.”

 

The Independent’s apology would prove to be big. Several of the large UK daily’s would pick up on the Independents lead, each building on the momentum the Independent had set. Each creating more and more sensationalist dribble – largely devoid of facts; impressive nevertheless.

 

 

 

The Daily Mail followed the lead of the Independent with this:

 

 

Daily Mail, Monday, March 19, 2007

 

Cannabis addiction soars as drug gets stronger By Liz Hull

 

Record numbers of teenagers are having treatment for addiction to super-strength cannabis.

The number of under 18s treated for smoking skunk – a potent strain of the drug – has doubled in 12 months to nearly 10,000 last year, according to research.

This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago.

Experts warned yesterday that the emergence of skunk, the extra strong variety of the drug which is 25 times stronger than cannabis resin was a ‘mental health timebomb’.

Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London said: “The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using cannabis eight to ten years ago. ‘But the people starting now are starting on skunk. The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising but what people are taking is much more powerful.

‘The question is: Will we see more people getting ill as a consequence? We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy….. Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research of Glasgow University, said: ‘Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. I think we are faced by a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use.’

According to the statistics provided by the Health Service, around 22,000 cannabis smokers are currently undergoing drug treatment for their addiction. Nearly half of them -9600- are under 18.

This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago, when just 1,660 users were treated by the NHS….Experts say the skunk smoked by youngsters today is very different to the cannabis resin of ten years ago. It has 25 times the level of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol and is sold at a third of the price….. In the face of such damning evidence, the Independent on Sunday - which campaigned vociferously for the decriminalization of the drug under the editorship of Rosie Boycott – yesterday performed a spectacular U-turn.

The newspaper published an apology and claimed the campaign, which culminated in a protest march through London’s Hyde Park, was flawed.

It said that since January 2004 when the home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C serious concerns have arisen about its effects.

Superintendent Leroy Logan, who is in charge of policing in the North Hackney district of London, said last month that Labour’s decision to relax cannabis laws had led to ‘extensive and expansive’ use among youngsters and had triggered a ‘paranoid mistrust’ of the police and anyone in authority.”

 

 

This of course misses the point: “youngsters” have long held a “paranoid mistrust of the police and anyone in authority.” Perhaps what the sixties (“ban the bomb” and “free the weed”) were all about.

 

“Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy” They fail to mention that cannabis is ranked as less harmful than the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco in the same study. Hmmmm….

 

 

The Independent (IoS) then published this on March 25, 2007.

 

“UN warns of cannabis dangers as it backs 'IoS' drugs 'apology'

By Jonathan Owen

The United Nations has issued an unprecedented warning to Britain about the growing threat to public health from potent new forms of cannabis, saying there is mounting evidence of "just how dangerous" the drug has become.

Writing in today's Independent on Sunday, Antonio Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says each country has the " drug problem it deserves", and warns that the British government must " avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance".

Mr Costa's comments follow disclosures in last week's IoS that a record 22,000 people needed National Health Service treatment last year for drug rehabilitation, together with doctors' warnings that skunk cannabis is creating a generation with mental health problems.

He says: "Many [people] subscribe to the vague, laissez-faire tolerance of cannabis which is increasingly prevalent among educated people in Western countries. That consensus needs to be challenged. Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use is mounting and cannot be ignored."

The intervention, which will be seen as an attack on the Government's liberal stance on cannabis use, follows the decision by the IoS to reverse its support for the drug to be decriminalised, 10 years after launching a high-profile campaign for legalisation.

Mr Costa proposes that young people found in possession of the drug should be penalised in the same way as people caught drink driving, adding that the cannabis "now in circulation is many times more powerful than the weed that today's baby-boomers smoked in college. Cannabis is a dangerous drug."

After a week of debate in newspapers, television and radio as well as outrage on pro-cannabis websites and blogs the UN's unprecedented foray into the debate about drugs policy coincided with a new study proving links between mental health problems and smoking skunk. Research published yesterday predicts that cannabis may account for a quarter of all new cases of schizophrenia in three years' time….”

“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright. This is not an overstatement. Users of the marihuana weed are committing a large percentage of the atrocious crimes blotting the daily picture of American life. It is reducing thousands of boys to criminal insanity and only two states have effective laws to protect their people against it. The marihuana weed, according to Mr. Anslinger, is grown, sold and used in every State in the Union. He charges, and rightly, that this is not a responsibility of one State, but OF ALL — and of the Federal Government.”

 

It struck me as odd that so much of the media was parroting the same highly misleading claims of increases of 25 times or more in THC levels since the 1980’s. Where were they getting their information from? If cannabis conservatively contained, on average, 4% THC in the 1980’s this would make cannabis !00% THC today (an impossible figure) when, in fact, the average based on the figures in the UNODC 2006 report were 18% today against 9% six years before and an estimated 8% - 8.5% during the nineties. Or, at least this is what the UNODC had presented.

 

The argued to be “new” mythological “skunk” that was now being demonised by media was, in fact, bred in the 1960’s by US breeders before finding its way to European seed banks sometime in the 1970’s. The “new” cannabis had been around for more than forty years.

 

“Skunk” is classed as a mostly sativa strain (approximately 75% sativa/25% indica) and consists of Acapulco Gold (sativa), Columbian Gold (sativa) and Afghani (indica).

 

Afghani is, in itself, a more potent strain than Skunk with THC levels of approximately 18 per cent (although claims of 20 per cent or more are made by breeders). Afghani has existed for many thousands of years. This very potent strain is by no means a “new” cannabis; it is an ancient breed with origins that can be traced back to pre-biblical times. Super Skunk – a more potent, high yielding genetic derivative of Skunk – was bred sometime in the eighties by crossing Afghani back into Skunk, thus introducing further Afghani indica genetics and further potency to Skunk. I.e. ‘Super’ Skunk (Is it a bird? Is it a plane?)

 

The “new” G-13 strain that featured in the film ‘American Beauty’ when genetically tested turned out to be Afghani indica. In the film, a young dealer named Ricky Fitts hands a bag of what looks to be an eighth (1/8th of an ounce/ 3.5 grams) to Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and says, “This shit is top of the line. It’s called G-13. It’s genetically engineered by the US government. It’s extremely potent, but a completely mellow high. No paranoia.” He then charges him $2000 US for the product. This line is responsible for a boost in the strains popularity.

 

 

The UNODC figures in themselves were open to serious interpretation. It looked possible they had built their case against cannabis – as an overseer to the Single Narcotics Convention – on politically motivated facts and figures. I’ll come to this shortly.

 

Other than this, I had been living in England for four months when the story broke and the price for an ounce of cannabis was £120, not the £43 the media were reporting. Twenty to 30 times the potency (take your pick) and half the price; upon analysis many of the claims simply didn’t add up. It was Reefer Madness all over again. Pulp fiction…. shrill yellow journalism…. the unnecessary genocide of perfectly good trees… hysteria thinly disguised as breaking news….. print media not fit for toilet paper…. and so on.

 

I went off in search for answers.

 

Leggett had responded with this when I had posed the question: “Why is the UNODC meddling in international drug politics (pertaining to Antonio Costa’s “foray” into journalism) and

[gman]

You are no longer able to detect government lies because THC broke your chromosomes and paraquat twisted your sense of patriotic allegiances. Trust your government- you're not capable of anything else, ya commie druggo.

 

I've been researching a book since about 2002 and following the Reefer Madness scare since 2003.

 

This is a long read but it busts open what is occurring at the moment. The DEA, American Fed Gov and the UN are essentially in bed with each other and have manufactured a scare campaign to demonise cannabis. The campaign has been occurring globally since 2000.

 

Please spread this around to your friends and feel free to post where ever you like. It is worth a read although it's 15 a4 pages long. I'll try to attach it as a PDF as well for easier reading.

 

Namaste

 

 

The Great Cannabis Swindle (copyright the author 2007)

 

G.Low

 

I was in the UK in March of 2007 when Theodore Leggett, the expert behind the 2006 UNODC report (or, at least the cannabis aspects of the report – Chapter 2), sent me some excerpts from various British media surrounding an apology by the ‘Independent on Sunday’ (IoS) Newspaper for its past stance on cannabis Law reform.

 

 

Leggett and I had been trading notes for some time. He was perplexed by why THC levels had doubled in under a decade and I was perplexed by whether this was actually the case. Was there a “new” cannabis or was this a “new” approach to an old debate (the second coming of Reefer Madness)?

 

The Independent had made calls in the late nineties for the legalization of cannabis. Their campaign had culminated with a 16,000 person strong march by advocates for cannabis legalization/reform through London’s Hyde Park and undoubtedly played a role in the Blair government’s decision to downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug. Now the Independent, ten years on, was backtracking with a public apology, saying they had got it wrong – new information had come to light which had seriously undermined their earlier assertions that cannabis was a relatively harmless drug and should be legalised.

 

The situation was turning surreal – Reefer Madness had found me in Britain. I flew out (legged it) two days later. Once bitten…..

 

Leggett’s email was headed “Interesting Development.”

 

 

“Paper 'sorry' for cannabis stance

 

The Independent on Sunday has carried a front-page apology for its 10-year campaign to legalise cannabis.

The newspaper says it has changed its stance in the face of growing fears over addiction to the drug.

There are now more than 22,000 people a year, almost half under the age of 18, being treated for cannabis addiction.

And the paper says mental health problems and psychosis affect thousands of teenagers who use high-strength cannabis, known as "skunk".

When the Independent on Sunday's then editor Rosie Boycott launched a campaign to decriminalise cannabis in 1997, 16,000 people marched through central London to support it.

Then, the paper says, it was "leading a consensus", but now its editorial says that "the growing evidence of the risk of psychological harm" has forced it to do a U-turn.

 

The Police Federation's Jan Berry told BBC One's Sunday AM program she welcomed the apology.

 

"Many people only read one newspaper or maybe a couple of newspapers and their views of the world are formed by what you put in those papers," she said. "So 10 years ago, the Independent on Sunday said that cannabis should be legalised, should be decriminalised. And today they're putting in an apology and I think that's great if they acknowledge they've done wrong."

 

'Schizophrenia link'

The paper says that in 1997 there were just 1,600 people in the UK being treated for cannabis addiction compared to many times that now.

It quotes several senior scientists, including the head of the Medical

Research Council, Professor Colin Blakemore, who backed the campaign, but has now changed his mind.

Professor Robin Murray, from the London Institute of Psychiatry, also tells the paper that at least 25,000 of the UK's 250,000 schizophrenics could have been spared the illness if they had not used cannabis.

And the paper points to research to be published in this week's Lancet

which says cannabis is more dangerous than LSD and ecstasy.

 

The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal

acts as an important social restraint.

 

Independent on Sunday

 

In 2004, the government downgraded cannabis from a class B to a class C

drug.

The Independent on Sunday says it believes the current classification and level of police enforcement is "about right".

"The fact that the possession of cannabis - and other drugs - is illegal acts as an important social restraint," it adds.

The paper says skunk smoked today contains 25 times more of the active

ingredient than was typically found in cannabis during the 1980s.

It also says cannabis is more easily available, having fallen in price from about £120 an ounce in 1994 to £43 today.”

 

The Independent’s apology would prove to be big. Several of the large UK daily’s would pick up on the Independents lead, each building on the momentum the Independent had set. Each creating more and more sensationalist dribble – largely devoid of facts; impressive nevertheless.

 

 

 

The Daily Mail followed the lead of the Independent with this:

 

 

Daily Mail, Monday, March 19, 2007

 

Cannabis addiction soars as drug gets stronger By Liz Hull

 

Record numbers of teenagers are having treatment for addiction to super-strength cannabis.

The number of under 18s treated for smoking skunk – a potent strain of the drug – has doubled in 12 months to nearly 10,000 last year, according to research.

This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago.

Experts warned yesterday that the emergence of skunk, the extra strong variety of the drug which is 25 times stronger than cannabis resin was a ‘mental health timebomb’.

Robin Murray, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry in London said: “The people we are seeing who are now in their twenties started using cannabis eight to ten years ago. ‘But the people starting now are starting on skunk. The number of people taking cannabis may not be rising but what people are taking is much more powerful.

‘The question is: Will we see more people getting ill as a consequence? We’ll just have to wait and see.’

Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy….. Professor Neil McKeganey, of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research of Glasgow University, said: ‘Society has seriously underestimated how dangerous cannabis really is. I think we are faced by a generation blighted by the effects of cannabis use.’

According to the statistics provided by the Health Service, around 22,000 cannabis smokers are currently undergoing drug treatment for their addiction. Nearly half of them -9600- are under 18.

This is a tenfold increase on a decade ago, when just 1,660 users were treated by the NHS….Experts say the skunk smoked by youngsters today is very different to the cannabis resin of ten years ago. It has 25 times the level of the main psychoactive ingredient, tetrahydrocannabidinol and is sold at a third of the price….. In the face of such damning evidence, the Independent on Sunday - which campaigned vociferously for the decriminalization of the drug under the editorship of Rosie Boycott – yesterday performed a spectacular U-turn.

The newspaper published an apology and claimed the campaign, which culminated in a protest march through London’s Hyde Park, was flawed.

It said that since January 2004 when the home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis from Class B to Class C serious concerns have arisen about its effects.

Superintendent Leroy Logan, who is in charge of policing in the North Hackney district of London, said last month that Labour’s decision to relax cannabis laws had led to ‘extensive and expansive’ use among youngsters and had triggered a ‘paranoid mistrust’ of the police and anyone in authority.”

 

 

This of course misses the point: “youngsters” have long held a “paranoid mistrust of the police and anyone in authority.” Perhaps what the sixties (“ban the bomb” and “free the weed”) were all about.

 

“Cannabis has already been linked to schizophrenia and psychosis. Research published this week in the Lancet will show skunk is more addictive - and socially dangerous – than Class A drugs such as LSD and ecstacy” They fail to mention that cannabis is ranked as less harmful than the legal drugs alcohol and tobacco in the same study. Hmmmm….

 

 

The Independent (IoS) then published this on March 25, 2007.

 

“UN warns of cannabis dangers as it backs 'IoS' drugs 'apology'

By Jonathan Owen

The United Nations has issued an unprecedented warning to Britain about the growing threat to public health from potent new forms of cannabis, saying there is mounting evidence of "just how dangerous" the drug has become.

Writing in today's Independent on Sunday, Antonio Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says each country has the " drug problem it deserves", and warns that the British government must " avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance".

Mr Costa's comments follow disclosures in last week's IoS that a record 22,000 people needed National Health Service treatment last year for drug rehabilitation, together with doctors' warnings that skunk cannabis is creating a generation with mental health problems.

He says: "Many [people] subscribe to the vague, laissez-faire tolerance of cannabis which is increasingly prevalent among educated people in Western countries. That consensus needs to be challenged. Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use is mounting and cannot be ignored."

The intervention, which will be seen as an attack on the Government's liberal stance on cannabis use, follows the decision by the IoS to reverse its support for the drug to be decriminalised, 10 years after launching a high-profile campaign for legalisation.

Mr Costa proposes that young people found in possession of the drug should be penalised in the same way as people caught drink driving, adding that the cannabis "now in circulation is many times more powerful than the weed that today's baby-boomers smoked in college. Cannabis is a dangerous drug."

After a week of debate in newspapers, television and radio as well as outrage on pro-cannabis websites and blogs the UN's unprecedented foray into the debate about drugs policy coincided with a new study proving links between mental health problems and smoking skunk. Research published yesterday predicts that cannabis may account for a quarter of all new cases of schizophrenia in three years' time….”

“If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana he would drop dead of fright. This is not an overstatement. Users of the marihuana weed are committing a large percentage of the atrocious crimes blotting the daily picture of American life. It is reducing thousands of boys to criminal insanity and only two states have effective laws to protect their people against it. The marihuana weed, according to Mr. Anslinger, is grown, sold and used in every State in the Union. He charges, and rightly, that this is not a responsibility of one State, but OF ALL — and of the Federal Government.”

 

It struck me as odd that so much of the media was parroting the same highly misleading claims of increases of 25 times or more in THC levels since the 1980’s. Where were they getting their information from? If cannabis conservatively contained, on average, 4% THC in the 1980’s this would make cannabis !00% THC today (an impossible figure) when, in fact, the average based on the figures in the UNODC 2006 report were 18% today against 9% six years before and an estimated 8% - 8.5% during the nineties. Or, at least this is what the UNODC had presented.

 

The argued to be “new” mythological “skunk” that was now being demonised by media was, in fact, bred in the 1960’s by US breeders before finding its way to European seed banks sometime in the 1970’s. The “new” cannabis had been around for more than forty years.

 

“Skunk” is classed as a mostly sativa strain (approximately 75% sativa/25% indica) and consists of Acapulco Gold (sativa), Columbian Gold (sativa) and Afghani (indica).

 

Afghani is, in itself, a more potent strain than Skunk with THC levels of approximately 18 per cent (although claims of 20 per cent or more are made by breeders). Afghani has existed for many thousands of years. This very potent strain is by no means a “new” cannabis; it is an ancient breed with origins that can be traced back to pre-biblical times. Super Skunk – a more potent, high yielding genetic derivative of Skunk – was bred sometime in the eighties by crossing Afghani back into Skunk, thus introducing further Afghani indica genetics and further potency to Skunk. I.e. ‘Super’ Skunk (Is it a bird? Is it a plane?)

 

The “new” G-13 strain that featured in the film ‘American Beauty’ when genetically tested turned out to be Afghani indica. In the film, a young dealer named Ricky Fitts hands a bag of what looks to be an eighth (1/8th of an ounce/ 3.5 grams) to Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and says, “This shit is top of the line. It’s called G-13. It’s genetically engineered by the US government. It’s extremely potent, but a completely mellow high. No paranoia.” He then charges him $2000 US for the product. This line is responsible for a boost in the strains popularity.

 

 

The UNODC figures in themselves were open to serious interpretation. It looked possible they had built their case against cannabis – as an overseer to the Single Narcotics Convention – on politically motivated facts and figures. I’ll come to this shortly.

 

Other than this, I had been living in England for four months when the story broke and the price for an ounce of cannabis was £120, not the £43 the media were reporting. Twenty to 30 times the potency (take your pick) and half the price; upon analysis many of the claims simply didn’t add up. It was Reefer Madness all over again. Pulp fiction…. shrill yellow journalism…. the unnecessary genocide of perfectly good trees… hysteria thinly disguised as breaking news….. print media not fit for toilet paper…. and so on.

 

I went off in search for answers.

 

Leggett had responded with this when I had posed the question: “Why is the UNODC meddling in international drug politics (pertaining to Antonio Costa’s “foray” into journalism) and have they had any other influence in that countries press, pertaining to cannabis, prior to this?

 

Leggett’s response was concise and I haven’t heard from him since.

 

May 9th 2007

 

“We don't set international policy - the member states do that. We just help them get where they want to go, as best we can.”

 

Hmmmm…

 

I had asked Leggett in an earlier email where he had got his numbers from for the 2006 World Drug Report.

 

Do you have copies of the stats you used re THC trends/spikes in tests

over the past decade to establish your findings?

 

His response:

 

“The best single source on this is 2003 report of the European Monitoring

Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which was basically written by Les

King, a British forensic scientist.

 

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/index.cfm?fuse...sLanguageISO=EN

 

I disagree with their conclusion because they lump all their cannabis

products together (imported herbal, local herbal, imported hash, local

hash) into an aggregated cannabis potency for each country. On this basis

they conclude that cannabis potency overall has not increased. But I think

this misses the point. No individual smokes the aggregated pot they

discuss - people buy products, and if you buy high end pot and you live in

Europe, my bet is the potency of your smoke has increased a lot in recent

years.”

 

What?!

 

However, this is how averages are reached. The paragraph is interesting in that the “best single source” and “I disagree with their conclusion” are penned within a sentence of one another. Leggett had discarded what he himself described as “the best single source” of information and had instead chosen to go with ‘other’ information. Why?

 

Les King concludes his analysis of European cannabis markets with: “Statements in the popular media that the potency of cannabis has increased by ten times or more in recent decades are not supported by the data from either the USA or Europe. (Leslie A King. EMCDDA Insights. An overview of cannabis potency in Europe 2004. Pg.59).

 

 

Leggett’s email went on to say:

 

Other data comes from other sources. The US data comes from the Marijuana

Potency Monitoring Project, which has been running since the 1970s out of

the University of Mississippi. They have published a lot of reports over

the years. The Canadian data comes from a personal connection - I don't

know if it was ever published anywhere. Dutch is from Trimbos. The German

comes from their annual police report - I just have hard copy. I don't

think either Australia or New Zealand has good time series potency data.

 

What I can't explain, and maybe you can help here, is why the recent

increases in potency have been so dramatic. People have been working on

this problem from the 1970s and then suddenly, in just the last five to ten

years, they seem to have cracked it. For example, the Dutch potency

monitoring samples from coffee shops, so it is probably testing cutting

edge stuff.

 

The Canadian and US figures didn’t come close to the 18 per cent the UNODC were claiming.

 

“Canadian authorities consider all the cannabis they test to be sinsemilla, and average potency levels were 9.6 per cent in 2003, compared to 7.4 per cent for US sinsemilla.” (pg 175)

 

This in itself was highly unusual. Canada’s seed trade supplied the exact same stock as the Dutch seed trade – many of the seed dealers (Marc Emery etc, etc, etc) supplying a long list of genetics from the Amsterdam banks. It was impossible that the figures (Canada 9.6% - Holland 18%) could be so different. Stranger again, that the US figures were below 8 per cent. US cultivators also source their genetics from Holland and Canada, and the seed trade is a multinational business where seeds are sent globally via “stealth” packaging. Very few packages, by percentage, are intercepted as they cross international boarders. The Dutch, the Canadians and the US were using the very same genetics. “Cutting edge stuff”. Why the massive disparity?

 

 

I had put this to Leggett in a later email:

 

The spike, however, does interest me.

 

”The Dutch is the clearest case of this. Ask your Dutch contacts what has happened.”

 

I did. I asked my Dutch contacts what had happened. Seemingly, nothing had happened. They couldn’t think of a single thing.

 

OK, so it was the Trimbos Report that defined the spike – the doubling of THC, now being presented by press as 20 to 30 times stronger cannabis. The mythological “new” ‘skunk’ that had existed for forty years.

 

Great! So now I knew where the figures came from. The riddle had been solved.

 

However, there was one obvious problem here. The Trimbos report – the key research used in establishing a doubling of THC percentage within a decade - has one very obvious flaw; something the UNODC ignored for political reasons or, missed completely. Leggett makes this point:

 

“The Dutch example is the most impressive one. We see a doubling in six years, from 9% to

18%. These samples are taken from coffee shops, so the source has been the

same over time.”

 

He was correct. The source has remained the same, the ‘Trimbos Institute for Mental Health and Addiction’ had consistently purchased from Dutch coffee shops; however, the samples are very different and fail to meet standardized testing procedures that could be used to measure THC percentages, on average, across the board. .

 

Trimbos researchers had approached a cross section of coffee shops and asked them what their customers were purchasing. That is, which varieties are the most popular? What are your consumers smoking this year? They then purchased samples based on the feedback and tested these for THC, CBN, and CBD. They repeated this year after year, for six years, each time purchasing what coffee shop owners and/or their staff pointed them towards. By monitoring customer spending patterns, Trimbos had concluded that the average percentage of THC had doubled in less than a decade. Put another way: by monitoring consumer purchasing patterns, this indicated today’s cannabis was double the potency of six years before. Put another way: by buying what the customers were requesting they had established that cannabis was now much stronger than six years before.

 

Jesus!! And pigs might fly. They had established only that consumer spending patterns were changing. Consumers, on average, were requesting stronger forms of cannabis in Dutch coffee shops… more potent forms of cannabis that have been around and available for a very long time. Reefer bloody madness…!!

 

I had made this comment to Leggett early in the piece.

 

You must remember that many of these very potent strains have been around

for some time.

 

His response:

 

”I know, which is why I find the sudden increase confusing. All the technology and the breeding has been there for years.”

 

He had also added this later when cross examined about the validity of the figures he had used:

 

“But even if there weren't ANY data, I would argue that potency has

increased because, as you well know, a large number of clever people have

worked very hard over decades to bring about this increase, and they are

working with an extremely malleable plant, perhaps the most malleable in

the world. I would be extremely surprised if all this work was for nothing.”

 

It was laughable. The UNODC had used a consumer survey –discounting credible research along the way- as their key research in making claims of a doubling of THC within a decade. The “new” cannabis was a hoax. A political beat-up manufactured off the backbone of figures that weren’t suitable for the purposes they had been used. Leggett had gone in with a preconceived opinion and found his answers while denying research that contested his own theories. Shrill Academia. Controversial, spectacular, and flawed. Not worth the paper it was written on.

 

“Statements in the popular media that the potency of cannabis has increased by ten times or more in recent decades are not supported by the data from either the USA or Europe.”

By 2006, two years later, this would be turned on its head. “The ‘new’ cannabis has doubled in potency in the last decade”. (Italicized as a standalone statement on page 173 of the UNODC World Drug Report for maximum effect)

 

 

The press in Australia jumped on the bandwagon with this:

 

Asian gangs develop highly potent cannabis strain

By Keith Moor (Article from the Daily Telegraph)

May 14, 2007

POLICE fear a new form of incredibly potent cannabis is destined to hit Australia.

Vietnamese criminal gangs in Canada have developed a sophisticated method of growing the plant indoors year round.

It greatly increases both the yield and potency of the cannabis and cuts growing time.

Latest criminal intelligence suggests that Australia-based Vietnamese drug dealers have travelled to Canada to learn how to cultivate the highly addictive cannabis.

They are expected to use this knowledge to grow and sell it in Australia….

Cannabis arrests account for almost 70 per cent of drug arrests in Australia….”

Presumably by stating “a sophisticated method of growing the plant indoors year round”, they were talking about indoor hydroponic cultivation which had been the method of choice in Australia for over a decade. A hydroponic store was situated on every corner in Adelaide – why bother going to Canada?

“Marijuana, perhaps now the most insidious of our narcotics, is a direct by-product of unrestricted Mexican immigration. Easily grown, it has been asserted that it has recently been planted between rows in a California penitentiary garden. Mexican peddlers have been caught distributing sample marijuana cigarettes to school children.”

This from Nottingham, England.

POLICE HIT CANNABIS EMPIRES

(Source: The Nottingham Evening Post)

 

 

22 March 2007

 

Gangs are targeting young people to help build cannabis empires in Notts.

 

Police say rented business units and homes are being turned into hi-tech drugs factories.

 

Police recovered more than 1,200 plants from six cannabis factories in the county during raids in January and February.

 

The plants weighed more than 50kg and had a combined street value of £300,000. Some were also six times stronger than normal cannabis.

 

Chief Inspector Colin Martin said: "We are now up against unprecedented and highly lucrative cannabis production networks in this county.

 

"We are taking out some big dealers. But we are finding they are being swiftly replaced due to the money that can now be made from cannabis.

 

"Our intelligence indicates that under-18s are among the biggest clients for the offenders involved in producing and selling the drug."

 

A report by the charity DrugScope says the Vietnamese have a "stranglehold" on the cannabis trade in Nottingham and other major UK cities.

 

Debbie Bridgett, team manager at Hetty's, a Mansfield-drugs counselling service, said: "We have relatives of child cannabis users as young as 12 on our books…."

 

“The sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story of a Chicago apartment house. Everyone called it suicide, but actually it was murder. The killer was a narcotic used in the form of cigarettes, comparatively new to the United States and as dangerous as a coiled rattlesnake.”

This from Liverpool, England.

by Ben Rossington (Liverpool Echo)

 

”SUPER-strength cannabis so potent that just one puff can cause schizophrenia is being grown by Merseyside drug gangs.

 

Cannabis resin, usually smuggled in from Morocco, has been replaced by home-grown super skunk as the drug of choice for sale by criminal gangs on Merseyside.

 

Experts warn this new strain of cannabis is so incredibly strong it can bring on the early signs of schizophrenia from a single puff…. (Authors note: One puff and you’re gone…Hahaha!!)

 

…Cultivated in houses rigged with professional heating, lighting and feeding equipment, the crushed cannabis leaves are thought to be up to 25 times more potent than that smoked in the late 1960s and early 1970s. (My God! How strong are the buds??)

 

Merseyside’s chief constable, Bernard Hogan-Howe said: “Cannabis is not the harmless substance some people believe it to be.

 

“This new super-strength cannabis is here on Merseyside and is creating problems now.

 

“The legacy of people taking this drug today could well be felt for generations to come.”

 

According to the National Treatment Agency, an arm of the NHS, just under 3,500 people in the north west sought treatment for cannabis addiction last year.

 

The number of under-18s treated nationally doubled to nearly 10,000 over the same period.

 

Schizophrenia is a mental disorder where the sufferer struggles to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically…..” (As with some journalists)

“I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That's why our problem is so great; the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally, because of social and racial conditions.”

 

Stoner reviews of Rossington’s article – from UK420 (www.UK420.com)

 

From Spark1:

“Experts warn this new strain of cannabis is so incredibly strong it can bring on the early signs of schizophrenia from a single puff.

 

Must be bloody strong!!!!

 

the crushed cannabis leaves are thought to be up to 25 times more potent than that smoked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

 

Would love to try the buds if thats the case!”

 

 

From Herbman:

“Going to have to skin a big fattie after reading that shite”

 

From Squaggles:

“Loss of appetite ? I need to get this new super-strength-killer-skunk then , I have the opposite problem when I smoke weed and I'm putting on a bit of weight .”

 

From Highdro:

 

”It sounds like their talking about Bubble hash.

My Bubble hash is very potent.

1 pipe/bong & I'm out for the count.

 

As for developing schizophrenia.

I find going into politics helps. You start off saying one thing then develop a totally different UN-thought.

 

We know the truth, politics is dangerous & weed isn't.

 

Carry on growing you good, good people of 420.”

 

From Randomhead:

 

“Im struggling to tell the difference whether this article is real or unreal, whether the facts are logical and whether the journalist has normal emotional responses.

 

”Ben Rossington you belong in a fucking institution. Your mentally unstable and dangerous to boot, you souldnt be allowed in society especially doing a job which involves polluting this already confused and misinformed world with more anti cannabis bullshit.

 

Ps your a cunt and so is your editor”

 

From Compostverte:

 

“He wrote an article about violence in hospital emergency rooms without mentioning alcohol once so far as I can see :-

 

http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100new...-name_page.html

 

Maybe he has shares in alcohol companies ....”

 

(or the paper advertises booze)

 

From Moggggys:

 

“only thing cannabis causes is bullshit from people who should know better , hope you guys are emailing the twat also , i sent penis , your , a fucking ,,,,,, if you need help with that then reply , wonder if he will ?” (I wouldn’t think so, would you Moggggys?)

 

From AW33WA:

 

“i live in a place of high unemployement and there is a culture of claiming dole money and haveing a part time job, the only thing is over the last few years they have started makeing it very hard for people to claim long term and so the only answer for these hard core of long term benerfit fraudsters is to get a life time sick note from there docter by claiming some kind of mental ilness a friend of mine does this and know for a fact there are a lot of people on sickness benerfit who claim mental ilness stops them from working and when asked by there docter what drugs they take almost all of them will say canabis as well as the others , its from these people that the statistics are being taken and then the next thing to happen is the goverment starts spending huge amounts on campians agianst weed to look like there tackleing the problem of the stats ,,,,,,the real problem is the class a drugs like wiz and coke which are much more popular than when i was a teanager 15 years ago they seem cheaper and more available than ever .”

 

From 1888bhoy:

“all this blatant daily misinformation is so pissing me off right now,

ffs, this is ruining any work done by activism and global mj movements in a flash,

how on earth these journalists are getting away with putting this shit to print is beyond me and should be found in contempt of common sense, cos as far as i can see, there are NO facts printed anywhere in this quagmire of health warnings, and the govt is showing how stupid they are by following the advice of the so called 'experts' to which i've yet to see any exist, man i want to rant more but my blood boils more and more the longer i think about it”

 

1888bhoy made a very good point. The propaganda was ruining the work done by the global “mj” movement – perhaps the point. The DEA, INCB, the WHO and the UNODC had been ripping into them from 2000 onwards.(Propaganda: The organized dissemination of information, allegations etc, to assist or damage the cause of a government, movement etc)

 

It was a clever twist. A “new” cannabis that should be seen in the same light as other plant based narcotics such as heroin and cocaine. Cannabis was no longer the ‘old’ soft hippy drug but now an evil monster amok in the land.

 

 

 

Back to Australia:

 

Cannabis users are ‘prone to failure’

 

Debbie Guest (Source: The West 28/4/07)

 

“Cannabis is the ‘losers’ drug with heavy use leading to failures in a range of areas such as work and relationships, according to a new study.

Melbourne University’s Centre for Adolescent Health researchers tracked 1943 Victorian teenagers over 10 years and found heavy marijuana smokers were more likely than heavy alcohol drinkers to under-achieve.

“In terms of education and having a job, high-end alcohol users were not dissimilar to people who weren’t high-end users,” …”But cannabis users had a lot more educational failure, fewer had degrees and tertiary qualifications by the age of 25, more were unemployed.”

Heavy marijuana smokers were also six to 12 times more likely to use other drugs such as methamphetamine, ecstasy and cocaine. This compared to high-risk alcohol drinkers, who were two to five times more likely to use other drugs. Cannabis smokers were also more likely to be addicted to cigarettes.

“If you want to predict a group of kids or a group of substance abusers who are doing badly 10 years on, they (cannabis users) really do look like the future losers. Whatever we looked at cannabis users were doing worse.”

 

 

This from Edinburgh, Scotland:

 

SARAH HOWDEN April 10, 2007

 

(showden@edinburghnews.com)

 

”CANNABIS has, for decades, been seen in some quarters as nothing more than a hippy drug. Whether they call it ganja, weed, dope, grass, many people insist it's a harmless way to unwind.

 

At one stage it appeared even the Government was leaning towards that view too - in 2004, laws against cannabis were relaxed. It was declassified and made a class C drug.

 

But in recent months alarming evidence has emerged about its side-effects, particularly the link to psychosis and mental illness - one modern derivation of cannabis, skunk, is ten times stronger than the homegrown pot smoked back in the 1960s and '70s.

 

And last month the chief constable of Merseyside police condemned the "softly, softly" approach now taken towards cannabis. (One puff and you’re gone, “super skunk” Chief constable, Bernard Hogan-Howe)

 

Perhaps most worryingly, cannabis may be a gateway drug to addiction to such substances as heroin and cocaine. Here an Edinburgh mother and son tell their stories of how one joint led to a three-year battle with heroin.

 

THE MOTHER

NEVER did Bernadette* imagine that it could happen to her family. But the 45-year-old's youngest son Paul* went from being a happy, outgoing teenager who loved football, golf and skiing to a thug who threatened them with knives, smashed the windows of their car and regularly stole from them.

 

For many addicts merely a portion of a ‘reefer’ is enough to induce intoxication. Suddenly, for no reason, he decided that someone had threatened to kill him and that his life at that very moment was in danger. Wildly he looked about him. The only person in sight was an aged bootblack. Drug-crazed nerve centers conjured the innocent old shoe shiner into a destroying monster. Mad with fright, the addict hurried to his room and got a gun. He killed the old man, and then, later, babbled his grief over what had been wanton, uncontrollable murder….”That’s marihuana!!

 

Paul was just 11 when he tried cannabis and he quickly became hooked. Soon he was smoking the drug every day for hours on end….

 

"It started with small changes in his appearance. He didn't care how he looked anymore.

 

"Then things started going missing in the house. It was small things at first and I didn't think much of it, but then bigger things disappeared, such as jewellery, DVDs, the PlayStation, even the televisions."…..

 

…What they didn't know was that Paul, at the age of just 14, had moved from smoking cannabis to taking heroin - and now had a £180 a day habit to feed.

 

"We kept on asking him if it was drugs and it got to the point where he couldn't deny it anymore. He had been a fit, healthy boy and he ended up grey, skinny and spotty, with his hoodie always up. It was horrible for us to see.

 

"It got to the stage that we couldn't let him in the house - he would just steal anything and everything. He stole my wedding ring, mobile phones, TVs, DVD players, computer games. But still he denied it. My husband and I were just gutted - we blamed ourselves. We didn't know where he was, where he was living, what he was doing. I didn't know if he'd been fed or washed. It was so hard as a mum, I can't begin to explain."

 

After Paul was banned from his home, he kept returning to steal. "I came home from work one day and noticed that the paint was flaking from the front door. It transpired that he'd put the door in to get inside while we were out, and the whole frame had come away. So he could still get access and put the door back afterwards without us knowing."

 

She continues: "I became too scared to be away from the house for any length of time. It badly affected the family. It put a strain on my marriage, but we were strong enough to get through it. Paul was just a different person.

 

"As a parent I questioned myself. Was it my fault? Where did I go wrong? Even then I didn't know he was on heroin, I assumed it would be hash," she says. "I haven't got a clue about drugs. You could put them in front of me and I wouldn't even know.

 

"Even when he finally told me, I still didn't know how bad it was and how dangerous it was. But by his appearance and his attitude I sensed it was bad. I just knew we had to do something about it."…

 

 

THE SON

"THE worst thing I stole was a policeman's wallet," admits the 17-year-old. "And the thing I'm most ashamed about was mugging people and taking women's handbags.

 

"I did anything I could to fund my habit. I managed to get £1000 from a shop till once and I spent that within two and a half days. I just didn't care about anything."

 

Heroin was all Paul thought about for almost three years, not the two years his mum believes. And his £180 daily habit grew from a single joint which he smoked when he was 11. His older brother gave him it to try when he was in primary school and he liked the effect. "I was already smoking by then so I thought, 'why not'?"

 

He continues: "I started stealing to buy hash within a few months, and anyone who says hash isn't addictive is lying. It is. I was smoking it every day, all day. I just liked it - I liked being stoned."

 

Three years on, when his brother had long since stopped, Paul was still smoking the drug but he no longer got a hit. And so, a friend suggested he smoke heroin. "I can't explain what the feeling was like. It was kind of instantly addictive because of the hit. I started smoking it every day and within two weeks I was addicted and had withdrawals if I didn't smoke it…..

 

…And Paul believes that it was the cannabis which led him to the heroin. "I became addicted to the stoned effect and when I stopped getting it I moved on to heroin. Other folk did it too - but others didn't."

 

*Names have been changed

 

SOME HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT A 'SOFT' DRUG

CANNABIS has often been deemed a "soft" drug - compared to "hard" heroin and cocaine - and in 2004 it was downgraded it from a class B to a class C illegal drug. Government ministers argued its new status would give police more scope to tackle hard drugs.

 

No-one argues that cannabis does not have an effect on the body. It contains more than 400 chemicals, but the main ingredient is THC which interferes with the normal brain functions. Users often experience effects such as talkativeness, cheerfulness, relaxation and light-headedness.

 

But argument rages around whether cannabis is dangerous both in itself - because of its links to mental illness - and because it leads to the taking of other drugs, such as heroin.

 

Earlier this month, an 18-year-old was detained in a mental health unit after stabbing a grandmother to death in London while high on skunk, a high-strength form of cannabis. Less than a month before, a school cleaner who had repeatedly smoked cannabis was found guilty of murdering his two friends in a knife attack in Berkshire.

 

Experts say cannabis use in those under 18 doubles the risk of psychosis and studies show an increased instance of schizophrenia in users…..”

 

“Murders Due to the ‘Killer Drug’ Marihuana Sweeping United States. Shocking crimes of violence are increasing. Murders, slaughterings, cruel mutilations, maimings, done in cold blood, as if some hideous monster was amok in the land… much of this violence is attributed to what experts call marihuana. It is another name for hashish… Those addicted lose all restraints, all inhibitions. They become bestial demoniacs, filled with a mad lust to kill.”

 

Lana D. Harrison (1995) makes this point in Cannabis Use in the United States: Implications for Policy:

 

“Given the conservative mood of the people of the United States, the “get tough on crime” posture of the US Congress and the power and disposition of public opinion, it is most unlikely that any change in US policy towards marijuana is imminent. Any movement towards a toleration or decimalization would likely emanate from outside the country…..”

 

In January of 2004 the British government downgraded cannabis from a class B to a class C drug. The rescheduling of the drug was as a result of scientific advice from the (British) ‘Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’, following their analysis of scientific and research material regarding cannabis.

 

The British were effectively separating cannabis from hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin and placing it in a similar category to steroids and other prescription drugs. Their view of the situation was that cannabis was a soft drug and legislation should reflect this. The rescheduling of cannabis meant that British pot heads would be treated more leniently through the courts with a reduction in maximum sentences and provisions were made to accommodate personal possession limits and cultivation for personal use. Commercial dealers of the drug would still face harsh sentences under the new system with a maximum of 14 years for supply as opposed to 5 years for other class C drugs.

 

In 2001 the INCB admonished the British Government for their, then, proposed rescheduling of the drug, stating: “499. The Board notes the announcement by the Government of the United Kingdom, that cannabis would be placed in a different schedule, requiring less severe controls, and the worldwide repercussions caused by the announcement …including confusion and widespread misunderstanding. A survey undertaken in the United Kingdom found that as many as 94 per cent of children believed that cannabis was a legal substance or even some type of medicine. The survey also discovered that nearly 80 per cent of teachers in the United Kingdom believed that the recent reclassification of cannabis would make educating pupils about the dangers of drug abuse more challenging and difficult. Several opinion polls taken in July and August 2002 found that the majority of the population did not support that reclassification.”

 

In a subsequent media release, the INCB attacked Britain stating that their rescheduling of cannabis would “confuse” other countries, would undermine the efforts of other countries to counter illicit cannabis cultivation and stated that the British were sending the wrong message which would result in increased cultivation of cannabis destined for Britain and other European countries. The INCB report also noted the “worldwide repercussions” of Britain’s decision to reschedule cannabis.

 

The introduction to Chapter 2 of the UNODC Report, “Cannabis: Why we should care”, begins:

 

“The global community is confused about cannabis. On the one hand, cannabis is controlled with the same degree of severity as heroin and cocaine under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961. Virtually every country in the world is a party to that Convention. On the other hand, however, cannabis offences are treated far more leniently than those related to other narcotic drugs in other countries. A conflicting message is thus sent to the population and it is no wonder that public opinion becomes confused.

 

Rather than confronting this schism head-on cannabis has been allowed to fall into a grey area. Technically illegal but widely de-prioritized, the drug has grown in popularity at a rate outpacing all others, while simultaneously enriching those willing to break the law. A global blind-spot has developed around cannabis and in this murk the plant itself has been transformed into something far more potent than in the past. Suddenly the mental health impact of cannabis use has been thrown into sharp relief, and the drug which the world has felt so familiar is strange once again…”

 

The conclusion to Chapter two of the UNODC Report notes this:

 

 

2.4 Conclusion

 

The world has failed to come to terms with cannabis as a drug. In some countries, cannabis and trafficking are taken very seriously , while in others, they are virtually ignored. This incongruity undermines the credibility of the international system, and time for resolving global ambivalence on the issue is long overdue….

 

….In several respects, cannabis is unique among illicit drugs. It is not dependent on transnational trafficking or organized crime to move from cultivator to user. Often they are the same person, or at least socially related. There exist international advocacy groups promoting legal reform concerning the drug, a phenomenon not seen for cocaine or heroin. Medical use of the active ingredient, if not the plant itself, is championed by respected professionals. It is not surprising that national opinions on the issue have begun to diverge. It is essential, however, that consensus be regained, and that what is truly a global issue is again approached with consistency on a global level. After all, it is precisely this that the multilateral drug control system was designed.

(Page 186 United Nations WDR 2006)

 

The 2006 UNODC World Drug Report also notes this:

 

“….the best data on treatment presentations comes from the largest cannabis market, the United States, in the form of the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS)…. According to TEDS 111,418 people were admitted to treatment in 1993…comprising 7 per cent of the overall treatment population. In 1999, this number was 232,105, comprising of 13 per cent of the treatment population. In other words the number of cannabis admissions more than doubled in six years…However, this increase took place at a time of renewed law enforcement focus on cannabis use: the number of cannabis arrests increased from 380,700 in 1993 to 704,800 in 1999, an increase of 85 per cent. During this same period of time, non-cannabis arrests by 11 per cent. Partly as a result, the share of of cannabis users in treatment who were there due to a criminal justice referral increased during this period. It appears that changes in criminal justice policy were responsible for the bulk of the dramatic increase between 1993 and 1999, but they do not account for all of it. With regard to treatment data, therefore, the American case is inconclusive.” (Pg 178 – 179)

 

This is interesting. The UK in 2007 was just coming to an end of its 10 year Crime and Drugs Strategy (CDS). I had worked briefly for the Nottingham Crime and Drugs Partnership in 2007, commissioning projects that in some cases had been running for years without any form of contract. The UK Government had been dolling out money hand over fist and at least in Nottingham things were a mess. Myself and one other had been hired to fulfill a six week contract trying to play catch up on contracts for the innumerous projects. What was significant were the new CJIT teams – drug treatment workers hired within the criminal justice system and who work alongside probation officers – and innumerous new treatment programs for drug “abusers”. Everything in UK drug policy under CDS was about diverting users of any substance towards treatment. Treatment was the be all and end all of drug use.

 

Based on this it was easy to explain the ten fold increase in people accessing treatment for cannabis.

 

Projects were expected to induct new faces ten fold or more from the inception of the CDS until its conclusion. Each new face would be expected to complete a treatment plan. There were Tier 1 to tier 4 strategies/agencies: Tier 1 being pharmacies and general practitioners who would refer on to tier 2 – 4 agencies and provide harm reduction advice and diagnosis of any drug problems (I.e. if a patient used illegal drugs they had a drug problem). Tier 2 agencies were quasi-harm reduction based services: outreach services or outreach services with a centre base, not necessarily staffed by health professionals but staffed by outreach workers and informally qualified staff. Their role was a frontline point of access where they would make contact with users (in may cases approach and induct users towards care) and either refer on to a tier 3 -4 agencies or in many cases create a treatment plan for the individual themselves. Tier 3 agencies were mostly staffed by social workers, nurses and other health professionals who could offer counseling, a treatment program/plan and various maintenance programs (e.g. Methadone). Tier 4 was clinical rehab etc, where health professionals could monitor detox programs with in-patients. Once detox was completed the in-patient would be referred back to a Tier 3 agency for further counseling and be placed on a treatment plan. Many agencies such as accommodation crossed tier levels dependent on their brief. We were spending millions in tax-payers funds on these projects – as the commissioners we expected them to perform. There was one commonality to all of this – “Treatment plans”. Every project we commissioned was required to meet what we deemed a suitable number of treatment plans. If they wanted the money they had to meet the criteria and their numbers of treatment plans were expected to rise every year. The projects that weren’t creating treatment plans would be expected to monitor and meet a set number of their clients who were diverted towards treatment and hence, treatment plans. For instance, an outreach service might be asked these questions. “How many drug abusers did the service access this quarter?” “How many drug abusers were referred towards a tier 3-4 agency?” How many of these were placed on a treatment plan?” “How many of those placed on a treatment plan completed their plan?” etc. Every client visiting any tier 2 -4 agency would be given a number and these numbers could be correlated through an interagency database which tracked people as they passed through the system.

 

The new CJIT teams operated like secondary probation officers ensuring that their clients flowed through to drug treatment upon release from prison – treatment was a compulsory component of probation. CJIT teams also worked in clearing houses identifying drug abusers and directing them towards treatment. The courts were offering drug treatment or prison deals (court diversion) and participants were required to regularly submit urines. UK prisons were overflowing at the seams. The welfare sector had boomed under the Blair Government and more people by 2007 were in drug treatment than ever before. The figures the UK media were quoting were hardly surprising. The Crime and Drugs Strategy had been a success, which of course failed to explain the crack epidemic that was emerging in 2006 - 2007 and the heroin epidemic before that….

 

The media were now using the success of the Blair Governments CDS against them. Blair should have known better and hidden the problem as Howard had done in Australia, through stripping money from services, butchering the welfare sector, censoring research and by treating the disadvantaged, minority groups and the vulnerable with the contempt he considered they deserved.

 

In the meantime (2007) the US Federal Government released its own Reefer Madness scare, a film called ‘The Purple Brain’ that’s plot asserted: Sure, the pot you and your 40-something peers once enjoyed may have been innocuous, but that's only because it bears no resemblance to the super-potent weed of today, ironically asserting previous statements by US Drug Czar John Walters that “We are no longer talking about the drug of the 1960’s and 1970’s – this is Pot 2.0” or, in UNODC terms, the “new” cannabis; Perhaps what Leggett meant when he said “We don't set international policy - the member states do that. We just help them get where they want to go, as best we can.”

 

Between 1997 -2000 the DEA had targeted the Canadian cannabis industry. In late 1999, US Customs, acting under orders from then US Drug Czar’s Brian McCaffrey's office and the DEA, seized legal Canadian hempseed products after earlier promising to end seizures of US-bound hemp products.

 

Apparently at McCaffrey's request, legislators then wrote a federal law, the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, which sought to censor and imprison anyone who provided helpful information about manufacturing controlled substances such as marijuana.

 

A pattern of surgical strikes would follow.

 

The UN then joined the US Federal Government in 2000 through the Vienna based INCB when Herbert Schaepe, an INCB spokesperson, alleged that the Canadian Government had not implemented the “basic provisions” of an important narcotics control treaty that became Canadian law 13 years before.

 

The INCB's 2000 report accused Canada of being a haven for illicit drug manufacturers and traffickers. Internet sites selling cannabis seeds and equipment for cannabis cultivation are "located primarily on servers in Canada," stated the report, adding that the US State Department asserts that 60% of Canadian-grown marijuana is exported to the US.

 

"These are not seeds for bird feed," Schaepe had asserted "and they have no medical use; the advertising says they will produce cannabis with high THC content. There is an urgent need to counter the spread of such cultivation."

 

Schaepe claimed that seed vendors regarded Canada as a safe place to do business because of Canada's allegedly "lax” drug enforcement laws.

 

"We have written dozens of confidential letters, asked numerous questions and tried to work with Canada through silent diplomacy," said Schaepe. "We have been told that the only way to deal with Canada is to go public. That is what we are doing. Canadian sites on the Internet are the world leaders in selling very potent varieties of cannabis. Canada's cannabis seed industry appears to be even more robust than that of the Netherlands.

 

Britain too would need to be factored into this – the UK also having a legal seed trade where many seed related sites and cannabis forums are located on British servers.

 

It was entirely feasible that the US and the UN were now in bed together; bedfellows in war.

 

“We don’t set international policy - the member states do that. We just help them get where they want to go, as best we can.”

 

The obvious question being: The UK and Canada were moving towards “misguided notions of tolerance” when a Reefer Madness scare was ignited by the UN who had used questionable evidence to build a case that clearly called on world governments to crack down on cannabis – how was this helpful to them?

 

 

 

The second coming of the “new” cannabis

 

It was the same old shit in a different location; the missing weopons of mass destruction - the rehash of a tired old story. The “new” cannabis was not new at all. It was an old debate exhumed from the dead. To call a spade a spade, these fuckers weren’t even original – they had plagerised someone elses work and failed to give credit where credit was due. This from 1988.

 

Cannabis 1988 Old Drug, New Dangers The Potency Question

TOD H. MIKURIYA, M.D.* & MICHAEL R. ALDRICH, PH.D.**

“The story of the new, allegedly stronger and more dangerous marijuana was rebirthed in January 1986 by the late Sidney Cohen, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA: ``. . . material ten or more times potent than the product smoked ten years ago is being used, and the intoxicated state is more intense and lasts longer." In addition, Cohen (1986) asserted that ``the amount of THC [tetrahydrocannabinol] in confiscated street samples averaged 4.1 percent THC during 1984…

``Now perceived as a hard drug, marijuana has increased 1,400 percent in potency since 1970," proclaimed the flyer of a national conference on marijuana (Henry Ohlhoff Outpatient Programs 1986). Drug abuse treatment professionals soon elaborated on the outcry. Tennant (1986) asserted that the drug of the 1970's contained one to three percent THC, while that of the 1980's contained five to 15 percent. Furthermore, the brain registers the difference exponentially, so the difference between one percent and 10 percent THC was not nine percent, but more like 900 percent (Garcia 1986: 3). Smith (1987) stated that Cohen ``taught us that marijuana was a lot more dangerous than we originally thought, particularly with the use of more potent preparations by young people." Inaba (1987) added that ``this new, stronger marijuana has a more disruptive effect on brain chemistry and body physiology than we had imagined previously," and mentioned heretofore undescribed side effects among athletes: ``Baseball players who get beaned a lot admit to smoking marijuana. It impairs their ability to follow the ball."….

…Despite the respectability of these authorities, none of these alarming claims are new, and neither is the potency issue. There are several claims intertwined: (1) that the marijuana available today is much stronger than that available previously, particularly since the early 1970's; (2) that the effects of this so-called new marijuana are different from effects known earlier; and (3) that all previous marijuana research has been done with weak material and is therefore irrelevant. Before leaping on the bandwagon, one should examine the validity of these assertions.”

The essay concludes:

In sum, the new marijuana is not new and neither is the hyperbole surrounding this issue. The implications of the new disinformation campaign are serious. Many people, particularly the experienced users of the 1960's and their children, will once again shrug off the warnings of drug experts and not heed more reasonable admonishments about more dangerous drugs. This is not only abusive to those who look to science, the medical profession, and government for intelligent leadership, but will sully the reputations of drug educators who wittingly cry wolf, and will inevitably diminish the credibility of drug abuse treatment professionals who pass on such flawed reports.”

The UNODC Report was interesting. Other than its suspect content it inadvertently argued a clear case for illicit drug legalization, something that would be picked up on by John Hickman through the Baltimore Chronicle Sentinel. Excerpts thereof:

 

 

“UNODC Makes the Case for Ending Cannabis Prohibition—Inadvertently

That “news coverage” is often nothing more than regurgitated news releases is hardly news. But completely missing a big story is news.

Official documents issued by the United Nations are often dull enough to induce sleep. Despite dealing with the most important of policy issues, U.N. documents normally rival the official publications of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development or the Federal Register as soporifics. Begin reading any randomly selected document issued by one of the many U.N. departments and offices and before long your eyes will probably glaze over and sleep softly beckon. That’s probably why the world press missed the chance to report that the United Nations Office of Drug Control, or UNODC, had inadvertently made the case for ending cannabis prohibition in its 2006 World Drug Report……

 

Had a single member of the world press read the ironically entitled “Cannabis: Why We Should Care” section in the middle of the 2006 World Drug Report, they might have scooped their colleagues with the discovery that the report’s authors had inadvertently laid out a convincing case for ending prohibition. After offering a plaintive appeal to treat cannabis cultivation and consumption as serious problems, this section of the report systematically undermines the logic of doing so.

 

After stipulating that cannabis is a relatively harmless and inexpensive intoxicant, the report presents statistics that the drug is grown and consumed everywhere and in very impressive quantities. Based on public polling data from 134 countries, the report explains that an estimated 4% of humanity enjoys the planet’s most popular illicit drug. There are good reasons to think that figure is an undercount. The authors admit that their estimates of quantities consumed make the 4% figure too low. What is more, given the entirely understandable reluctance of respondents in many societies to answer pollsters' questions about their illicit drug use, the survey's findings are probably too

thegreatcannabisswindle.pdf

[gman]

It didn't seem to post the whole thing. Sorry. The PDF did load so if you download that the whole story is there.

 

Namaste - spread the word.

[freddie]

Great info g-man. I haven't got time to read it now but any links you have i will gladly follow when i have the time (have i missed a PDF link?). I'm not one for conspiracy theories but this is hard to ignore.

 

Al Fish, write a book.

 

As one of these 40 something smokers I only wish I could find pot as good as it was years ago. I doubt THC tells the whole story on potency. I am nearly always a little disappointed with the seeds I buy. Others here will disagree or think I am just glorifying the past but it isn't so.

[gman]

Great info g-man. I haven't got time to read it now but any links you have i will gladly follow when i have the time (have i missed a PDF link?). I'm not one for conspiracy theories but this is hard to ignore.

 

Al Fish, write a book.

 

As one of these 40 something smokers I only wish I could find pot as good as it was years ago. I doubt THC tells the whole story on potency. I am nearly always a little disappointed with the seeds I buy. Others here will disagree or think I am just glorifying the past but it isn't so.

 

Freddie, the PDF is at the base of the post. Spin it around to all your friends also.

 

It's not a conspiracy theory - I wish it were. I think when you read it you will be surprised. The expert that wrote Chapter 2 of the UNODC World Drug Report (the man behind the "new" cannabis) makes some startling claims/admissions and there is now a clear trail of evidence that leads right to the US Fed Government and the UN. This is not the first historical case of this. The INCB and the WHO nixed the Swiss Heroin trials sometime back. A pattern is very much beginning to form. The key difference here is that the UNODC have overstepped their brief by not remaining neutral within the drug debate. When research is tainted for political reasons we have a major problem with the credibility of the organisations behind this.

 

Certainly the Trimbos figures which were largely used to support claims of a doubling in potency between 1999 - 2006 are flawed given the context they have been used in in the 2006 WDR (UNODC). This report has subsequently been used widely to support claims of the "new" cannabis.

 

I have run all this past experts in the alcohol and drug field (researchers) and to date 100% of these people support what I am saying. There will be some research released soon in Australia that states amongst other things there is no basis to the claims of increased potency. Freddie - it's a scam manufactured by organisations who have clear and set agendas. I personally don't go for conspiracy theories either. For quite some time I bought into this massive increase in potency. I was very open minded in my research. As time went on and all the facts came in this changed - although I am wary of saying that it is a conspiracy. The UN and US seem to find a fair bit of common ground on more than one issue - illicit drug control just being one of these. Is it a conspiracy? I doubt it is that simple. I myself worked in the alcohol and drug field for several years in the Australian Government and the community sector. Other than this I worked in the hydro industry in Australia for several years and wrote what went on to be an international best seller on the subject of growing indoors under lights. Not to self promote, lets not even name the book etc. I myself am highly attuned to what has been taking place within the new millenium. The store I worked in was hit by Organised Crime Squad officers on a dubious routine questioning during a period where I lobbied for the WA Hydro industry and overturned a clause that stood to shut down that industry. I would subsequently become a major police target - likely as a result of the book and stepping on the toes of several high ranking police officers during the lobby.

 

There are innumerous examples of targeted strikes on the culture. Seed supplies, Forums, etc, etc, etc. Many of these stem from the DEA and US Fed Government being supported by the INCB (a UN body that enforces the single narcotics convention) going after the Canadian cannabis industry. Subsequently, Marc Emery, OG etc would be taken down. In the case of Emery, at the direct request of the DEA.

 

How far are these people prepared to go? Evaluate what has been happening in US politics under the Bush Administration and you are left with a blank cheque.

 

Enjoy the read and please spread this information as far and as wide as possible. The only way to fight propaganda is by introducing facts to undermine those who proliferate dubious information.

 

Namaste and respect

Gman (40 something)