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LEAP’s Executive Director, Neill Franklin, visits Insite in Vancouver, where vulnerable people can meet the chemical part of their addiction in a legal, regulated environment. Witness a working model of the benefits of moving away from the criminalization of drug abuse.
Professor Nutt is currently the Edmund J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London. He received his undergraduate training in medicine at Cambridge and Guy’s Hospital, and continued training in neurology to MRCP. After completing his psychiatric training in Oxford, he continued there as a lecturer and then later as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in psychiatry. He then spent two years as Chief of the Section of Clinical Science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in NIH, Bethesda, USA. On returning to England in 1988 he set up the Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol University, an interdisciplinary research grouping spanning the departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology before moving to Imperial College London in December 2008 where he leads a similar group with a particular focus on brain imaging especially PET. He broadcasts widely to the general public both on radio and television including recent BBC Horizon on drug harms and their classification. He also lecturers widely to the public as well as to the scientific and medical communities; for instance has presented three time at the Cheltenham Science Festival and several times for Café Scientifiques. In 2010 he was listed as one of the 100 most important figures in British Science by The Times Eureka science magazine.
The Failure of Cannabis Prohibition in BC, November 10, 2011
Stop the Violence BC, a group of experts from British Columbia calling for an end to marijuana prohibition, hosted “Down to the Wire – the Failure of Cannabis Prohibition”, the first in a series of events designed to bring attention to destructive cannabis laws.
Panelists spoke about the costs of cannabis prohibition to public health, safety and, perhaps most importantly, youth in Canada and around the world.
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU) is uploading video from the 2011 Drug Policy Alliance Conference in Los Angeles. Here is a sample.
Check out the HCLU Youtube channel link below for more.
Coalition of BC Law Enforcement, Health and Academic Experts Call for Marijuana Legalization and Regulation to Reduce Gang Violence
New Polls Shows 87% of British Columbians Link Gang Violence to Organized Crime’s Control of Marijuana Trade
October 27, 2011 [Vancouver, Canada] – In the wake of high-profile gang violence related to the illegal marijuana industry in BC, a new coalition of academic, legal and health experts has released the first of a series of reports and polling results aimed at pressuring politicians to legally regulate marijuana sales under a public health framework.
The Angus Reid poll says 87% of BC respondents link gang violence to organized crime’s efforts to control the province’s massive illegal cannabis trade while the report, called Breaking the Silence, clearly demonstrates that cannabis prohibition in BC has been ineffective and caused significant social harms and public safety issues.
“From a scientific and public health perspective we know that making marijuana illegal has not achieved its stated objectives of limiting marijuana supply or rates of use,” said Dr. Evan Wood, a coalition member and Director of the Urban Health Research Initiative at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “Given that marijuana prohibition has created a massive financial windfall for violent organized crime groups in BC, we must discuss alternatives to today’s failed laws with a focus on how to decrease violence, remove the illicit industry’s profit motive and improve public health and safety.”
The new coalition, Stop the Violence BC, released the report in tandem with results from an Angus Reid poll that overwhelmingly demonstrates that lawmakers lag far behind public opinion on revamping marijuana laws in BC.
Breaking the Silence: Cannabis prohibition, organized crime, and gang violence
PROHIBITION is a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick that tells the story of the rise, rule, and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the entire era it encompassed
Watch the full episode. See more Ken Burns.
Leaf introduces Dr. William Courtney and Kristen Peskuski of Cannabis International; along with the people involved in researching, promoting, regulating and benefiting from raw cannabis.
Dr. Courtney is a physician and researcher from Mendocino, California, who gives medical marijuana approvals to qualified patients in Mendocino and Humboldt Counties. Kristen Peskuski is a researcher and patient who put her systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, interstitial cystitis, and numerous other conditions into remission juicing fresh cannabis.
They help make sense of the science behind patient’s recoveries from a diverse range of medical conditions. Attorneys, physicians, law enforcement, medical care providers, patients and their families discuss their experiences with medical cannabis. They specifically focus on juicing fresh cannabis, which is non-psychoactive and contains medical properties 200-400 times stronger than traditional, heated cannabis.
Patients have reported success with osteo and rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune disorders, cancer and many other conditions using this unique therapy.