MS sufferer hits out

A Ramsey MHK's comments about cannabis and prescriptions have been labelled 'atrocious' by an MS sufferer.

This week, Leonard Singer said he was opposed to the drug being permitted for medicinal use because people who obtained it on prescription could just give it to other people. He does however, support the use of cannabis-derived, approved prescription drugs such as Sativex.

Di, who has MS uses Sativex spray to help alleviate some of the elements of her condition.

She rejects the argument that prescriptions could be sold or passed on, as a reason to oppose allowing the medicinal use of cannabis.

Residents of the United Kingdom have been watching from afar as legalization sweeps across the globe. Uruguay legalized cannabis, the United States followed suit in a piecemeal fashion, and now Canada’s new Prime Minister has made it all but certain that they will be next to legalize. With progress happening elsewhere in the world, where does the United Kingdom stand on ending cannabis prohibition?

Former Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has joined the Global Commission on Drug Policy, an international group that advocates for drug policy reform on a global level. Nick Clegg joins a host of influential names from business and politics on the Commission, including entrepreneur Richard Branson, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and former US Secretary of State George Schultz.

Oddly - almost absurdly - Aodhan O’Riordain, the Irish justice minster, came to London yesterday to deliver an oration that amounts to a 'red letter day' for drugs reform in his country. His call for decriminalisation of the possession of small quantities of drugs stands in startling contrast to the illiberal ambivalence of mainstream political parties in the UK.

The Republic of Ireland and the UK operate within a similar political culture. Yet the Irish and the British debates on drugs reform have taken very different paths.

Pharmacist and university lecturer Dr Marcia Williams made a presentation highlighting studies that suggest cannabis can reduce the risk of contracting diabetes.

Dr Williams, who was invited to the Island to give a presentation at the Bermuda College by the Bermuda Pharmaceutical Association during Pharmacy Week, is a lecturer at the University of Technology in Jamaica and holds a PhD in Pharmaceutics from Queen’s University in Belfast.

By Deej Sullivan

As the case for drug prohibition has fallen apart, its defenders have had to come up with ever more imaginative ways to justify it. When it comes to cannabis, that now includes bending the laws of science to their will.

The government created a bit of a problem for itself when it allowed GW Pharmaceuticals to grow cannabis under license in order to produce Sativex - a cannabis tincture used to treat spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. This was odd, because under the scheduling system for drugs enshrined in the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 cannabis is classified as schedule one, meaning it has no therapeutic value.

On 12th October, after more than 220,000 people had signed a government e-petition, Mike Penning MP, the drugs minister, responded to the debate.  He said:

A SUSPECTED drug dealer frantically tried to flush his mobile phone down the toilet as police stormed his flat.

The man – described as a “significant individual” in Edinburgh’s organised crime network – was one of 19 people arrested as police carried out one of their biggest co-ordinated crackdowns in the Capital in recent years.

Police in riot gear storm a flat early yesterday morning as part of the raids. Picture: TSPL

Yesterday’s dawn raids saw around 170 officers target homes and businesses across the Capital.

They seized £100,000 worth of heroin from a house in Niddrie as well as several “dealer quantities” in other properties.

Three men have been hospitalised in London after they took the legal high known as "Spice" that can be up to 100 times more potent than cannabis. Two of the men in Peckham, south London, had seizures after they allegedly took the drug. A third man is in a critical condition.

Officers would like to hear from anyone who may have been offered the drug and would advise anyone who has taken it to seek medical attention.

Met Police officers were called to Staffordshire Street at 9:40pm on Thursday (29 October) to reports of a man believed to be having a fit. He informed officers that he had taken the drug after being offered it for free on the street. The man, who is aged in his late 20s, was taken by the London Ambulance Service (LAS) to a south London hospital.