DD, thanks for mentioning CBD, as THC is the ingredient that seems to be mentioned the most in articles about marijuana .. actually if one was inclined to place them in a good guy/bad guy scenario .. reading this one .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabidiol .. it looks cannabidiol would be the good guy ..
One thing for sure bonging catches a lot of the tar before it reaches the lungs .. to balance that to some degree, i guess, there is more smoke wasted in smoking a joint or a cigarette.
Time for Australia to abandon "failed war on drugs"
2 April 2012, 4.23pm AEST
Consumption of cocaine globally rose by 27% between 1998 and 2008. AAP .. [grr, lol, can't reproduce the image]
Australia must abandon its failed war on drugs and reopen the debate over legalising and regulating their use, according to a report to be released tomorrow. The report, emotively titled “The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen”, is the…
Author Justin Norrie .. Editor The Conversation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Conversation is an independent source of information, analysis and commentary from the university and research sector—written by acknowledged experts, curated by professional editors and delivered direct to the public. read more .. http://theconversation.edu.au/who_we_are ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Australia must abandon its failed war on drugs and reopen the debate over legalising and regulating their use, according to a report to be released tomorrow.
The report, emotively titled “The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen”, is the work of non-profit body Australia21 and based on a roundtable attended by former premiers and health ministers, and a former police commissioner, among other high-profile figures.
It has the support of new Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, who wrote: “An issue that worried me while I was in NSW politics was the police hitting railway stations with sniffer dogs. It was marijuana that was the focus. I did not think it was the best use of police time. People were breaking no other laws. This was victimless crime and this was seen as a new way to engage police resources. I wanted them to do things like make public transport safe and clean up Cabramatta.”
Founder of Australia21 and report co-author Bob Douglas, a former President of The Public Health Association of Australia, said the war on drugs was “conceptually unsound. The Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and [the prohibition on drugs] essentially passes the control and the distribution and the promotion of drugs to criminal gangs. It’s not worked anywhere in the world.
“The drug market will always be able to outbid law enforcement.”
The commission said that between 1998 and 2008, consumption of opiates had increased worldwide by 34.5%, consumption of cocaine by 27% and consumption of cannabis by 8.5%.
The toll of the ongoing crackdown on drugs in Australia was “400 deaths a year – that’s more than a death a day,” Professor Douglas said. “Our prisons are chockablock with people with drug problems, and we’re making criminals of our kids.”
He stressed the Australia21 report did not advocate a solution. “We’re advocating a debate.” Possibilities to be considered in that debate “range from decriminalisation to legalisation and control … what do we do with nicotine and alcohol?
“The evidence does not suggest we’re doing the country a service by criminalising its use and the whole process. The prohibition process has exacerbated rather than helped with the problem.”
In 1997, as part of a team at the Australian National University, Professor Douglas proposed that Australia be the first country to evaluate the use of heroin treatment for addicts in a controlled, medically supervised trial. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy endorsed the push. But Australia came under heavy pressure from the US not to go ahead with it, he said.
“That was a landmark moment when [then Prime Minister] John Howard declared a tough-on-drugs policy and said this [proposed trial] was sending the wrong message.”
Michael Wooldridge, who served as a health minister in the Howard Government, said in the report that “the key message is that we have 40 years of experience of a law and order approach to drugs, and it has failed.”
Former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery said he was “strongly in favour of legalising, regulating, controlling and taxing all drugs. A first step towards such a regime could be decriminalisation, similar to the approach adopted 10 years ago in Portugal or an adaptation of that approach.”
Portugal controversially decriminalised the use and possession of all drugs in 2001. A study .. http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2010/07/21/bjc.azq038 .. published in 2010 in the British Journal of Criminology found that although there had been a slight increase in drug use among adults since the change, there had also been a decline in teen drug use, HIV infections and AIDS cases. Drug seizures by police had increased.
There is an embedded VIDEO in this one .. 'The most significant challenge to Australian tough on drugs report in decades' .. oh! now i hear it's mostly on other Australian political news ..
Drugs war 'a failure' that bred criminals
Mark Metherell, Geesche Jacobsen April 3, 2012
'War on drugs' dominates today's media
A report released to Parliament today says the prohibition of illicit drugs is killing & criminalising our children, online political editor Tim Lester reports.
[Embedded Video]
THE Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, is among a group of prominent Australians who have declared the ''war on drugs'' a failure in the most significant challenge to drug laws in decades.
''The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen,'' says a report released today by the group, which includes the former federal police chief Mick Palmer, the former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC, the former West Australian premier Geoff Gallop, a former Defence Department secretary, Paul Barratt, the former federal health ministers Michael Wooldridge and Peter Baume, and the drug addiction expert Alex Wodak.
Senator Carr, the former NSW premier, agreed to join the campaign before becoming Foreign Affairs Minister. In his contribution to the report he questions whether the pursuit of marijuana users is the best use of police time.
"The prohibition of illicit drugs is killing and criminalising our children and we are letting it happen." ... Bob Carr. Photo: Reuters
''An issue that worried me while I was in NSW politics was the police hitting railway stations with sniffer dogs. It was marijuana that was the focus.''
This was a victimless crime and he would have preferred police ''to do things like make public transport safe and clean up Cabramatta'', he said.
A spokesman for Senator Carr said last night that he supported drug law reform but as a federal minister would be supporting government policy in this area.
Advocate of law reform ... Nicholas Cowdery.
The report was written by the population health expert Emeritus Professor Bob Douglas and a social research consultant, David McDonald, for the think tank Australia21, which held a roundtable at Sydney University in January.
It calls for a fundamental rethink of drug policies and ''an end to the tough on drugs approach''. Last year the Global Commission on Drug Policy said the war on drugs had failed ''with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world''.
Dr Wooldridge, who as health minister supported a heroin trial in the ACT which was blocked by the then prime minister, John Howard, says in the new report: ''The key message is that we have 40 years of experience of a law and order approach to drugs and it has failed.''
Mr Cowdery, a long-time advocate of drug law reform, said the prohibition of drug use created social and health problems, as well as a ''proliferation of crime … and an increase in the corruption of law enforcement''.
He strongly favoured legalising, regulating, controlling and taxing all drugs.
''A first step towards such a regime could be decriminalisation, similar to the approach adopted 10 years ago in Portugal,'' Mr Cowdery said.
''The key as I see it is to try to reduce substantially the profit potentially able to be made by criminal activity in the drug trade and the only way to do that as I see it, ultimately, is to legalise, regulate, control and tax all drugs.''
Mr Cowdery said politicians were reluctant to reopen the debate ''for fear it would be politically disadvantageous''.
''That's why I think we need to have the discussion in the community and … to demonstrate to the politicians that there is a significant proportion of people that want something better.''
But this morning Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said she was sceptical about deregulating Australia's drug laws and said there would need to be a "very high threshold" for change.
"I think we need to tread very, very cautiously in this area," she told ABC radio.
Ms Roxon said she needed to read the report before she suggested any particular action but said that she was open to a debate about drugs.
"As a government we're always interested and happy to engage in debate but there's a pretty high threshold," Ms Roxon said.
"It think it's entirely appropriate for people to look at the difficult social questions that have dogged us for years."
About 15 per cent of Australians used one or more illicit drugs in 2009, the latest statistics published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show. But the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy said in a report last year that 22 per cent of people used illegal drugs in 1998.
Gillard and Carr divided over decriminalisation of drugs
Mark Metherell, Judith Ireland April 3, 2012 - 2:34PM
New report urges a new debate on the decriminalisation of drug laws. Photo: Viki Yemettas
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has rejected the idea of decriminalising narcotics, saying tough policing is necessary instead to prevent the devastating consequences of drug use.
But Ms Gillard's immediate rejection of calls for a rethink of drug laws is at odds with the views of her Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, and those of former police chief Mick Palmer.
Mr Carr called today for a "de facto decriminalisation" of some drugs, as a report declared Australia's "war on drugs" had failed. Advertisement: Story continues below
And Mr Palmer, a former chief of the Australian Federal Police, said that despite better-resourced and more effective police of recent years, the police effort in the war on drugs had "made only marginal if any difference".
"I think the public is not as resistant to (change) as perhaps some politicans might think...the attitude has changed dramatically. I think it is time for change," Mr Palmer said.
At the launch of the report urging a new debate on decriminalisation of the drug laws, former Defence Department Secretary, Paul Barratt said Ms Gillard's negative response today showed the need to open up the debate and the need to "destigmatise" the notion of drug law reform.
Mr Barratt said all available evidence showed that tough on drugs policy had failed. The United States had spent $1 trillion on its war on drugs policies but the drugs and drug crime still remained commonplace.
It was time to base policy on "what works rather than gut instinct", Mr Barratt told the launch of the Australia21 report in Canberra.
Ms Marion McConnell, whose son died from a herion overdose, said that at the time she like most Australians believed the ''propaganda'' about the war on drugs but now believed very strongly in the need for drug law change.
Earlier, Senator Carr said he supported a police regime that represented a de facto decriminalisation of "lesser drugs at the margins", labelling it a "practical use of police time".
"We wouldn't have armies of police patrolling outside nightclubs and pubs hoping to snatch someone who's got an ecstasy tablet in his or her pocket of purse," he told the ABC. "And we wouldn't be having police chasing individual users of marijuana."
The Foreign Minister said he was proud that during his time as NSW premier he "effectively eliminated' criminal penalties for individual marijuana use.
In contrast, Ms Gillard said she was not in favour of decriminalisation: "My view about drugs is clear. Drugs kill people they rip families apart, they destroy lives and we want to see less harm done through drug usage," the Prime Minister said.
''I am not in favour of decriminalisation of any of our drug laws. We want to keep supporting people who need our help to break out of a cycle of addiction and we need to keep policing so we are tackling those who are seeking to make a profit out of what really is a trade in incredible misery.''
Senator Carr is part of a group of prominent Australians from both sides of politics who are backing a report by a population health expert, Emeritus Professor Bob Douglas, and researcher David McDonald that calls for a "fundamental rethink" of the current drugs policies, and an end to the "tough on drugs" approach.
Senator Carr agreed to join the campaign, which also includes former health minister Michael Wooldridge and former West Australian premier Geoff Gallop, before he entered the Senate and was appointed Foreign Minister.
Senator Carr said he was also proud to have been the only state premier to have introduce a medically supervised injecting room in 1999. "It saved lives," he said. Senator Carr's younger brother Greg overdosed on heroin in 1981 and died a year later.
The report, by the think tank Australia21, was released at Parliament House this morning by former NSW director of public prosecutions Nicholas Cowdery, QC.
Ms Gillard said she wanted to help people to break out of the addiction cycle, while police should enforce drug laws.
"Drugs kills people, they rip families apart, they destroy lives," she told reporters in Sydney.
The Attorney-General, Nicola Roxon, is also sceptical about deregulating Australia's drug laws and said there would need to be a "very high threshold" for change.
"I think we need to tread very, very cautiously in this area," she told ABC radio this morning.
Ms Roxon said she needed to read the report before she suggested any particular action but stated that she was open to a debate about drug reform.
"As a government we're always interested and happy to engage in debate but there's a pretty high threshold," Ms Roxon said.
"It think it's entirely appropriate for people to look at the difficult social questions that have dogged us for years."
The central finding of the report released in Canberra this morning is that Australia's war on drugs has ''failed comprehensively'', generating much of the street and household crime because of prohibition of drugs like heroin, which was legal in Australia until 1953.
The report is aimed at re-igniting serious debate on illicit drug law reform. The report, supported by two former premiers, a former chief minister, a former national police chief and a dozen other eminent Australians, has been sponsored by the Australia21 think tank.
It declares the prohibiton of illicit drugs is ''killing and criminalising our children and we are all letting it happen''.
The group does not propose a specific set of reforms but says it sees the need ''to unmask prohibition and its harms and to place the onus on our lawmakers... to develop a process that stops the criminalisation and continuing drug deaths of too many young Australians''.
The report saysthat despite gains made in Australia's harm minimisation program for drug-users begun 20years ago, illict drugs continue to damage society.
About 400 Australians died each year from illicit drug use, thousands of others suffered significant ill-health as a result of unsafe injecting and infections.
But discussion of drug policy in recent years ''has been largely absent from the Australian political agenda except as an excuse for being tough on law and order''.
It acknowledges many Australians fear that liberalisation of drugs could increase rather than diminish, dangers to children.
But it says a growing body of evidence from overseas ''indicates that these fears are misplaced''.
By defining use of certain drugs as criminal acts, ''governments have also avoided any responsibility to regulate and control the quality of substances that are in widespread use''. Some of the drugs had demonstrable health benefits.
But the current criminalisation of these drugs, discredited the law which could not possibly stop thje growing trade that thrives on illegality and blackmarket status.
Prisons were crowded with people whose lives had been ruined by drug dependence. Like the prohibition of the 1920s in the United States, the laws were creaming more harms than benefits.
Portugal had decrminalised its drug approach a decade ago ''with excellent results'' and a number of other countries had adopted similar approaches.
there are 200+ comments for each of the latter two .. this is certainly the biggest challenge to our situation as long as i can remember, however there will not be any change for awhile ..
By Danny Danko High Times Senior Cultivation Editor @DannyDanko Updated 22 Aug 2012
Positions on the efficacy of medical marijuana vary, but thousands of patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, and other diseases claim marijuana provides them relief from devastating symptoms such as intractable nausea, vomiting and chronic pain.
In a 1997 article for the The New England Journal of Medicine, Jerome P. Kassirer, M.D., wrote that "physicians who prohibit prescribing marijuana for seriously ill patients are misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane."
Different strains of marijuana have varying effects and target a variety of symptoms. We're putting a cost on this relief and giving the types of pain that are eased.
[slideshow of different strains with descriptions follows]
Caltech physicist slams government on marijuana research
(Credit: Shutterstock/ Juan Camilo Bernal)
Scientist: If all science ran like marijuana research is being run, creationists would oversee paleontology digs
By Natasha Lennard Monday, Feb 25, 2013 02:22 PM CST
Late last week, in a speech at a medical marijuana conference flagged by Think Progress [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/25/1629721/caltech-physicist-if-all-science-were-run-like-marijuana-research-creationists-would-control-paleontology/ ], Caltech theoretical physicist John H. Schwartz blasted the federal government’s treatment of marijuana research. Schwartz described the Catch-22 situation set up by the “tag team” of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse: At the same time the government says there is insufficient research to change marijuana’s designation from “a dangerous substance with no medical value,” government bodies systematically block such research from taking place.
Think Progress cited passages from Schwartz’s pointed remarks:
The most blatant example of this behavior [from the government] came last year, when NIDA blocked an FDA-approved clinical trial [ http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/marijuana-ptsd-study/ ] testing marijuana as a remedy for post traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. It’s especially sad to note that the study participants were veterans, with PTSD deemed untreatable by other means. After 12 years of war, this is how we treat them.
The physicist, of course well-versed in the idea of confirmation bias, then compared the way marijuana research is currently run to allowing creationists to oversee paleontological research:
Consider what American science might look like if all research were run like marijuana research is being run now. Suppose the Institute for Creation Science were put in charge of approving paleontology digs and the science of human evolution. Imagine what would happen to the environment if we gave coal and oil companies the power to block any climate research they didn’t like.
As Think Progress noted, “as Schwartz acknowledges, interest groups such as coal and oil companies often do have a significant influence over policy decisions, regardless of the underlying science.” However, there is something peculiarly infuriating about the federal double bind when it comes to marijuana — that is, demanding and blocking research at this same time.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
