CBD Oil Reduces Seizure Activity but Without the Side Effects of Cannabis Preparations of the leaves and resin of the cannabis plant have been in use for more than 2,000 years. First introduced into western medicine in the mid-19th century, cannabis was prescribed in the past for a diverse range of complaints including anxiety, arthritis and rheumatic disorders, migraine and painful menstruation. A cannabis derivative, nabilone, is effective in treating nausea and vomiting brought on by chemotherapy treatment in cancer patients. The benefits of cannabis in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have been well described. It reduces muscle cramps and relaxes bladder and bowel sphincters. And it has been shown to reduce the pressure in the eyeball that leads to glaucoma. [continues 371 words]
Cbd Oil Dispensed in Several US States but No Doctor Here Will Prescribe It Cork Mother Made Plea to Minister for Health but Says His Hands Tied by Law The mother of a six-year-old girl with a rare and catastrophic form of epilepsy fears her daughter will die unless a consultant goes out on a limb and prescribes cannabis oil to lessen her seizures. Ava Barry from Aghabullogue in Co Cork endures hundreds of seizures every year. Her mother, Vera Twomey, fears her daughter's life will be cut prematurely short unless a doctor prescribes cannabis oil which has been known to control the severity and number of seizures. [continues 541 words]
Legislation criminalising the possession of illegal drugs reinforced the stigma associated with addiction, Independent Senator Lynn Ruane has said. She said the relentless war on drugs had failed long ago, with the addict becoming collateral damage. "We cannot continue to separate the addict from the dealer," she said. Ms Ruane told the Seanad she had dozens of conversations in recent weeks with people who both sold and used substances. Ms Ruane was speaking during a debate on the Misuse of Drugs (Amendment) Bill, including prescription drugs sold illegally within the remit of existing legislation. [continues 151 words]
Stanton Also Wants Traveller Ethnicity Recognised A NEWLY appointed junior justice minister wants personal possession of all illegal drugs to be decriminalised as part of the Government's plan to tackle gangland crime. Minister of State for Equality, Migration and Integration, David Stanton, also plans to use his new position to convince Fine Gael colleagues to recognise the Travelling Community as a distinct ethnic minority group. Speaking for the first time since taking office, Mr Stanton also revealed Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald is supportive of both proposals. [continues 517 words]
Sir, As a society, we need a serious and grown-up conversation about the drug policy in this country. I am not going to suggest what should be done, just some facts as I see them. I do this purely in the hope that a full and honest discussion takes place across this republic on how this issue affects people's lives and what policy should in future be pursued. Some drugs bring very serious health issues for people abusing them. Using illegal drugs is, by definition, against the law, and a so-called war has been waged against drugs by the three arms of the State for decades. [continues 231 words]
Most Drug Dealers Don't Live in Some Fine Pad on the Costa Del Sol, They Actually Live With Their Mammies. THE news that another man has been killed in a war fuelled by money made from drug dealing, begs the question how long are we going to tolerate the illegality of drugs. Yes, the word used is tolerate! How long are we going to tolerate a situation where drug money is fuelling the murderous activity of drug gangs, while the use of drugs is not decreasing, but increasing. [continues 1062 words]
The way to deal with drugs gangs is through their bank accounts by legalising certain drugs, Independents 4 Change TD Clare Daly told the Dail. During a debate on criminal gangs following the feud in Dublin in which seven people have been killed, she said there were "massive profits in the drug trade as a result of our policy of prohibition". The Dublin Fingal TD said legalising cannabis would develop a revenue stream for the State and would also be a "lucrative first step into the profits of many of these gangs. If we really want to deal with them, we must deal with them through their bank accounts." [continues 199 words]
The 'war' on drugs was lost before it had ever begun. The futility of prohibition is finally beginning to dawn, writes Dan O'Brien EFFORTS to stop people taking intoxicants will be in vain for as long as human nature is as it is. The downsides of prohibiting substances that people want to consume outweighs the upsides. For softer drugs, such as cannabis, the case for decriminalisation is overwhelming. These realities are at last having an effect on the debate in many countries, Ireland included. Just last week the Mexican supreme court in a majority decision ruled that a "cannabis club" was not breaking the law by growing and transporting the drug for its members' recreational use. North of the Rio Grande, some US states have decriminalised marijuana in recent years and many more are allowing its use for medicinal purposes. [continues 1034 words]
Regarding Jillian Godsil's article about the alleged War on Drugs ( Irish Independent, August 21), apparently it is over. When was it ever happening? So ferocious has the State's war on drugs been that drugs are bought and consumed with gay abandon. There has been de facto decriminalisation of drugs in this country since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, so closely modelled on the UK's equivalent Act of 1971. Ms Godsil knows perfectly well that people who have lung cancer cannot choose to stop having lung cancer. People who take drugs can and do choose to stop. Ms Godsil admits that she smoked cigarettes for 20 years. If her "addiction" was incapable of being defeated then, surely she could never have stopped? But she did. She chose to stop. [continues 196 words]
Portugal went the whole hog and decriminalised drugs. There was an outcry at the time, but the country is doing well. Criminal gangs are displaced, and money once spent on policing the bad guys (including the addicts) is now spent on helping them NOT for the first time, Peter McVerry has called it. The war on drugs is over, he says. They're available on every street corner. He even prefers the option of legalising drugs, not merely decriminalising them, opting for the methadone distribution model which has in effect decimated the criminal sales of methadone as well, ensuring the quality of the product available. Fr Peter McVerry believes the war on drugs cannot be won using current battle plans [continues 727 words]
THREE detectives were slashed with a knife and then attacked by a pitbull dog when they went to carry out a drug search at a house in Co Louth yesterday morning. The incident happened in the rural townland of Sandpit, between Termonfeckin and Drogheda, at around 10am. Gardai from Ardee station arrived at a property with a search warrant. Sources said that a man, originally from Dublin, lashed out at the three men with a number of knives when he answered the front door. [continues 307 words]
The harmful effects of cannabis and its role as a gateway illicit drug have been confirmed in a large study published last week. It looked at the frequency of cannabis use before the age of 17, and seven developmental outcomes up to age 30. The Antipodean researchers found that those who are daily cannabis users are over 60 per cent less likely to complete secondary school or to complete a degree compared to those who have never used the drug. Published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry, the authors also found that daily users of cannabis during adolescence are seven times more likely to attempt suicide, and are eight times as likely to use other illicit drugs in later life. [continues 215 words]
New Research That Links Cannabis With Depression and Suicide in Teens Is Nothing Short of Alarming One of the more idiotic statements made by Bill Clinton throughout his career was that as a student he smoked cannabis, but didn't inhale. That statement sprang to mind during the week when the results of a study on cannabis use in the student generation, were published in the medical journal The Lancet. But at least, despite his somewhat ambivalent moral attitude, ex-President Clinton's progress in life was not impeded. Others in his own age group and younger may not have been so lucky: The Lancet research found that young people who smoke cannabis daily in their teen years are 18 times more likely to become dependent on the drug than those who have never smoked it. They are also eight times more likely to use other illicit drugs than those who never smoked cannabis. [continues 711 words]
More than half of young Irish people think cannabis should be regulated, according to a new EU survey. The Eurobarometer survey was carried out by telephone for the European Commission between June 3rd and 23rd. There were 500 Irish participants among 13,130 interviewees across Europe. It focused on young Europeans and dealt with levels of drug use, perceived risk of certain substances, as well as opinions on regulating drugs and dealing with drug problems in society. The survey found some 56 per cent of young Irish people believe cannabis should be regulated, an increase of 15 per cent since the last survey in 2011. [continues 215 words]
Use Of Methadone In Mountjoy Criticised By Prisons Oversight Group Prisons are still struggling to tackle drug and staffing problems, according to the latest round of prison visit reports released by the Department of Justice today. One of the reports, which were compiled by prison visiting committees for various detention centres across the State, expressed severe reservations over the introduction of methadone into Mountjoy Prison's low security Training Unit. Committee members voiced concerns over the highly-addictive nature of the drug, which is used to wean addicts off opiates such as heroin, but acknowledged some successes of the fledgling system introduced earlier this summer. [continues 452 words]
THREE years ago, the UN Global Commission on Drug Policy announced that the world had lost the long war against illegal drugs. Its 22 eminent members concluded that there remained only one feasible response: legalise the trade. The evidence they had studied was overwhelming. The fight had resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in turf wars and in ever-increasing power and wealth for the criminal syndicates. Tens of millions were incarcerated, often in prisons where dangerous drugs were as easily available as on the outside. [continues 616 words]
A CITY-CENTRE phone-box turned drug den is to be removed after a four-year campaign. Four Eircom phone-boxes, at 19-20 South Great George's Street, which were being used for injecting heroin, have been listed for removal by Dublin City Council (DCC). "It became a ghetto. They were constantly being used for taking drugs, hiding drugs and dealing drugs," said independent councillor Mannix Flynn. Mr Flynn had been campaigning for their removal for four years after he became inundated with complaints from local businesses and residents, who had become afraid of the area. [continues 269 words]
Sir, - Further to Simon Carswell's "The highs and lows of legalised marijuana" (July 12th), which examined the legal status of the drug in the US, it is clear that the days when politicians could get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of marijuana prohibition is to subsidise violent drug cartels and open a gateway to the harder drugs they sell, prohibition is a grand success. The drug war distorts supply and demand dynamics so that big money grows on little trees. If the goal is to deter use, marijuana prohibition is a catastrophic failure. [continues 108 words]
Decriminalised in Brooklyn and Legal in Washington State, the Drug Has Had a Big Week in the US Buying marijuana in the United States for recreational (read: fun) purposes may be legal in two American states now but for some it is far from acceptable, as security guard Mike Boyer learned to his cost. Boyer (30), from Spokane in Washington, stood in line for almost 20 hours waiting to become the first customer on "Green Tuesday" to buy recreational marijuana in one of 334 retail dispensaries licensed to sell grass. The shops opened this week two years after voters in the Pacific northwest state voted to approve its sale. [continues 686 words]
The outgoing Minister of State for Primary Care Alex White has removed legal impediments to the use of medicinal cannabis . In one of his final acts in the Department of Health before moving to his new role as Communications Minister, Mr White signed regulations enabling the sale of products that alleviate symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Approval for their use in Ireland was dependent on changes to the Misuse of Drugs Regulations under legislation controlling supply and possession. It will pave the way for the sale of drugs such as Sativex, with extracts from the the cannabis plant. There are also changes to methadone prescriptions, requiring handwritten details of patients and details of dosage. [end]
Inside Ireland
