cannabisnews.com: British Firm Holds Hope for Users of Medical Pot British Firm Holds Hope for Users of Medical Pot Posted by CN Staff on February 01, 2004 at 08:44:56 PT By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer Source: Los Angeles Times Carol Rosenfield hurts. Pain and fatigue smother her, arriving without warning. Sometimes, the 58-year-old West Hollywood woman says, symptoms of her multiple sclerosis strike so hard she feels as if she's melting, "like the Wicked Witch of the West."What she wants what she says she needs is Dr. Geoffrey Guy's medicine. On the far side of the Atlantic, Guy and his fledgling British pharmaceutical company are poised to release a prescription drug packed with equal parts potential and controversy. Contained in a tiny spray bottle, the drug developed by GW Pharmaceuticals is named Sativex. Most know it by its street name: marijuana.Even in advance of its expected approval in Britain, the medication is roiling anew the long and bitter standoff over medical marijuana in America, a conflict that has knotted California since 1996, when voters approved cannabis as medicine.Despite the U.S. government's long resistance to marijuana for the ill, the Bush administration is privately voicing a cautious interest in Guy's medication. Apart from the drug's potential benefits to patients, some administration officials see it as a step toward ending the emotionally charged duel between the nine states that have legalized medical cannabis and the federal government, which stands by its unbending ban on marijuana for any use.Instead of hitting the street-corner drug dealer, medical marijuana patients could get a doctor's prescription filled at the neighborhood pharmacy. The sick who stick with smoked cannabis would risk seeing sympathy ebb, sparking a new wave of raids on the dozens of cannabis dispensaries that have survived to serve California patients. Snipped:Complete Article: http://www.freedomtoexhale.com/gwpharm.htmSource: Los Angeles Times (CA)Author: Eric Bailey, Times Staff WriterPublished: February 1, 2004 Copyright: 2004 Los Angeles TimesContact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/Related Articles & Web Site:GW Pharmaceuticalshttp://www.gwpharm.com/Britain To Approve Medicine Derived From MJhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18224.shtmlLittle Light Confusion Over Cannabis Drug Date http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18194.shtmlCannabis MS Drug Available Soonhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread18190.shtmlBritish Approach To The Business of Cannabishttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17930.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #21 posted by FoM on February 02, 2004 at 16:07:38 PT Virgil I just hope we can beat Bush. I really am afraid of him and his intentions. [ Post Comment ] Comment #20 posted by Virgil on February 02, 2004 at 15:57:07 PT FoM, my dilema applies only to Kerry Kerry has Plutocratic Toxicity. There is no way to describe it but it has to do with how much he has served the plutocracy and how long he has been in the Senate. He is absolutely an insult to run when he as gone along and will only keep going along.The Democratic Party needs to understand that Kerry has Plutocratic Toxicity and is not going to get support from people like me that are all but hoping for his failure if he is put forth as the very best the Democratic Party can produce for the greatest common good.If the Democratic Party cannot beat the worst President ever, it is because the Democratic Party is now the worst party ever. [ Post Comment ] Comment #19 posted by FoM on February 02, 2004 at 14:07:52 PT I Fear Bush Isn't this like the fox guarding the chicken house?Bush OKs Panel to Probe Pre-Iraq War Intelligencehttp://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=EED961F0-1D8F-4F83-8485A92057576A35 [ Post Comment ] Comment #18 posted by FoM on February 02, 2004 at 13:55:26 PT kaptinemo Thank you. I understand. Who do you think can be the one to bump Bush? I know you don't want Bush for 4 more years. I don't see any choices except possibly Kerry. Maybe I am missing something. [ Post Comment ] Comment #17 posted by kaptinemo on February 02, 2004 at 13:43:31 PT: FoM, I may be able to help Remember George Wallace's famous statement that there wasn't a dime's worth of diference between the Dem and Rep Parties?Now, granted, Wallace had been a racist product of a racist system, but in his later years he seemed to have realized that he, too, had been taken by the Plutocracy - as we all are, every day. That's why he formed his own party...and that's why it was so popular. And, why, I suspect, he had almost been assassinated. Another handy 'lone nutcase' tried, but failed...and put Wallace into a wheelchair the rest of life.But Wallace spoke an essential truth that many died-in-the-wool Dems and Reps screech bloody murder about if you repeat his observation. The Dem site I frequently go to at http://www.smirkingchimp.com/ has people who think the Klinton years were just peachy, and Billy Boy a saint, when he was just as crooked, because he served the same masters as Georgie does today. But point out Klinton's less-than-savory dealings, and they bring out the daggers. And yet...Although most people have not got the slightest inkling about the forces that are arrayed against them socially, politically, economically, etc...they sense that something is terribly wrong in this country. They see their jobs disappear...while CEOS of the companies they belonged to get fatter and richer. They see police becoming ever more militarized...and look at their own neighborhoods and don't see any reason for it. They have to work harder and harder and harder...when they can remember their own Mothers being home all the time to raise them while their Dad went off to that mysterious place called 'work'. I could go on, but you get the picture. Something's terribly wrong in America, and they know it, but don't know *why*. WE cannabists know part of the reason why, because the 'test run' for fascism has always been the DrugWar, and we know from personal experience how the Beast feeds. It isn't until the dutifully enthusiastic supporters of the political Punch-and-Judy marionette show of American politics are hurt by what they have so blindly supported do they wake up...often, when it's too late. That's why many of us cannabists have little patience with the game, anymore. Being older has some advantages, and one of them is being able to remember the same old slogans, the same old promises, made by new faces, but always, always, always the same group in the background, manipulating things to their advantage.Real change will begin the day these Puppet-Masters are revealed to the American people and the world for what they are. But almost every pol who has come close has had 'unfortunate accidents' or worse. The warning is clear: mouth off about us, and you become a target.But what may save this country and this planet from their predations is the Internet. Like a benevelent Frankenstein's Monster, it's gotten away from it's former masters, and has grown and spread to something that would require a collapse of civilization world-wide to kill it. Through the Internet, more and more people are becoming aware of those who would order their fates like chess pieces on a game borad...and they are beginning to act. Those scores of hundreds of thousands who marched to stop the Iraq War around the world(!) are a perfect example of what can be done with the Internet. I suspect that this is indeed the beginning of another kind of war, the long predicted Information War. But not in the way that people usually mean. The Information War will not be a so much a matter of nation against nation as it will be about the international Plutocrats controlling the usual means of communications and duping their own people into passivity...but being fought against by those who are aware of the Plutocrats and using the Internet to get the word out about the things the corp-rat news media won't tell you.I've maintained for many years since coming 'here' that there is a race between Tyranny and Freedom. The forces of the antis, the prohibs, are the former. They say they want to protect, but in 'protecting', they destroy and kill. We, those who have seen through the game and know the history of the DrugWar and how it was constructed of a tissue of lies papier mache'ed onto frame of racial bigotry and painted with corporate self-interest, are the latter. Yet, it is WE who are reviled, spit on and cursed, locked up, or murdered, not they.It's the height of irony that those who have been treated like that so for so long by so many...struggle to preserve what little freedoms remain from those who are so quick to toss them away in their Quixotic quest for something that has never existed in history - a drug free society. It is people like those here and in other sites, in other organizations, in other countries, around this planet, who are the true freedom fighters. It's always been like that through history, and often those freedom fighters, after the struggle is won, often remain as obscure in later life as when they were fighting, for they weren't interested in power or glory and anything like that at all.All they wanted was what anybody in their right mind would: a little peace and justice. [ Post Comment ] Comment #16 posted by FoM on February 02, 2004 at 10:46:52 PT Virgil I think I understand. I just have blinders on when it comes to Bush. I really don't expect any reform if Kerry wins but he will be tolerable to me. Bush isn't tolerable to me. He had his chance and blew it big time. [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by Virgil on February 02, 2004 at 10:18:27 PT FoM, Sure I can tell you this. I am as anti-Bush as you get. I am against plutocratic rule and he is the epitamy of a plutocratic puppet. I am helping you throw Bush out of office. I think that the next president will be a Democrat.The road I am talking about is a long one. I am interested in telling people to pack for a long trip. People are so used to the pill philosphy they think it works when real pills do not and have terrible side effects.My opposition will only pull the debate to where it really needs to be. Maybe it will encourage people to bring people into the debate that have long been sidelined as they see that the independents are not a herd. The Dims outnumber the Republicans 3 to 2. The only reason they do not win every election is that they have forgotten the mission of making better for everyone instead of fantastic for a few.I would suggest that nobody vote for Bush. How can that not be helping? I will outline his failed businesses that were somehow turned upside down by the media to make him Businessman George Bush. I will call it ironic that the Commander-in-chief was AWOL. I will call him for the inept president he is. I will flat out say, that you would have to be crazy to vote for George Bush.But someone has to say, I see what is going on. Someone has to make a statement that we all are not sheep and to put the fear in the Democratic Party that we can reject their nominee. The Democratic nominee is not selected. I think that it is important for the Dims to know they are not going to get a rubber stamp when they fail the country by sending in another Plutocratic ruler. The idea of plutocratic rule has just now surfaced. In four years of Internet travel, it will be a well established concept. I am helping the Dims. I will call Bush a dickhead again and prove it. I am also helping them by telling them they need to get with the program and send the man that will do the greatest public good. If they send Kerry, I cannot support him. They are asking me if I want to be beaten with a red whip or a blue one. I say go to hell and good luck. Is that not polite enough? [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by FoM on February 02, 2004 at 10:00:10 PT Virgil I want to ask a small question. Sometimes it seems that those who want to keep Bush from a second term and why they think that way isn't good enough. Aren't we allowed to look at this differently? [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by Virgil on February 02, 2004 at 09:35:51 PT Very well said Kap Let me speak of politics and see where it leads to the cannabis issue.Kap, you are exactly right. They are using people's fear to keep them all huddled together and just running instead of thinking.The thing to do is think. The issue of the plutocracy will not go away anytime soon. It is the real issue in America. Are we going to serve the wealthy or are we going to aim for the greatest common good.If we would say, we want the greatest common good as our beacon, we would do well. We could ask, does cannabis prohibition serve the goal of attaining the greatest common good?There is no way to explain cannabis prohibition lasting any 66 years and not discussing the role of Plutocratic rule. There will be no way of ending it without calling on the need to seek the highest public good.My view is, that you cannot go along with those that herd you on their trucks to load up for slaughter. Yes, I know Bush is one bad of President. But it is not Bush. Bush is just a puppet that can be replaced. You want a tall Plutocratic president or one that played baseball. Pick one, we have them all.What I will be saying to the Democrats is, that in a time of crisis you cannot even lay the big picture out there. You are totally bankrupt. When we need someone to stop the train and then turn it around, you want to give us someone that will slow it down.No thanks. I am not a sheep. This train is going to the slaughterhouse and I am jumping off. The train may still get to the slaughterhouse, but there will be less meat to harvest. Maybe so many sheep jump off you lost money on this year's crop. So you lose the election. For ending plutocratic rule, that would probably be best. Kerry is a real target because he is just not that much different. Rich, Skull and Bones, 19 years sailing along without having a noteworthy position on anything that got us to a good point.But if more people thought like I did and jumped train, the Democrats would not send a blue Nazi to take the dreaded Red Nazis place. They would ask who will be best for the greatest common good and let's send him in. So even if Kerry gets in he needs to be replaced by someone that does not serve the plutocracy. Kerry will not end cannabis prohibition or the drug wars. It will be keep the prices up which is what prohibition is all about. The common good or 90% approval for MLG will not make any difference as long as the plutocracy is calling for everything to evaporate up. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by kaptinemo on February 02, 2004 at 05:34:03 PT: Buzzing the sheep(le) again Friends, I *definitely* hold with the idea that Bush must be 'shown the door' this year, but I am only too well aware of how far too many of these pols have connections that thread back to the Plutocracy.In my bad old days, I flew with some crazy pilots who liked to fly low and buzz sheep to watch them scatter. (They were lucky the shepherd wasn't there most of the time, as he was known to pack a .357, and recon planes are thin-skinned.) Poor buggers would run every which way. But they'd follow the fastest runner, as that one would be in the lead. I've no doubt that if there had been any cliffs about, they would have followed that 'leader' straight over it.Need I say that that is what is happening here? The American people are being 'buzzed' by circumstances that are controlled at levels too far out of sight of most Americans to be cognizant of. The problem with the "Anybody But Bush" philosophy is that the people who've gotten even more obscenely wealthy off of doing that 'buzzing' are well aware of what they have done. They know they've scored big with their bad-boy Bush. They've gotten practically all they wanted out of him. So, even if Bush is turned out of office, those big shot corporate backers and behind-the-scenes Puppet-Masters are still out there, still plotting to make themselves even richer and plunge this nation further into penury, war and possible economic and social collapse.The only way to make sure if a candidate is not one of the tools of the Plutocracy is to ask one simple question:"Are you a member of the Council on Foreign Relations?"If the answer is yes, the person who provided that answer should be watched very carefully, indeed. Because these are the hidden Puppet-Masters of US politics, of which the Bush Family have been stellar handmaidens. Kerry's a member...and Rand Beers is another; Beers is Kerry's 'advisor' on illicit drug policy - a man many campesinos in Colombia would happily butcher with machetes for what he has done to them and their children with his 'fumigation' project.I'm sorry, but Kerry just cannot be trusted to act for the country's welfare; he had investigated Iran/Contra, discovered the barest trace of the coke-for-guns deals, and did nothing further. He's proven himself, if not a willing tool, then a silently opportunistic 'fellow-traveller', willing to let things get bad to feather his own nest in the process.(Dusting off my Magic 8 Ball) A prediction: Any promises Kerry makes regarding MMJ will, if he is elected, prove to be empty, as the Narcocracy's little spider is *already* whispering it's poison in his ears...thanks to Mr. Beers. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by westnyc on February 02, 2004 at 03:55:54 PT 4 more years of Bush = doomsday! I agree. Getting Bush out of office is the A1-priority. Imagine for a moment of what would happen if Bush wins. He will be in a position for four-years where he doesn't have to worry about election consequences. I can see the draft being reinstated for sure, a Latin American Free Trade Agreement (LAFTA), mandatory religion, cencorship of the internet, a deficit of 2-trillion and Civil Rights deemed dangerous to national security by CBS;-) and the Bush Administration. Actually, these things are already here and just waiting to "bust-through" your front door. For example, imagine laws allowing executions of marijuana dealers. It's important to remember too - Imagine four more years of Curious George working implicitly with crooked corporations, and the so-called "liberal media" to create a political pathway toward a 2008 election win with Little Bro Jeb. Can humanity sustain 12-14 years of Bushes?I live in Michigan; and, we have lost 276,000 jobs, mostly in manufacturing since Bush signed NAFTA in 2000. I will vote for Kerry if it becomes my only option! [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by FoM on February 01, 2004 at 21:45:17 PT Patrick I will vote to get Bush out too. That is important to me because he really scares me and I don't like being afraid of our president. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Patrick on February 01, 2004 at 21:23:32 PT The Essence of democracy Virgil you are so right on I am an Extremist and the only person I will be supporting in the vote of Nov. 5th will be Kucinich. I think it is the best path I can take and will take.If more voters did that, we would have an even better democracy that what we do have! Too many people vote for the lesser of two evils or vote to "not be on the losing side", yada yada yada, instead of voting their conscience.Personally, I will be voting to remove Bush. That's my conscience this time around. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by FoM on February 01, 2004 at 21:10:33 PT Virgil I wanted to make a comment. I understand why you feel like you do. I don't have any expectations for Kerry so I don't get upset. I don't know of anyone who doesn't feel that Dennis is a good person. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by Virgil on February 01, 2004 at 16:09:18 PT I am trying not to play politics I am trying to speak to the issue of cannabis in the next election. You guys are harping that Kerry will beat Bush. He probably will. What you do not realize is that many people take it as taking a blue Plutocratic ruler over a red one. Now, to spell out what can happen and what I also promote, is that people will vote for someone else that is not in service to the Plutocracy.I will vote for Dennis Kucinich, even if I have to write him in. I am not going to vote for Bush of course. I will not vote for Kerry who is just another Plutocratic servant. So when you think Kerry will deliver you, you can believe that people will not support him first because he is a drug warrior. Other people will not support him because he is just a lesser evil.I am an Extremist and the only person I will be supporting in the vote of Nov. 5th will be Kucinich. I think it is the best path I can take and will take. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by FoM on February 01, 2004 at 15:07:53 PT Just a Note The conference must be running a little behind. Renee Boje is on now and it will probably be 6:30 for Dr. Russo. Here is the full schedule.http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread18264.shtml#5 [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by FoM on February 01, 2004 at 14:48:28 PT Friendly Reminder: Dr. Russo at 6 PM ET 3:00pm-4:00pm - Dr. Ethan Russo The Myth of Schedule I: Medical Uses of Forbidden Plants and Compounds Show's Link http://www.pot-tv.net/ram/pottvshowse2453.ram [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by E_Johnson on February 01, 2004 at 14:42:18 PT Dr. Russo " "Patients don't want to replace one disability for another," Guy said. "They don't want to get high.""Dr. Russo, I hear that Guy has developed a spray that people can use when they exercise that takes away the high, so they won't be disabled.And after it is released, the government will ban all exercise unless people have the GW spray.Because obviously people who exercise without the GW spray are merely Trojan horse exercisers, only getting exercise for the high. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by charmed quark on February 01, 2004 at 14:26:02 PT New reason to use cannabis for migraines A new study in JAMA showed that migraine-with-aura sufferers had lesions in their brains at a rate 13 to 16 times higher than non-migraine suferers. Cannabis is one of the best neuroprotectives we know about. It has strong free radical supression properties and crosses the blood/brain barrier readily. An Israeli company is making an artificial cannabinoid to give stroke victims. So, not only does it prevent migraines, it may also protect your brain from the strokes assoicated with migraine.It is criminal that information like this isn't being used to change he classification of cannabis. -Pete [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by JustGetnBy on February 01, 2004 at 14:06:34 PT MONEY MONEY MONEY !!!!!!! I fear that when the Feds can no longer sustain the Schedule One Lie, they will allow cannabis to be prescribed, but, continue the prohibition of growing and smoking your own I am a medical cannabis user, and it greatly improves my quality of life. I can afford to grow my own medicine, but cannot afford corporate priced medicine. I have no medical insurance, due to loss of job. My job went away because of corporate greed, my age makes me almost un-employable. ( 60 + ) When the fox guards the hen house, chickens have few rights...................... [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on February 01, 2004 at 09:39:23 PT LTE Sirs, If Geoffrey Guy's medication works, it is because marijuana works. His spray bottle contains an extract of whole cannabis. But the only way Dr. Guy can hope to make a profit is by the continued existence of marijuana prohibition. If marijuana were easily available to anyone who needs its medicinal properties, very few would spend the extra money on GW Pharmaceutical's products. But how can the law justify the assertion that black-market cannabis is bad when the same exact chemicals are sold in a brand-name medicine? It becomes very apparent that the DEA's raids are not about protecting Californians, but drug company profits. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment