The bi-annual Cannabis Conference returns to Bonn, Germany, and brings the best and brightest medical cannabis researchers in the world together, but there was not a single politician from anywhere that wanted to learn more about the medicinal benefits of this particular plant.
By Sam Sabzehzar | September 10, 2011
Hot off the Press, Project CBD co-founder and O'Shaughnessy's publisher Fred Gardner shares the newest news that is unfolding on the story of cannabidiol (CBD). (Photo credit: Medical Marijuana 411)
When I return to Long Beach, California, I will have spent as much time in a chair in the sky than in a chair at a cannabis conference in Germany.
Long Beach, which has enough juevos to begin a regulations process at least, certainly should be sending delegates to conferences like these for that very reason.
Of course, as a resident in Long Beach I would hope they would listen to what I have to say, or what the doctors do, but the sad fact is they do not.
Perhaps Long Beach could reconsider hosting a medical cannabis conference of their own, although last time the MMJ community tried to hand over $100,000 to the city they wouldn’t give them a permit.
In fact, a hemp and sustainability day, the Healing of the Nations Festival in the bay, was recently cancelled because the city refused to grant permission to the group and most recently began harassing some of the individuals that were trying to bring events like this to Snoop Dogg’s hometown.
Seriously.
A sustainability event to be held in Long Beach, a city that wants to call themselves Green, although i would give them a little ‘g’ for green, not caps, thinks they can harass medical marijuana facilities, patients and providers, deny permits for a green festival because hemp and medical marijuana were to be discussed.
Ironic that a city that has trouble drafting medical marijuana regulations would ignore what the medical cannabis researchers are working on, as it could only benefit those tasked to create something they can’t seem to get their heads around.
The counsel, in their wisdom, do understand better than most cities that this is their job and they are willing to attempt the regulations, but until they understand the Endogenous Cannabinoid Signaling System, they will never grasp why the importance of this issue, medically speaking.
From the harm-reduction standpoint, it’s clear and undeniable that when society’s sanctions conflict with the freedom a human has to choose to ingest a plant, especially when it is proven to be safe and effective, prohibition does more harm than good.
However, we are strictly referring to the medicinal use of the herb, which was never removed from the Materia Medica and Pharmacopeia of Homeopathy, but remains illegal because the U.S. Government has decided they get to determine which herbs can be used for medicine.
Their answer: none.
To them, medicine is specific and consistent, and should be dosed according to the metric that doesn’t consider the science we have discovered since the war on drugs began unofficially in 1937.
Almost eighty-five years later, politicians are scratching their heads trying to figure out a way to regulate it.
All they need do is attend one of these conferences, and Patients Out of Time is the next one on the list so we at Medical Marijuana 411 are calling for elected officials throughout the country to attend the conference next spring, before a 2012 vote and before any more cities criticize what they don’t understand.
