We have driven from Nimbin with the Big Joint to ask that you consider an inquiry into the consequences of prohibition on our society. It has devastated our community, glamourizing drug use for young people and creating a black market which lures many into a criminal lifestyle.

Recent increased policing in our village has actually created more dangerous drug use as people turn to powders and pills to avoid detection. Ice has replaced pot for many young people. There have been several deaths.

An important point we need you to please check out. Cannabis is uniquely fat soluble and remains in your blood for 2-3 months after use. All other drugs leave no trace after a day or less. Accordingly, statistics from hospital admissions give a distorted picture of what drugs people are using. We suspect your advisors are blaming cannabis for more than it really causes. Please look at this important point.

Prohibition has also created disrespect for other good and sensible laws.

Please get back to us on the issue of blood tests distorting cannabis figure. Bronwyn Bishop is quoting around ten percent of Victorian hospital bed usage is due to cannabis! Where do these figures come from?

Yours sincerely

 Michael Balderstone

 

President Australian Hemp Party

P.O. Box 177, Nimbin 2480.

31 May 2006.

FOOTNOTE: We would have written a much different letter had we possessed the press release below, which of course we couldn't, seeing as how it wasn't released when we wrote the letter above...

Cannabidiol Dramatically Inhibits Breast Cancer Cell Growth, Study Says

June 1, 2006 - Naples, Italy
Press Release

Naples, Italy: Compounds in marijuana inhibit cancer cell growth in animals and in culture on a wide range of tumoral cell lines, including human breast carcinoma cells, human prostate carcimona cells, and human colectoral carcinoma cells, according to preclinical trial data published in the May issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

Investigators at Italy's Instuto di Chemica Biomolecolare assessed the anti-cancer activity of various non-psychoactive cannabinoids - including cannabidiol (CBD), cannabigerol (CBG), and cannabichromine (CBC) - in vivo and in vitro. Researchers reported that CBD acts as a more potent inhibitor of cancer cell growth than other cannabinoids, including THC, and noted that the compound is particularly efficacious in halting the spread of breast cancer cells by triggering apoptosis (programmed cell death).

Cannabigerol and CBC also possess anti-tumor properties, but lack the potency of CBD, they found.

"These results suggest the use in cancer therapy for cannabidiol," investigators concluded.

Previous studies have shown cannabinoids to reduce the size and halt the spread of glioma (brain tumor) cells in animals and humans in a dose dependent manner. Separate preclinical studies have also demonstrated cannabinoids to inhibit cancer cell growth and selectively trigger malignant cell death in skin cancer cells, leukemic cells, lung cancer cells, and prostate carcinoma cells, among other cancerous cell lines.

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, "Antitumor activity of plant cannabinoids with emphasis on the effect of cannabidiol on human breast carcinoma," is available online at:

http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/cgi/reprint/jpet.106.105247v1

Additional information on cannabinoids' anti-cancer properties is available in NORML's report, "Cannabinoids as Cancer Hope," online at:

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6814

DL: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6917