Posts by Ross Bell
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Allow me to shit on your parade: switch to Google.
-
-
-
Perfect summary of the situation, as usual, Russell.
I think what this case highlighted is that our Medicines Act can work really well, in that the minister has the ability to make these decisions.
It also shows that, fundamentally, we don't need to change our drug laws to allow medical cannabis (we do need to change laws for lots of other reasons though). All we simply need to do is have a much wider range of medpot products regulated under medicines law (and then have those fully subsidised). This could include for example homegrown equivalents of Bedrocan (who currently cannot maintain a regular supply in the Netherlands or in Canada, let alone importing to NZ).
[I'm not sure the cannabis reform people protesting outside the hospital and ministry were of much help (on this case or any other TBH).]
Minister Dunne is showing himself to be very open to this issue now.... he isn't going to come out tomorrow and free the weed, but my goodness he is open to looking at evidence (or at least directs his officials to look at evidence). My sense is that he doesn't want to be left behind as the world moves forward pretty quickly. He talked a lot to other govt folks about medical canabis at a recent UN meeting. And has been very open to meeting patient groups back home... saying recently he would happily reform any laws as necessary if they created barriers - advice from the Ministry is that there are few legal barriers to getting Medpot products approved (including approving NZ-based cultivation for research), but maybe some regulations that could be streamlined.
Watch this space. But don't expect revolution.
No comment on the PM's comments.
-
We interviewed "the real Omar" a while back. In his words “Until we come together as a people and say enough is enough, everything that’s happening is going to continue.”
-
In this paper, the author, Toby Seddon, argues we should embrace those online markets and include them as part of a overall new way of agile regulations (I paraphrase).
I think these sites are really quite useful ( as you've written about recently too, Russell), and should be seen as critical to innovative harm reduction.
[By the way, I can flick people a copy of Seddon's full paper, or check out his blog here: https://tobyseddon.wordpress.com/]
-
Thanks for the post Frank.
A quick question: why is your board all blokes?
-
Hard News: Talking to the United Nations…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Plus there's been a ridiculous Catch 22 with med cannabis: we don't have evidence about possible effectiveness because research funding has been withheld (US have only recently overturned its ban on federal money for med pot research). It's telling that many more pharmaceutical companies are moving into medical cannabis research... that should tell the minister something.
-
Wow, just wow. Peter Dunne has just released the speech he'll soon give at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in a couple of hours. Brilliant stuff (except the medical cannabis stuff - some work still to be done).
-
Hard News: We're in this together, in reply to Kevin McCready,
Pomo is *so* 1991.