Pubdate: Sat, 16 Aug 2014
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2014 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Sarah Whitehead
Page: 32

THE KINDNESS OF CANNABIS CULTIVATORS

Marijuana Legislation Is Being Relaxed All Over the World but Not in 
the UK, Where the Most Unlikely of Horticulturalists Are Taking the 
Law into Their Own Hands and Donating Their Crops to People in Need

In the heart of Cumbria stands a two-bedroomed cottage wrapped in ivy 
that for half a century has been home to a lady named June. She makes 
a pot of tea in a cluttered kitchen brimming with fresh herbs in 
labelled jars, assorted saucepans and drying socks, then potters 
across the slate floor and into a garden. Here lies what June calls 
"her private retreat". An overgrown rose bush dotted with 
apricot-coloured blossoms creeps over a rusting bench and from one of 
the many ceramic plant pots comes the scent of rosemary. At the back 
of the garden stands a decaying shed, lost beneath a white climbing 
hydrangea. Nestled behind this sits a small grow tent, which June 
tells me contains a single cannabis plant. She pulls down the zip to 
reveal the hidden green leaves. "You wouldn't believe it was only one plant!"

The sight is reminiscent of the film Saving Grace, where an elderly 
widow starts growing cannabis as a way of paying off debts  but June 
has no intention of making money from her plant, nor does she plan on 
smoking it.

Inside, on the mantelpiece, sits a brown envelope addressed to a 
nearby town. It contains a small bag of weed. "I'm sending this to a 
friend of mine with arthritis who I've been helping out for a few 
years," she says. "I promised to have it delivered to her a few days 
ago but it took me longer than I expected to harvest this time so 
it's a little late."

June first started to grow cannabis in 2003, after a neighbour gave 
her late husband, Arthur, a sample. Arthur, who had suffered from MS 
from the age of 46, had developed secondary progressive MS and severe 
spasticity - involuntary muscle stiffness and contractions. June says 
she experimented with different strains of cannabis and found some 
were particularly effective muscle relaxants.

After seeing the relief it brought her husband, she decided to grow 
her own and began searching through the wealth of blogs and forums 
offering guidance. "I don't exactly operate on a grand scale," laughs 
June, who says she never has more than one plant at a time. "If you 
look after a plant properly it can go a long way." She initially 
wanted to set up an aquaponic grow tent, which combines keeping fish 
with hydroponics  but decided it was too conspicuous. "It's a shame. 
I already keep fish and it is much more eco-friendly."

"I've got no real interest in the stuff myself. I just really love 
gardening and I'm glad I can use it for a purpose which helps 
people." June provides cannabis for three other people: two, aged 78 
and 85, who have arthritis and live nearby; the other aged 73, who 
has MS, to whom she sends cannabis once a month, often in a bag of 
coffee to mask the smell. "I'm still learning," says June. "The stuff 
I grow isn't always effective but it does seem to provide some comfort."

Cannabis has been used as a medicine throughout history, with the 
ancient Egyptians among the earliest users. Its first recorded use as 
an anaesthetic is in first-century China; the Chinese term for 
"anesthesia" can be translated as "cannabis intoxication". 
Increasingly, the medicinal benefits of cannabis are being recognised 
and researched internationally and growing numbers of countries have 
legalised it. Recent research from the New York University Epilepsy 
Centre, for instance, has shown the cannabidiol (CBD) element in 
cannabis can help reduce epileptic seizures. The CBDhigh cannabis 
strain Charlotte's Web is now in demand in Colorado among individuals 
seeking help for epilepsy.

Even though, in 1998, the Home Office granted GW Pharmaceuticals a 
license to grow cannabis in order to develop cannabinoid-based 
medicines, Britain is not following suit. This week, Norman Baker, 
Lib Dem minister of state for crime prevention, called for more 
liberalised drug laws, and specifically the legalisation of cannabis 
grown for medicinal use. A coalition spokesman rejected his 
suggestion outright: "This government has no plans to legalise 
cannabis or to soften our approach to its use as a medicine. There is 
clear scientific and medical evidence that cannabis is a harmful drug 
which can damage people's mental and physical health."

And so those seeking cannabis for medicinal purposes must continue to 
chase it in the same way as recreational users, through the black 
market. "I considered asking around to see if people nearby sold 
any," says June, "but I thought: 'Hang on, I'm an old lady! I 
shouldn't be meeting strangers on street corners.' "

"The problem with buying off the street," says Orson Boon, from the 
from the London Cannabis club, "is not only are you funding organised 
crime, you're probably being ripped off. The cannabis is likely to be 
low quality and when you're using it for medical problems you want a 
strain you know will work for you."

However, unlike most drugs, the cultivation of cannabis can be done 
by almost anyone with a small space and a little spare time. And 
while it is still illegal to grow cannabis, buying cannabis seeds and 
growing equipment is not.

Boon works in the medical profession and says his interest in 
cannabis began after seeing the effect it had in alleviating the pain 
of a patient with Huntington's disease. He says he now receives 
hundreds of emails a day from people with problems ranging from MS 
and epilepsy to depression. Initially, many were looking to it as a 
last resort, but the recent legalisation of medical cannabis in 
certain US states has changed this. "People read about what has 
happened in other parts of the world and want to try it themselves. 
I've noticed a huge increase in people coming to me knowing exactly 
what kind of weed they want.

"There is a huge, huge community of cannabis growers and one of the 
nicest parts of this community are those who give it away for free to 
medicinal users  they are often referred to as 'caregivers'. In my 
experience, these people could be anyone, from small-scale to 
commercial growers."

One hugely influential figure in the development of medicinal 
cannabis in Britain is Jeff Ditchfield, who in 2002 founded the 
organisation Bud Buddies, which supplied cannabis to ill and disabled 
people free of charge. He operated from a cannabis coffee shop in 
Rhyl, north Wales that, despite being under constant surveillance and 
subjected to six police raids, became a pivotal part of the local 
community until 2007, when he was forced to relocate to Spain.

Unlike the UK, the Spanish constitution says that to prosecute a 
cannabis-growing offence you have to prove it has affected public 
health and the supply of cannabis in Spain is only illegal if you are 
profiting in some way. "The law is much more in line with the Bud 
Buddies philosophy," says Ditchfield, whose interest in the subject 
began when a close friend with MS complained they were having 
difficulty obtaining good-quality cannabis.

The choice of Spain was also fuelled by the open-minded attitude they 
have to research in medical cannabis. "In Britain it is near 
impossible to do any kind of research," says Ditchfield. "The NHS are 
still at least 10 years away from having cannabinoid cancer 
treatments widely available. What are people expected to do in the 
meantime? For me, the choice between being a dead law-abiding citizen 
or a living cannabis criminal is no choice at all."

Daniel Williams, a spokesman and researcher for Release, the national 
charity providing expertise on drugs and drugs law, concurs. "There 
are almost as many suggested medical uses for cannabis as there are 
cannabinoids, and while considerable research has been done into some 
of them, this is not a field in which the UK has been a leader. This 
is at least in part due to the legal status of cannabis in the UK, 
where it remains a schedule 1 drug under the Misuse of Drugs 
Regulations 2001  meaning it is not recognised, in its natural form, 
to have any medicinal or therapeutic value. Unfortunately, the 
prevailing attitude to the use of cannabis in its natural form in 
this country has stifled research on the grounds that the risks, 
which are rarely well studied in themselves, outweigh any potential benefits."

At Bud Buddies they focus on producing cannabinoids as opposed to 
cannabis. Cannabinoids, such as CBD and the psychoactive THC, are the 
chemical compounds within the plant that cause the "high" sought by 
recreational users. At the moment, Bud Buddies specialise in 
developing 1:1 oils, which means equal amounts of THC and CBD, as 
when combined they can be more effective. CBD also moderates the 
psychoactive effects of THC. This is the basic makeup of the 
pharmaceutical cannabis-based drug Sativex, which is used to treat MS.

"The most exciting development," says Ditchfield, "is the discovery 
of the effect of cannabinoids on cancer cells." According to Cancer 
Research UK, there isn't enough reliable evidence to prove whether 
cannabinoids can effectively treat cancer. However, research 
continues all over the world and last week scientists at the 
University of East Anglia showed that THC could in fact help combat 
the growth of cancerous cells.

Bud Buddies receives support and sponsorship from companies within 
the cannabis industry but also raises funding from books and seeds 
sales. This year, the organisation will open a cannabis dispensary in 
Puerto Mazarron.

Ditchfield has lectured about the medicinal properties of cannabis to 
the Royal College of GPs in London and to final-year pharmacy 
students at Liverpool John Moores University, and, with Mel Thomas, 
has written The Medical Cannabis Guidebook: The Definitive Guide to 
Using and Growing Medical Marijuana, due to be published later this 
year. Thomas joined forces with Ditchfield after serving a five-year 
sentence for production of skunk cannabis valued at UKP2.8m; this 
"horticultural expert" (as the trial judge called him) now uses his 
skills to help Ditchfield with the production of medicinal cannabis.

Kem O'Sirus is 35 and from London. He began growing cannabis 12 years 
ago on a large scale with the sole aim of making money but after 
encountering a customer with arthritis he started giving it away as 
well. "I used to see growing as just a way to pay the bills. I was 
good at it and knew what to do. But having seen first hand the 
benefits of cannabis for sick people it changed my purposes. I am a 
medical user myself and take cannabis for depression and anxiety. I 
believe that cannabis as a medicine and health supplement is 
incredibly beneficial. I help who I can when I can. I do not charge 
and I never will. I didn't want a life where I was skulking around 
with boxes of weed and meeting dodgy people. I've got two kids and 
I'm the creative director of a business  I don't want to be a 
criminal. In my brain I feel like I'm doing the right thing." O'Sirus 
is able to fund this through the cannabis he sells to recreational 
users. "What they don't know is that they are subsidising the medical users."

O'Sirus makes a lot of his medicines from other growers' leftovers - 
a part of the harvest known as "trim", the leaves of the plant cut 
away from the actual flowers. "I'm a firm believer in using the whole 
plant. The things I've done from other people's rubbish are 
unbelievable. When you obtain cannabis this way you don't have to 
charge as 90% of growers will want to get rid of their trim. One 
man's rubbish is another man's gold."

Cannabis oil is a particularly sought after product for medicinal 
users and requires an extra stage of preparation once the plant has 
been harvested. The demand for oil is so high that many people who 
sell cannabis on the black market have started producing fake oil, 
which is often just hemp oil.

Sativex, which is made from cannabis extract, can cost up to UKP180 
and is only available on the NHS in a limited number of areas in 
Britain. It is rarely prescribed. "Most people who come to me can't 
afford Sativex. I can make them an oil for less than UKP10 that will 
have more or less the same effect," says O'Sirus. "The method I use 
most regularly is distilling the plant matter in alcohol. You're left 
with a black oil like a tar that tastes very bitter." He also makes 
food containing cannabis, to make ingestion easier. "I don't just 
hand out bags of weed."

O'Sirus has supplied medicinal cannabis to more than 100 people; he 
has 12 regular customers now with ailments ranging from rheumatism, 
back pain, RSI and insomnia through to more serious problems such as 
MS, motor neurone disease, Parkinson's and cancer. "I only help 
people I'm put in contact with directly. Usually only one degree of 
separation due to the risk involved. Everyone has to be safe." Most 
of them, he says, have never smoked a joint in their lives, let alone 
taken other illegal drugs.

"These are the people I like to help. It's all about changing 
people's perception of cannabis and its uses.

"I'm not saying cannabis is a magic cure but I can say I have seen 
first hand that it has alleviated pain. I've had failures and I've 
had people who haven't responded  it is not for everyone. I had 
someone who felt really sick and it just didn't agree with them. What 
I do know is that it is a very complex plant. It would be great to 
have the resources to carry out proper research - but until it is 
legalised it is just trial and error."

Names have been changed
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom