Science and science fiction

NORML posts a short but scientific piece on research showing cannabis as containing compounds useful in the prevention of alcohol induced brain damage.

In other research, scientists have discovered that the ubiquitous (and I think frightening) Southern weed, kudzu, is useful in suppressing the urge to binge drink. Glad it's good for something.

Meanwhile, as predicted, GW Pharmaceuticals, license holder on Sativex, has launched its attack on drug policy reformers and natural cannabis with this press release. It starts like this.

If you are in the United States and are accessing this web page in response to a US advertisement funded by Common Sense for Drug Policy, please note that this advertisement is not endorsed by GW Pharmaceuticals. Indeed, GW disputes and rejects the contents of the advertisement.

GW believes that this advertisement deliberately attempts to obscure the clear distinction between Sativex® and crude herbal cannabis / marijuana. The advertisement ignores the critical role of our unique formulations, their delivery system and the rigorous requirements of the scientific method. Such statements, in our opinion, deliberately seek to create confusion, among members of the public and the medical profession, concerning the nature of Sativex® and the goals of the company's program.

You have to love the careful use of the word crude to describe a natural herb. I bet they paid someone a lot of money to think of that. Here's how they predictably end their propaganda piece.

Q: What type of cannabis-containing product should be made available to patients for medical use?

A: Only a scientifically-based cannabis-derived product, which meets the standards of modern pharmaceutical practice, and which has been approved by the appropriate regulatory agencies, would be suitable for distribution to patients as a prescription medicine.

In other words, cannabis is only good medicine if GW can gouge you for some big bucks to buy their synthesized version of the plant. Really now, how else do you expect the corporation to make an obscene profit?

How ironic that they're building their profits on the backs of the reformers who brought medical marijuana into acceptance as a medicine, while simultaneously attempting to destroy the movement's credibility. Guess they think they can get away with it because they have the High Priestess of hypocrisy, Andrea Barthwell, on board. What with shilling for Sativex while she's out lecturing on the "hoax" of medical marijuana, she's got working both sides of the fence down to an art.