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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Medical Cannabis Demo (London)
Paul Flynn Paul Flynn MP
Friday 26 May 2006 http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/newsdetail.jsp?id=459 with pics A day of medical cannabis action took place on 24th May 2006 to raise awareness of the issues and injustices facing medical cannabis users, growers and their friends and relatives in the UK. A Petition was delivered to Downing St at 1pm by a group which includes a Grandmother who self-medicates by adding cannabis to her food (Cannabis Grandma), an MS sufferer, the founder of a clinic dispensing cannabis-based creams and tinctures, an organic medical cannabis grower and a human-rights lawyer. An organiser said: "Many thousands of people in Britain are being denied treatment with a effective drug, not because of scientific or medical reasons, but because of bigotry, because the drug is called 'cannabis'. As a consequence it could be you who dies early, or who ends up in a wheel chair unnecessarily, or who suffers pain that can't be treated by other drugs without terrible side effects. Or it could be your Mum or Dad, a child or your grandparents. That is why legalising medical cannabis now is a family issue. Meanwhile the only people who benefit from the continued prohibition of medical cannabis are the companies who supply drugs that don't work as well as cannabis - and funeral directors." There was a Press Conference, and Lobby of MP's 3pm - 4pm inside the 'House of Commons', and a all day demonstration outside at Parliament Square from 10am to 5pm. Organised by members of the 'Cannabis Trust' - bookmark 'News of the Weed' for more information & regular up dates. Respect Cannabis - The Law Doesn't The Right To Choose Your Own Medicine Labour MPs support medicinal cannabis use David Batty Wednesday May 24, 2006 Two MPs today backed calls to legalise cannabis for medicinal use, saying it would offer relief to thousands of sick and elderly people suffering from chronic pain. The Labour MPs Paul Flynn and Brian Iddon were supporting a rally today in Parliament Square by the Cannabis Education Trust to raise awareness of the problems faced by medicinal cannabis users. Mr Flynn, who has campaigned for the legalisation of the drug for medical purposes for 12 years, said he planned to reintroduce his private member's bill, first presented to parliament in 2001, to prevent the prosecution of chronically ill people. "People around the world have testified in their thousands about the benefits of taking cannabis to relieve chronic pain," he said. "But because of our hang-up in this country with recreational use of the drug, we've condemned otherwise law-abiding citizens to risk jail." He said there had been legal cases in which juries had let off people who said they were using cannabis medicinally. "We must test the waters again. The law is an ass. Judges have called for parliament to revisit the issue." Mr Flynn blamed the political parties' fear of being painted as weak on law and order for the failure to legalise cannabis for medicinal use. "We had a bill last year that wasn't opposed by anybody to reclassify magic mushrooms as a class A drug - the same level as heroin, which is stupid because they're not at all that dangerous." Many people with multiple sc partylerosis have used cannabis illegally to relieve their symptoms, including spasticity - muscle tightness and stiffness - and nerve pain. An estimated 85,000 people in Britain suffer from the disease. Mr Iddon, chairman of the all-party parliamentary drugs misuse group, favours legalising cannabis for medicinal and recreational use, provided that in the latter case it is sold with clear health warnings. The MP, a former chemistry lecturer, said it was "very wrong" that chronically sick patients had to choose between living in severe pain or risk themselves or one of their relatives being sent to prison for buying cannabis or growing it for medicinal use. He said most medicinal cannabis campaigners were "normal people" and did not fit the "loony cannabis smoker" stereotype. Earlier today, campaigners delivered a petition to Downing Street calling for an end to the prosecution of medicinal cannabis users. Adam Slade, who suffers from chronic pain as a result of a congenital condition, said the current law on medicinal cannabis use put him in "an awkward position". Mr Slade, who found standard painkillers ineffective at relieving his pain, said: "Cannabis improves my quality of life but because it's illegal it doesn't improve my quality of characterisation." As well as decriminalising such use of the drug, the campaigners want a pain-relieving cannabis mouth spray to be made available on the NHS and cannabis clinics opened to provide patients with pain relief. The mouthspray, Sativex, is already on sale in Canada to treat nerve pain but the company is facing a longer wait than expected for approval in Britain. Regulators in this country asked for additional data from the company last June. Andrew Cornwall, coordinator of the Cannabis Education Trust, said the status of medicinal cannabis was a grey area of the law that needed clearing up. "The needs of medicinal cannabis users are being neglected," Mr Cornwall, a lawyer, said. "There's no legal medicinal cannabis yet available in this country but many would argue that it was a medical necessity to provide the drug to chronically sick people to relieve their symptoms." New Bill needed to re-Legalise Medicinal Cannabis Paul Flynn said: “The recent case on ex-police women forced to buy her medicinal cannabis on the streets from the dealers she once arrested illustrates the absurdity of the current laws. The House of Lords Select Committee on Science, 100 MPs, the Police Foundation and the majority of doctors and the public are in favour of this bill. By a simple change in the law, natural cannabis can be legally available to those suffering from serious ailments. It is indefensible that last September a Chief Constable said he would not arrest someone for smoking cannabis recreationally in the same month a desperately ill woman was dragged through the courts for using it medicinally. A moving account of one women’s experience was recently given to a conference in Brussels. Clare Hodges said: Campaigner Clare Hodges made a profound impression with her personal experience when she addressed a conference in Brussels. "I discovered I had Multiple Sclerosis ago when I was 25 years old. Fir several years I was only mildly affected, I carried on working, married and had two children. But slowly my condition became worse, so that now I am constantly uncomfortable and tired; I am visually impaired and cannot sleep, eat or move very well. In some ways it's like having permanent jetlag. The medicines prescribed only gave limited relief and often unacceptable side effects. Over the years I've been given steroids, tranquilisers, pain killers, muscle relaxants and antidepressants. At best they only helped in the short term, and many have intolerable side-effects. My main problem, however, was that, my bladder was in constant spasm, but no prescribed medicines helped me. Multiple Sclerosis (or MS) is a cruel disease. You develop it when you're young and healthy, and slowly but surely you lose all your faculties, abilities and functions. Nowadays you can expect to live your full life span often until you are completely dependent. And of course this is a very depressing prospect. I began to get gloomy and introspective as all the future seemed to hold was deteriorating health and no medicines that really helped. But in 1992 I read n an American journal about how some doctors had observed cannabis can help people with MS. As I am a middle class mother of two young children I had a bit of a problem obtaining cannabis. It was sometimes quite embarrassing asking people, but eventually I found someone who helped me and showed me how to use it. When I did try cannabis, the physical relief was almost immediate. The tension in my spine and bladder was eased, and I slept well. I was comfortable with my body for the first time in years. But, just as important, I felt happy that there was something, after all, that could help me. It was as if a huge weight had been lifted from me. I've been using cannabis now for nine years. There is no doubt that my condition had improved in different ways, I do not have to take as many prescribed medicines. I now eat better, sleep better, and I feel more positive and motivated. Ad my health is more stable I find I can now do simple things that I hadn't been able to do, like go to the shops, or cook my children's dinner after school. Through trial and error I have now established a routine that helps me. I take 9 grams of herbal cannabis per week, drinking it in tea during the day and smoking it at night before I go to bed. I do not smoke it with tobacco but with dried herbs. I've found smoking is the best way of taking it to treat my disease as it is much easier to regulate the dose. The neurologist I see was very much impressed by how much better I was, he put me in touch with two other patients with MS who also used cannabis. When we found out cannabis in tincture form was available on medical prescription in Britain until 1973, we decided to start campaigning to have it restored as a legal medicine. The campaign is called the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics or ACT. It's run entirely by patients, and we finance it ourselves. It has involved an enormous amount of work, dealing with thousands of letters from patients, doctors and politicians. We were very involved in the British Medical Association report, were interviewed by the House of Lords select committee, and by two Ministers of Health. We also helped a pharmaceutical company, GW Pharmaceuticals, obtain a licence to grow cannabis for medical research, and clinical trials are now planned. Judging from the large correspondence over the years and from widespread reporting in the press, it reasonable to conclude there are thousands of medical users in Britain. Many patients say cannabis helps them because it not only eases their physical problems, but also improves their mood. Like all diseases, MS affects you both physically and psychologically, and cannabis is the only medicine we've come across which treats the whole condition. This is why many of us feel the research to develop a version of cannabis without the psychoactive effects fundamentally mis-understand how it helps us. The campaign in Britain has now been active for 8 years, and has been very successful. When we started in Britain cannabis was considered as little more than recreational drug, and now, although there is very little new scientific research, it is considered a useful medicine. However, we patients are in exactly the same position as we were 8 years ago. We still have to break the law to get the medicine we need. In a way the situation is almost farcical. While authorities debate earnestly rights and wrongs of medical use of cannabis, patients simply carry on taking it. While government-controlled cannabis is grown for medical research, secretly and with tight security, patients simply carry on growing their own at home. And, worst of all, seriously ill people are regularly taking to court for growing cannabis and regularly acquitted by juries the only thing these trials do is to bring the law into disrepute and cause great distress to ill people. Next week I will be giving evidence at a crown court trial of a woman with MS who grew cannabis at home to treat her condition. So what can be done to escape from this impasse? Both the House of Lords and the Townswomen's Guilds have recommended that we should have more research, but that patients should have more research, but that patients should have legal access to cannabis while research is proceeding. What our patients' campaign suggests as an immediate, simple solution is that any patient who has authorisation from their doctors be allowed to grow up to six plants at home. Very similar legislation to this has recently been passed in Hawaii so there is now a clear example to follow. The next step would be to move it to schedule 2, so doctors can prescribe it on a named patient basis. To conclude, as time goes on, I am becoming more and more disabled, and more frustrated that there's such reluctance to help me and others like me. It's been a big effort for me to come to speak here, but I very much wanted to outline the problem to people who I hope will not just call for me research, but will have the confidence to actually do something to help us now. Thank you
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