P.C.B. & Soitiz Radio is on Mixlr
P.C.B. & Soitiz Radio is on Mixlr
Hi everyone.
I wanted to let you know about a MEDICAL CANNABIS education seminar for patients that I have helped organise in London, as part of a series for health professionals too. The organisation running it is called Medical Choices UKand they have been formed to continue running education, advocate for access and initiate research in the UK around medicinal cannabis.
London (Patients & Carers) – Thursday, 19th September 18:30-21:00
https://mcuk4.eventbrite.ca
Please like, share and help Medical Choices UK empower patients to have the knowledge to approach their doctors to ask if medical cannabis could treat their illness.
After years of planning, Ireland has finally moved ahead to decriminalize first-time drug offenders — and not just for cannabis.
Irish officials announced on Aug. 2 that the nation would be taking a public health approach to first and second offenses for the simple possession of small amounts of drugs.
The plan was announced late last week by Minister for Health Simon Harris, Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan and Minister of State Catherine Byrne. Byrne is also responsible for the nation’s national drug strategy. While the three didn’t completely see eye to eye on the details, they announced approval to develop a health-led approach.
“This is a very significant day. For far too long, we have only looked at drug use from a criminal justice perspective,” Harris said in the statement. “Addiction has impacted so many families and many communities. It is essential we look beyond the labels society forces on people with addiction, look to the person and how the system can help them.”
Ireland has been working on this plan since November 2015, when the then-Prime Minister Aodhán Ó Ríordáin announced that the country would take measures to decriminalize the possession of illegal drugs for personal use, in an attempt to combat the country’s drug addiction problems.
According to a statement from Harris’s office, there are two components to the new so-called “Health Diversion Approach.” After the Garda (that’s what the cops are called in Ireland) determine that the drugs they find are for personal use, offenders will be referred on a mandatory basis to the Health Service Executive for a screening and brief intervention. The second time, Garda will have the option to file a warning. Third time is where the criminal justice system starts to come into play again. And it’s on this third offense that the consequences for cannabis possession get a little hazy.
How Cannabis Possession Will Be Punished in Ireland
With cannabis, it will be important how the Irish police count the first two offenses. The law that’s still on the books governing cannabis in Ireland today is from the 1977 Misuse of Drugs Act. Section 27 of the law stipulates that a first cannabis possession offense warrants a fine of 50 pounds (now converted to euros) and a second offense means a fine of 100 pounds. On the third offense, the person faces a fine “not exceeding two hundred and fifty pounds or, at the discretion of the court, imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months, or both the fine and the imprisonment.”
But under the new health-focused plan, it’s not clear if people caught with personal amounts of cannabis will be charged the first and second fines or not. Will the fines only kick in after the third offense? Will the fines be dropped in favor of the Health Diversion Approach, still leading to that possible year in jail on the third offense? From the early going, it looks like the new law would supercede past stuff.
“Today is the start of a new approach,” Harris said. “One that offers people a helping hand, not handcuffs. One that offers a person a second chance. I strongly believe this will help us battle drug addiction and ultimately save lives.”
Ireland Continues to Push for Medical Cannabis
Not everyone is satisfied with how far the plan goes in decriminalizing drugs. Among them is Gino Kenny, who has led the fight for medical cannabis in Ireland since being elected a member of the lower house of Ireland’s Parliament, Dáil Éireann, in 2016. After years under heavy pressure from Kenny and families across Ireland, Harris signed a five-year pilot program for medical cannabis in Ireland earlier this summer.
“While I welcome the policy of diverting those caught in possession of drugs for personal use into the health system rather than the criminal justice system, I believe that limiting it to the first offense is effectively a halfway house rather than the full decriminalization that is warranted,” Kenny said in a statement to supporters on Facebook. “If we truly want to address drug use and addiction in society, we must adopt a progressive policy of a committed health-led approach rather than criminalizing people who need help rather than a prison sentence.”
Kenny went on to note it makes sense the law would mandate the health evaluation for harder drugs, but “referring individuals to the [Health Service Executive] for small amounts of cannabis, however, can only help clog up an already stretched service and would quickly become inoperable.”
Kenny says he wants an explanation of why full decriminalization wasn’t possible.
“It is progress, but it should go further if we are to stay in line with the global move towards a health-led approach to drug use and misuse,” Kenny said. “I am also calling for the expungement of prior convictions for personal possession so that everyone can now be included in this new process and avail of the benefits of a more health-led approach. It would be completely unjust to exclude those with prior convictions.”
MUSICAL SPOKEN WORD
DIY
You would expect better from a man who is paid to consider all available evidence, let me see your facts my lord
🖕
A judge has warned people to stop regarding cannabis as a recreational drug and said: “It is a killer.”
Judge Stuart Rafferty QC told him: “Come with me one day to a mental health unit and see people who are in drug-induced psychosis, almost always cannabis.
The judge said: “You were stupid enough or arrogant enough to commit the same offence again when on bail.
“That is the sort of warped thinking cannabis can produce.
evidence for public health on novel psychoactive substance use: a mixed-methods study
Novel psychoactive substance use continues to present challenges for legislating, monitoring, researching and developing interventions, but this research provided further empirical data and pragmatic suggestions for practice.
Higgins K, O’Neill N, O’Hara L, Jordan J, McCann M, O’Neill T, Clarke M, O’Neill T & Campbell A.
Public Health Research Volume: 7, Issue: 14, Published in August 2019
Medical Marijuana is Finally Legal in Ireland
Another nation joins the global green rush! Ireland residents suffering from cancer, multiple sclerosis, and epilepsy can soon treat their ailments with legal cannabis.
Forget four-leafed clovers. There’s a new emerald-green good luck charm coming to Ireland: legal cannabis.
This week, Irish Health Minister Simon Harris signed legislation beginning a five-year medical marijuana pilot program that will span the entire country. Once established, the program will import cannabis products from companies outside of Ireland, and empower local doctors and pharmacists to prescribe the plant for a select number of serious ailments.
“The purpose of this program is to facilitate compassionate access to cannabis for medical reasons, where conventional treatment has failed,” Harris said during a press conference announcing the medical marijuana legalization law, The Journal reported Wednesday.
After a regulatory and licensing period that Harris predicts will be finished by the fall, Irish residents suffering from epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, and nausea or vomiting associated with chemotherapy will be able to consult a physician or pharmacist to access THC and CBD products in the same way they would other prescriptions. And unlike state-specific legalization programs in the US, Harris said that patients in the forthcoming Irish medical cannabis program will be covered by insurance.
“Ultimately, it will be the decision of the medical consultant, in consultation with their patient, to prescribe a particular treatment, including a cannabis-based treatment, for a patient under their care,” Harris detailed, adding, “You will be assessed [financially] on the same basis – if you get the drug payment scheme you will be covered in that, if you have the medical card, you’ll be covered under the prescription charges, if you are on long-term illness, you will be covered under that.”
Harris said that Ireland would hopefully move to license local cannabis growers to supply products to the government-backed program, but that in the first years of operation, the country will license the import of marijuana from other European nations with relaxed cannabis laws.
Despite the groundbreaking step in cannabis reform for Ireland, Harris also made it abundantly clear that the medical program was not a skipping stone to full-scale recreational legalization.
“It is important to state that there are no plans to legalise cannabis in this country,” Harris told reporters.
Ireland’s medical marijuana pilot program will run unimpeded by the health minister for the next five years, and will be reassessed in 2024.
“Prescriptions cost between £600 and £800 a month but Prof Mike Barnes rejected any suggestion the clinic was exploiting patients.”
Hundreds of people in the UK are turning to private clinics for medical cannabis, BBC News has been told.
Since its legalisation in November 2018, there have been very few, if any, prescriptions for medical cannabis containing THC on the NHS.
And this has led some patients, with conditions such as epilepsy and MS, to pay up to £800 a month privately.
The government said it sympathised with families “dealing so courageously with challenging conditions”.
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