By David Perry

(Ed. note: This article illustrates the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the therapeutic state. That it is actually necessary to argue against criminalizing sick people for self-medicating will someday seem as morally absurd as urging that slaves not be overly abused. That modern medicine – for all its very real marvels – should live in mortal fear of someone using a plant is surely less than petty and pathetic. That a "scientist" should be considered bold for advocating derivatives of the forbidden plant is anti-science. That the scientist should say that smoking the plant causes cancer – without any supporting evidence and without regard to dose or method of inhalation – makes a mockery of the scientific method. That he should say this in the context of a medical regime that regularly administers drugs which have lethal side-effects for hundreds of thousands of patients is surreal. That the government of a modern state would interfere in even this timid exercise is simply mass murder. Or is there a nicer term for a policy that kills large numbers of people by deliberate government policy? I don’t want to seem extreme, just because people are being forced to die in pain. To pretend that the emperor isn't naked is fatuous. To pretend that he doesn't have blood on his hands is cowardly and complicitous.)

SCIENTIST CALLS FOR NEW CANNABIS LAW

A Leading Aberdeen academic is to urge Parliament to legalise cannabis as a medicine which doctors can prescribe.

Dr. Roger Pertwee of Aberdeen University is to tell a House of Lords committee a strong case can be made out on the grounds of "commonsense and compassion" for allowing cannabis derivatives to treat muscle spasm.

He has submitted written evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, studying the medical use of the banned drug, that there is sufficient evidence to warrant additional clinical studies with cannabis-derived medicines for the management of several disorders including multiple sclerosis, spinal injury, glaucoma, bronchial asthma and pain.

Dr. Pertwee, reader in Biomedical Sciences in the Institute of Medical Sciences, describes in detail how the various constituents that make up the cannabis used by drug abusers can help those suffering crippling medical conditions.

He reveals that one derivative is already licensed for use to suppress nausea and vomiting caused by life-saving anti-cancer drugs.

And he suggests another "may also have therapeutic uses, for example in reducing memory deficits associated with ageing or neurological diseases."

Dr. Pertwee insists smoking cannabis is toxic and probably causes cancer, but it can be taken orally, and tincture of cannabis was available under prescription in the UK until 1971.

Some individuals "self medicate" by eating cannabis leaves or resin in cakes or fudge, or even drink cannabis tea.

In his evidence, he said legal prescribing would seem better than many otherwise law-abiding patients who feel so strongly that they should have to self-medicate with cannabis having to risk discovery and punishment.