Comments on: Cameron backs cannabis for medicinal use

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 17:30:14 +0000

Newmania, I agree with your points. Unlike some of the other comments here, I suspect you actually know what you are talking about.
It is about the right of people to make choices themselves and not have them made for them by a nanny state.
Many people here seem to base their opinions on the subject on media horror stories.
Very little of the Cannabis consumed in the UK is Skunk, for example, it’s a media myth.
Also, as Newmania says, many younger people under 40 use cannabis from time to time- and find it more socially acceptable than alcohol. Many of these are Tory voters also.

By: Jean-Luc Picard

Jean-Luc Picard — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 20:07:43 +0000

So many people use the tired phrase ‘using cannabis for medicinal use’ when they are just on the first level to far worse things.

By: David Allen

David Allen — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 13:30:29 +0000

N _ your libertarian instincts are admirable! BUT… the kind of cannabis that today’s legislators smoked in their youth is probably very unlike the cannabis their kids/ grandkids are smoking today. Skunk and other varieties have been bred in labs to have vastly greater psycho-active effects than comoon garden cannabis. Heroin (diamorphine) is a far cleaner drug _ and safer to give to your kids _ if it were a measured, small dose of the pure stuff _ than street-bought cannabis. Most adults in Britain have probably had it at one time or another without even realising it.

By: newmania

newmania — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 11:50:25 +0000

david -paranoid/ schizo/ lose all motivation thru chronic/ heavy use of this drug….

Oh come on David its been safely used by millions for about 30 years now . It doesn`t play badly with people who know users it plays badly with old buffers and aunties who do not know one drug from another and have never seen such a thing , as well you know .I have some concerns but all recreational drugs have risks including those we accept as part of our lives.

Whats the point of further expert analysis such things are not neutral they will say what they are paid to say . This is a political descision about Liberty and Risk not a medical one .

I `m suprised you are so wound up man; chill !There are also dangers in continuing to criminalise the majority of the law abiding population under 40.I would advocate a careful Liberalisation over time which seems a good middle way . Gosh you are right wing aren`t you.On this occassion I `m the Liberal…eeeek

By: Ellee

Ellee — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:44:53 +0000

I agree about the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, but don’t want to see it legalised for personal use. I do applaud David Cameron’s approach to this, the way he says he is relaxed about it.

By: Welshcakes Limoncello

Welshcakes Limoncello — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 20:05:24 +0000

For medicinal purposes, fine. The people to ask about this are the patients, suffering from very painful illnesses, who have been helped by the drug. I think Cameron has been wise and courageous to give a straight answer on this, yes. There is so much hypocrisy about it in general, though. It seems to me that in Britain, if you are of a certain class, you can get away with using cannabis for other purposes and your kids are less likely to be drawn into the world of harder drugs because they will not have to go to pushers to get it. But if you are not monied and of a certain class, you are doomed. I still wonder if all the deaths in their early to mid-fifties of those of my own generation are not somehow linked to the widespread use of “recreational” drugs in our youth. Yet, hypocrisy again… Didn’t bored Victorian women retire to their beds on a dose of opium?

By: David Allen

David Allen — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:55:45 +0000

I haven’t read Cameron’s remarks in full, so, I may be talking out of turn. But, as reported, this looks like a shameless appeal to yoof/ superrannuated hippies and the small minority of people with MS or close friends/ relatives with it. The fact is that cannabis, like tobacco, when smoked, produces a combination of thousands of chemicals, many of them highly toxic, carcinogenic, psychosis-indusing etc. The fact that some of those chemicals may have beneficial effects is not an argument to ‘legalise cannabis for medicinal use’. Instead it is an argument to lobby government and pharma industry to put (more) money into research into the chemical compounds within cannabis which can do good _ and to create targeted, ‘clean’ drugs out of these compound folowing rigorous, peer-reviewed clinical trials as you would for any other medicinal drug. EVER to talk of ‘legalising cannabis’ as such is foolish and will play badly with the thousands of families who have seen their loved ones turn paranoid/ schizo/ lose all motivation thru chronic/ heavy use of this drug….

By: dizzy

dizzy — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:48:55 +0000

I used to use cannabis regularly for medicinal purposes. That’s what I told myself anyway.

By: newmania

newmania — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 18:42:21 +0000

Tom it is of course only the start and a good thing to . We are in an absurd situation in this country when drugs have become an honourary poltical unsayable word. I would say the majority of people I know use cannabis from time to time and there is a growing awareness of what can or cannot be taken. Naturally the state must move in line with sensible freedoms reflecting the wishes of the electorate.

I am not a religious Libertarian on the subject . there is a place for the state to protect the weak from the predations of unscupuous vendors of addictive substances. There is on the other hand an irreducible Liberty issue and it cannot be ignored forever. A wise gesture in the right direction and sensibly it must be a slow and careful process .

By: Tom Paine

Tom Paine — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 17:39:34 +0000

I know, I know. He will legalise it only for medical use, but that’s a start.