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Legal medical cannabis offers hope


Ozzy420

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hey all wile i was haveing a look for vapouriser i come across this articel through it mite be a good read for a few people. :huh:

 

Author: Daniel Vasin, Amanda Carlin and Catharina Hong

 

Forty six-year-old Justin Brash has been HIV positive for 13 years. He suffers chronic pain, clinical depression, appetite loss and nausea.

 

The NSW government has been sitting on a report guaranteed to relieve Justin’s condition for nearly 12 months.

 

Last November, The Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes tabled a report to the state government, which recommended medical cannabis use be made available in NSW. Twenty three recommendations are listed in the report outlining how better to access the therapeutic value of cannabis.

 

Ongoing debate about marijuana use in medicine is rife. But the Premier has taken no action.

 

The recommendation that has fuelled most debate is the homegrown proposal. The report states that patients will be able to grow up to five cannabis plants under 25cm but only two above that height in their own homes.

 

Working Party Chairperson, Professor Wayne Hall says, “only patients with HIV, cancer, neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis or Tourette’s syndrome, and patients with chronic pain will get certification from a specialist”.

 

Cannabis will not be first line treatment; instead “patients will be educated on the health risks of smoking cannabis and advised of alternative treatment”, Professor Hall says.

 

While there is international support in reports from the UK and US, not everybody’s onside.

 

“If there’s something in marijuana that’s helpful, let’s find out what it is. But let’s be careful. We don’t say to people go and grow it in your own backyard. That would be a recipe for disaster,” Major Brian Watters, the Chairman of The Australian National Council for Drugs said. Major Watters is cynical about the therapeutic use of cannabis and describes it as a strictly “psychoactive substance”.

 

He says that there is no research that is credible that suggest marijuana has any real qualities.

 

Instead, he believes the promotion of the medical use of marijuana is a smoke screen for people anxious to make marijuana available for their own recreational use.

 

At the moment, and until a puffer, liquid, aerosol or vapouriser is released onto the market, smoking cannabis is the optimal method of intake. Just ask Justin Brash.

 

He says that by “smoking” one can feel the effects in minutes and can manage one's own dose, but orally – in the form of a pill or eating – can take two hours for effect and is often nauseating.

 

Eight years ago he started using cannabis to alleviate his pain. “It helps me ignore the pain. It doesn’t actually block the pain. It helps me ignore the pain,” he says.

 

Justin admits that he is nearly always stoned and that the effects are psychoactive. “The side effects are no worse than any medications that I’ve been given by my doctor.”

 

But although he’s still susceptible to side effects like chest infections, dehydration and demotivation he says that cannabis cuts out three of his pharmaceuticals. He no longer needs medication for HIV-wasting, sleeping tablets or painkillers like codeine.

 

But The Working Party report is recommending that patients grow cannabis in their own home and for Justin that is not an option.

 

“I live in public housing and the department of housing has already said they’d evict people caught with cannabis on their premises,” he says.

 

“In a one bedroom apartment I just do not have the room to grow a substance like cannabis.

 

“It leaves me open to possible theft and home invasion.”

 

While more than 800,000 Australians buy marijuana every year, currently up to 20,000 patients use it and risk criminal prosecution in NSW for purchasing it from the black market.

 

“It would be a very, very difficult exercise to manage. Who’s going to go around and check up on these people?” asks Major Watters.

 

But Justin says: “I doubt very much if I would grow enough to supply my own needs let alone enough to leak into the black market”.

 

Other Working Party recommendations:

 

• The possession and cultivation of cannabis will only be considered lawful if the patient possesses a certificate. This certificate will have to be renewed every six months.

 

• A specialist can medically certify cannabis. Some patients are too ill or debilitated to obtain or grow cannabis so certification will be extended to their carers.

 

• A two-year trial period is recommended. Controlled clinical trials will take place in hospitals.

 

Credits/Acknowledgements:

 

Report of the Working Party on the Use of Cannabis for Medical Purposes, Volume I: Executive summary, August 2000

 

http://www.aushomepage.com.au/Article/602/

 

ozmade :)

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