While the 100 day old United Kingdom coalition government enforces the laws against cannabis with the fervour and rigorous enthusiasm normally reserved for religious zealots, a UK company has managed to dodge claims that its products 'may' cause psychosis, or other forms of mental illness normally associated with cannabis use.
Even though if you spray their product onto a cigarette paper and load it with tobacco, it will get you high just like any street deal you may undertake. The question is how can they get away with it? And why should they be allowed to?
If you like to grow your own, or perhaps you are thinking about it for the first time? Check out the new improved UK Cultivator forums, atukcultivator.net
Sativex: Weed in a bottle
On the one hand, we have a government which is not averse to 'sexing up' the facts surrounding cannabis.
They really don't care if their data is of dubious veracity, laced with the tools of the trade normally used daily by frustrated Fleet Street hacks who are all looking to make their names on the back of some big story.
Tools like 'government sources', a 'spokesman' or more recently a 'spokesPERSON', can make any claims they please, because the fact is there is no-one who can argue with the opinions of a nameless entity.
The tabloids ride cannabis like a cheap whore, and have done for over 30 years, leading to the term 'yellow journalism'.
A story which is tainted with the rotting smell of lies and sensationalism. Which serves two purposes. 1. to sell newspapers and 2. to publicise the governments message on drugs in general, and cannabis specifically.
So regardless of the source the message has always been the same.
Cannabis damages communities, is dangerous to health, and therefore remains a banned substance with other, truly dangerous drugs.
But is this fair and just?
Many think not, and amongst the many are law enforcers, politicians and doctors, all of whom are scared to speak for fear of being fired for going against the government line.
For more than a decade GW Pharmaceuticals, an Alternative Investment Market group, has tried to persuade authorities in the UK, Europe as well as 'the key' US market not only that cannabis helps to relieve the pain caused by MS, but that it could also produce a licensed treatment that could fit the requirements.
Licensed Cannabis = Men in Suits
"We started from the perspective that thousands of patients can't be wrong," said Justin Gover, who became involved with GW Pharmaceuticals right from the start when scientist and company chairman Geoffrey Guy offered him a job.
"Initially we had a Home Office licence allowing us to grow cannabis plants, and that gave us some initial media coverage. From that moment we had letters coming through from patients, saying 'thank goodness and let me tell you about my experience,' so for me the conviction was really quite simple: there would be challenges of course, but fundamentally there had to be a way of showing that what these patients had already been seeing for years, actually worked."
And that is the key to the argument. This stuff works.
Science already knows not only is cannabis remarkably safe in the grand scheme of things, it also serves a purpose for us. Many purposes in fact. Some of which prove clearly that cannabis should no more be illegal than cornflakes, or anti-oxidants!
Cannabis and Children
Attention deficit Disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) is a biological, brain based condition that is characterised by poor attention and distractibility and/or hyperactive and impulsive behaviors. It is one of the most common mental disorders that develop in children. Symptoms can continue into adolescence and adulthood.
The normal course of treatment for a child diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, is a course of methylphenidate, better known as Ritalin.
Methylphenidate (MPH) is a prescription stimulant commonly used to treat Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. It is also one of the primary drugs used to treat the daytime drowsiness symptoms of narcolepsy and chronic fatigue syndrome. The drug is also seeing early use to treat cancer-related fatigue.
Abuse factor = HIGH!
As always there is a flip-side to these prescription drugs, and in the case of Ritalin, substance abusers have found various ways to ingest the drug recreationally, which gives an effect similar to cocaine or amphetamine.
The question is why would you wish to give a child an amphetamine-like stimulant when they are suffering with a lack of focus or are easily distracted and fidgety?
Dr Claudia Jenson, who is a consultant pediatrician from USC (University of Southern California), has come up with a novel way of treating ADD/ADHD, WITHOUT any of the unwanted side effects which can result from using popularly prescribed prescription medicines like Ritalin.
For the child diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, the side effects of using Ritalin, are many, including psychosis (abnormal thinking or hallucinations - also known as being 'high'), difficulty sleeping, stomach aches, diarrhea, headaches, lack of hunger (leading to weight loss) and dry mouth. In some cases, the use of Ritalin has led to death.
If Ritalin or its side effects, are causing your children problems, ask your MP about using cannabis as an alternative.
Cannabis and Cancer
Scott Paplowski was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood cancer when he was 16.
Scott Paplowski is doing well thanks to cannabis
After eight months of treatment his weight dropped from 220 pounds to 86 pounds. Medical cannabis exactly like that produced in the homes of cannabis growers across the UK eased the nausea, diarrhea and stomach pain enough to restore his appetite.
After reading of others who suffered with the same condition and didn't susrvive, its fair to suggest cannabis probably save his life.
Scott currently weighs 193 pounds thanks to 'the munchies' and at 39 is believed to be the oldest known survivor of 'Rhabdomyosarcoma ', his form of cancer.
The stories of how people have dodged a bullet by using cannabis are plentiful if you take the time to look for them, but until the scientific fraternity stand up and speak their minds we are stuck with sending people to jail, simply for wishing to increase the quality of life they must endure every single day, and thats without wondering why we are arresting people simply for experimenting with the same drug as Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson experimented with as schoolboys.
It certainly hasn't done them any harm, and nor does it for the other 99.99% of users. But still we lock people up for it.
Cannabis Science
Until recently only a handful of yoghurt knitting, tree-hugging hippies would have dared utter anything positive about the much maligned and not very well understood cannabis plant.
But over the last decade more and more scientists; people who are trained to understand the complex chemistry behind how cannabis interacts with the human body, are putting the pieces of a huge jigsaw together, and making their findings public.
Dr Robert Melamede Ph.D. is the former chair of the Biology Department at UC, (University of Colorado) and he has dedicated his life to learning more on how the human cannabinoid system works.
In the video clip below Dr Melamede gives his learned views on cannabis using laymans terms, and as a result of testimonies from him, and others like him only now are we realising the true worth of cannabis to humanity.
The point is, due to the way people are communicating with each other across time-zones using the social networks, British people who are suffering with in some instances terminal conditions, are out cruising the streets late at night trying to score a deal of weed because they know it helps them get to sleep.
Others have gone the extra mile and set up growing operations in their homes so they don't have to go cruising for a drug deal, but in doing so they risk the loss of their liberty as well as their dignity as a bus full of police officers in body armour come crashing through their door at 5am after receiving an anonymous tip-off.
The Green Genie
The fact is, the day Sativex was granted a UK licence, the British government essentially lost their right to enforce laws against a drug which really helps people. They let the genie out of the bottle once and for all, and its not going back in anytime soon.
British citizens are ignoring the cannabis laws en-masse, because they now know they have been lied to. YOU have been lied to.
The question is, what are YOU going to do about it?
Green/Eco/Environment 
