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News Briefs

Thanks to Paul von Hartmann for forwarding NORML's newsletter. I'm not subscribed to this one and it's an especially good issue.

The lead item on a coalition of European NGOs criticizing the UN-sponsored drug prohibition policies at a symposium last week has some great quotes.

Former Interpol Secretary General Raymond Kendall said that the UN must "change its approach from repressive law enforcement" to one of harm reduction.

"The United Nations in 1998 set itself the aim of a drug free world by 2008," he said. "We are halfway down the road to 2008 and there are more drugs than ever. So much for the idea we have made progress."

Canadian Senator Pierre Claude Nolin, who chaired a 2002 Senate committee that recommended regulating cannabis to those age 16 and older, said: "A drug free society has never existed in human history and will not exist in the near future. ... Sooner or later, governments around the world will have to, in the names of transparency and honesty, acknowledge this massive failure."

It also has the details on Ann Arbor's annual Hash Bash and the new decrim law enacted in Western Australia.

Under the new statewide law, those who possess up to 30 grams of pot (approximately one ounce) and/or cultivate up to two marijuana plants will no longer face criminal charges.

I don't quite understand this provision though. Maybe they are worried about water usage?

The law expressly forbids cultivating marijuana hydroponically.

It also announces new clinical trial data to be published in the April issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry about recently completed studies on the treatment of human cells with cannabidiol. The results look promising in combating Alzheimer's disease.

It's well worth reading in full.