Paul Smith, Shropshire, UK
Cannabis, Schengen and double standards
Malta is a signatory to the Schengen agreement, which it signed on joining the EU. For anyone who is not familiar with this agreement, it allows for the free movement of EU nationals.
It also allows for EU nationals to transport their medicines across borders. Schengen allows medical users of either Sativex (which is cannabis oil in a spray bottle) or Bedrocan to travel to another country that signed the Schengen agreement for up to 90 days. Any person harassed or detained would be looking forward to hefty compensation from that country.
So why are people like Daniel Holmes doing lengthy prison sentences for cultivation when any other EU national can enter Malta with a prescribed legal cannabis medicine? Or does Malta enjoy an exemption from this part of the agreement?
Why should someone who cultivated such small amounts of cannabis, which, obviously, were not for sale – as the quantity was so small and the effort involved so large – end up with such a long, draconian sentence?
There really needs to be a lengthy, educated discussion on this issue with all the science put on the table; not pseudo science from aging police medical doctors, which is mostly taken from studies that are heavily biased and paid for by prohibitionist groups and alcohol industry insiders.
If cannabis caused half the harm some paid-up prohibitionists say it does, then why was Sativex given a licence and why is Bedrocan legal?
Why have cases of schizophrenia dropped dramatically or remained static in so many European countries while cannabis use has increased threefold over the last three decades?
Governments can’t just cherry-pick data that supports their own outdated prejudice. Any government that does not reclassify alcohol and tobacco to Class A has failed in its duty to protect its own citizens.
There are about 75 million cannabis users in Europe and we deserve the same rights as those who enjoy wine, spirits, beer and tobacco.
Those who use cannabis hold down jobs, pay tax and vote!
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Trevor Lorenzo Mizzi
Jan 24th, 03:53
Raw juiced cannabis leaf can be used as a dietary essential as a potent anti-inflammatory that has NO psychoactive component whatsoever, as researched by Dr. William Courtney.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqSsqyR09M
angelo cilia
Jan 22nd, 17:05
"Using a medicinal spray is exactly that - primarily for medicinal purposes."
What is really filthy is people with your mindset that keeps this useful and safe herb illegal for the profit of the already rich and powerful.
If I do not want to use liver destroying paracetamol - codeine pills to combat the pain of arthritis then I can grow some good cannabis Indica bud and place the ground up flower bud in capsules it is ok to use it as medicine to treat the pain and inflammation from my arthritis.
Up to 80 years ago such ready made cannabis medicine was available from such pharmaceutical firms as Eli Lilly and Parke Davis and countless others, but now they push poisons instead of medicine because that is what controlled governments mandate, because they discovered that cannabis users are less likely be mind controlled and that is not good for government propaganda, (ie: to get people to go to war) religions, and corporate advertising.
JOSEPH ZAMMIT
Jan 21st, 21:06
The only legal drug in Malta is RELIGION.
Paul Smith
Jan 21st, 20:08
The main thing is we get Daniel out of Prison, only a backward thinking third world dictatorship would put someone in Prison for 10 years for growing 2 Plants!
If seen worse things done by corrupt ministers in Malta over the last 11 years!
Paul Smith
Jan 21st, 19:44
Thanks who ever posted the link on uk420 at least the few million stoners in the UK can have a laugh at some people.
JOSEPH ZAMMIT
Jan 21st, 17:08
Cannabis was rated as the 11th most dangerous drug – less dangerous than alcohol (5th) and tobacco (9th). Photograph: Rex Features
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/02/david-nutt-dangerous-drug-list
Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11660210
Karl Consiglio
Jan 21st, 14:24
U wejja stop being squares and legalize it, Malta is such a nerd.
John Azzopoardi
Jan 21st, 14:14
Cannabis is illegal in Malta and schengen or not, anyone entering Malta cannot bring it in with them. Period. That is the law.
Paul Smith
Jan 21st, 15:42
So If i bring Sativex in a bottle into Malta my medicine will be taken off me? You are then in breach of schengen and will have to pay me the victim of your ignorance and a fine to Brussels
Cant wait
Ramon Casha
Jan 21st, 14:00
What you need to do is gather a large sum of money to pay off the candidates like the pharmaceutical companies. Why expect them to do their duty without a tip?
Paul Smith
Jan 21st, 13:25
PROFESSOR David Nutt, the ex-government drug adviser who provoked a media storm when he said taking ecstasy was no less dangerous than horse riding, renewed his criticisms of politicians and policymakers during a talk in Stroud last week.
The approach of successive governments towards drug policy had been out of step with scientific opinion and consequently the classification of illicit substances fails to reflect their relative harm, he argued.
In his lecture entitled, ‘Science and non-science in the current drug and alcohol laws,’ Professor Nutt focused particular scrutiny on the 2009 re-classification of cannabis as a Class B drug.
That decision to upgrade the drug, Professor Nutt said, was motivated less by scientific evidence and more by political considerations and a desire to appease a hostile tabloid press.
Contrasting the risks associated with cannabis with those from consuming alcohol, the eminent psychiatrist argued that the policy of criminalizing cannabis defied common sense.
Alcohol was responsible for 8,000 deaths a year. Professor Nutt, currently a researcher at Imperial College London, said the dramatic increase in liver disease in recent years coupled with the £30 billion annual cost to the taxpayer of alcohol misuse, meant drink posed a far greater risk to society than cannabis use. "There has been a 20 times increase in the number of people using cannabis in the last forty years, yet we are not seeing a surge in the number of deaths. "One of the reasons we have always argued cannabis is safer than alcohol is because you cannot overdose on cannabis," he said. The drug expert claimed lobbyists working on behalf of the drinks industry possessed too much power and were able to shape government drug policy and legislation to their liking.
Paul Smith
Jan 21st, 13:18
I personally dont consider using cannabis as a filthy drug habit anymore than i think you drinking a bottle of Marsoven is a filthy drug habbit. That Medical spray is Cannabis, it's not Cannabis light or synthetic, it is the same stuff you call a filthy drug with your limited knowledge of it! Sativex costs around £170 a bottle and adds up to about 5k a year for my PCT. If i grow i actually save the tax payer a small fortune.
Let me ask you Cassar, is it a filthy drug when GW Pharma grow it and market it through Bayer, is Berocon a filthy drug when Grown for the Dutch NHS, or is it just a filthy drug when one grows say 3 plants never yielding enough to sell if you are a user? Or is it just a filthy drug because you have never bothered to do any research into it, never tried it, but forms an opinion with very little understanding of this plants magical healing properties, as a GW scientist recently said - We are just beginning to understand some of the amazing properties of this plant! Just imagine where science would be today if we were all as ignorant, close minded and prejudice as C Cassar!
C Cassar
Jan 21st, 11:40
simple. Growing cannabis at home is primarily for the use of smoking of selling it. Using a medicinal spray is exactly that - primarily for medicinal purposes. What's so difficult to iunderstand or are you trying to justify the filthy habit of drug abuse?
Karl Consiglio
Jan 21st, 12:29
You can go and play football Im not stopping you and I have the right to a filthy habit if I want one.
Mr Duncan Scerri
Jan 21st, 13:07
Evidently you speak without knowledge. Regular consumers of cannabis have a lower risk of cancer than those who do not smoke at all. The sales of Sativex only serve to line the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry. I'll wager you do not even know why cannabis became illegal globally.
Roger Camilleri
Jan 21st, 14:08
Drinking alcohol or smoking cigarettes are just as filthy as so called 'drug abuse'... 'tis indeed a hypocritical world we live in.. sad
Gordon Camenzuli
Jan 21st, 14:11
1. One has to distinguish between smoking and selling. I never smoked and never will but i do grow my own food and two homegrown plants are surely for personal use.
2. Better smoke what one grows than what one gets hold off on the black market!
Common sense doesnt seem to be soo common nowadays. Simple isnt it?
Matthew Micallef
Jan 21st, 14:39
You're confusing drug use with abuse again. There is a lack of research conducted on both sides of the argument for medicinal use, however do note that in 1929 when Harry J Anslinger pushed for the prohibition of marijuana, all doctors that were unaffiliated with government opposed it, for the simple fact that most medicines were based on herbal remedies, and most of these included some extracted form of cannabis. Indeed, smoked marijuana is the least ideal way to medicate, however it's use stems from the very rapid reposnse to medication that smoked marijuana gives. No other form of marijuana ingestion produces medical pain relief as quickly as when it is smoked. That is the reason why smoked marijuana is used as a medicine, but in truth there are a large number of ways that marijuana can be beneficial without smoking it.
JOSEPH ZAMMIT
Jan 21st, 16:53
Personally, what is so difficult to understand is the comments made by people like you. Educate yourself C Cassar, at least you can do yourself that favour!!
angelo cilia
Jan 22nd, 17:29
"Using a medicinal spray is exactly that - primarily for medicinal purposes."
If I do not want to use liver destroying paracetamol - codeine pills to combat the pain of arthritis So if I grow some good cannabis Indica bud and place the ground up flower bud in capsules it is ok to use it as medicine to treat the pain and inflammation from my arthritis.
Up to 80 years ago such ready made medicine was available from such pharmaceutical firms as Eli Lilly and Parke Davis and countless others.