Pretty pictures

Just wanted to let folks who are interested know that the Cannabible 3 is coming out in late September. It looks pretty good, from the minute or so I had to look at it. I have no financial interest, it just seemed like a cool thing.

Did you mean: frijoles?

The editor-at-large of National Review online (whose magazine was formerly the home of William F. Buckley, Jr.) insists it is not inaccurate to spell frijoles with an h.

More on the administration’s war crimes

As is beginning to be admitted even by George Bush himself, the administration is lawless. While I am no adherent of following an unjust law, torture and mass murder are only the visible tip of this iceberg. It’s enough, stop this insanity.

The Heretik has more on this today.

Movie review

Doctor Biobrain gives a resoundingly good meta-review to the recent Disney propaganda.

Cannabis is medicine

How much money would you take to live the rest of your life in pain? To suffer, when you could treat yourself and feel better, except for the threat of having everything taken away from you? There are those who say that we have the best government money can buy, and there is a lot of truth to it, but some things cannot be bought. Your health, and the health of those you love, would be worth any expense if it could help.

The government lies and tells you that marijuana is unproven medicine. The standard of proof is in the benefit felt by the patients themselves, and the lack of toxicity at any dose. Ask any doctor who has closely examined people who treat their conditions with cannabis, and they will tell you it is very good medicine indeed. Such anecdotal reports are the only kind of data that we can collect when it is illegal to conduct research by ordinary means.

Even when scientific studies have been made (often in other countries, due to the intransigence of the United States government), they have tended to confirm not only symptomatic relief but actual improvement of many conditions. When the risks of cannabis are considered, they are found to be principally in the unfamiliarity of the patient with the effects. Studies which tried to show a cancer-causing effect failed to do so and even tended slightly to show a decreased risk, and it is now generally accepted that certain cannabinoids have a cancer-inhibiting effect. Many of the disadvantages of smoking can be overcome by using a vaporization device or eating cannabis.

Cannabis is medicine, and it should not be denied any further. You would never accept a law that prohibited you from taking the only thing that makes your life livable. No matter whether this is true of your particular circumstance you should be aware that it is very true for others. The prohibition of cannabis has to end and anyone who demands that patients suffer until some future time had better not wind up in less fortunate circumstances themselves.

New report summarizes the role of cannabis in moderating disease progression

Recently published clinical and preclinical research on the therapeutic use of cannabis indicates that cannabinoids may curb the progression of various life-threatening diseases — in particular, autoimmune disorders such as Multiple Sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease) — according to a comprehensive new report published today by the NORML Foundation. The NORML Foundation report summarizes over 120 recently published trials assessing the therapeutic utility of cannabinoids for the treatment of fifteen specific disease indications:

Alzheimer’s Disease | Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis | Diabetes Mellitus | Dystonia | Fibromyalgia | Gastrointestinal Disorders | Gliomas | Hepatitis C | Hypertension | Incontinence | Osteoporosis | Pruritis | Rheumatoid Arthritis | Sleep Apnea | Tourette’s Syndrome

“Despite continued political debates regarding the recreational use of cannabis, clinical investigations of the therapeutic use of cannabinoids are now more prevalent than at any time in history,” states the report’s author, NORML Foundation Senior Policy Analyst Paul Armentano. “In some of these cases, modern science is now affirming longtime anecdotal reports of medicinal cannabis users. In other cases, this research is highlighting entirely new potential clinical utilities for cannabinoids.”

Whereas initial clinical investigations into the therapeutic use of cannabis focused primarily on whether cannabinoids might provide symptomatic relief, investigators today are exploring the potential role of cannabinoids to inhibit the progression of several life-threatening diseases — including cancer, Armentano says. “Arguably, this latter trend represents far broader and more significant applications for cannabinoid therapeutics than researchers could have imagined some thirty or even twenty years ago,” he concludes. “Unfortunately, because of the US government’s strong public policy stance against any use of marijuana, the bulk of this modern research is taking place outside the United States and continues to go unrecognized in North America. Nevertheless, the emerging body of clinical and preclinical work published over the past six years makes it clear that the US government’s stance against the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids is based on politics, not science.”

Full text of the report, “Emerging Clinical Applications For Cannabis & Cannabinoids: A Review of the Recent Scientific Literature, 2000 – 2006,” is available online in HTML and PDF formats at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7002.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Foundation Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500 or via e-mail at: paul@norml.org.

Here is where I try to embed a video

Enjoy. Peter “the Angel” Gabriel as introduced by equally angelic Kate Bush and friends.

Update: replacement video:

Who’s running Iraq’s government?

Hat-tip to Attaturk.