Prescription Cannabis-Derived Medication Gets You Arrested in ireland
Posted on Thursday, May 29, 2008Here’s a story about a guy with MS, an appalling progressive illness. The only thing that alleviates his symptoms is medicinal cannabis, which he gets on prescription in Holland where he lives.
The problem is, he can’t come home to Ireland, even for a visit. He hasn’t been here in two years. Why? Because the idiot cops say they’ll arrest him for possessing pills made of cannabis. Medicine! We’re talking prescription medicine here, the only thing that eases his symptoms, but the fearless crime fighters won’t have it.
The British cops have no problem as long as he brings his documents on the way through, but do you think Paddy Plod can figure this out? Like fuck! They’re gonna track down this desperate criminal and put him away for a long time. The fools.
Maybe someone would point out to these idiots that heroin is illegal too, and is actually dangerous, yet heroin is administered every day in our hospitals, on prescription. Cannabis tablets, on the other hand can’t be used to ease the suffering of a man with multiple sclerosis, but when his disease gets so bad he’s screaming, they’ll have no problem giving him heroin. Where’s the logic in that? Where’s the humanity?
Deadly dangerous, these prescription cannabis pills. Remind me again about the heart drug that Elan had to withdraw a few years back after it killed hundreds of people. That was legal, wasn’t it?
Oh for fucksake, sometimes I think this country is run by complete dim-wits.
Let’s have a song to cheer us up.
Stumble it!
May 29th, 2008
Bock -
A gentleman here in the US was waiting on an organ transplant, kidney, I believe, and in end stage renal failure. A kidney became available. The organization who matched him with the kidney denied him the kidney because he had tested positive for pot.
He had been smoking pot because the medicine they had given him to keep his existing kidney quasi functional was causing him to vomit constantly, and he could not eat.
He died as a result.
He died because some fucking stupid asshole has a stick up their ass about some pot.
Obviously this makes me angry.
Pot grows out of the earth. Pot is not a substance that you cut up with gasoline or have to treat with other substances in order to make it into a drug that can be consumed readily by people. It is one of the most natural substances on the planet. I cannot stand all the ridiculuous wrangling that goes on and on in the media and the political arena about this. Why is it anyone’s business? How is it more harmful to smoke a joint than it is to smoke a cigarette? Or drink a pint? Aren’t both of those as harmful if not more so than grass?
And Bush is a moron. Pot is not a gateway drug. You do not smoke pot and then get hooked on crystal meth. You do not smoke pot and then run out and get hooked on other drugs.
Maybe I should stop writing before I take up your entire comments section.
Decriminalize now! Don’t we have better uses of our law enforcement personnel than cracking down of folks who like to eat munchies and take naps?
May 29th, 2008
I was talking to a guy who has MS, last week. He’s been prescribed and takes a spray and thinks it’s sh1t. He says he wants the real thing.
I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard for the guy from the Netherlands to fly to Belfast and drive down to Galway relatively unnoticed, if he really wanted to.
May 29th, 2008
Cool song Bock, thanks. Who is it?
May 29th, 2008
Bock, While in Dubai, UAE this winter I went to a drug store and got some pills for gout as well as an NSAID painkiller. Please note I didn’t say a narcotic or opiate based painkiller. I packed both of these in my suitcase and thought nothing of it. When I got home I look them up and found out they are, ‘Controlled Substances’, here in the US. Had I been caught I would have gone to jail for smuggling Cataflan and Zyloric, both bought from the Super-Care pharmacy in Bur Dubai.
Personally, I think one should be able to go to your local Wal-Mart and buy all the pot, hash, coke, ecstasy, Quaaludes or whatever you want.
May 29th, 2008
Bock what’s going on? You depress us with sad stories then throw in a song. I’ll have an emotional collapse one of these days reading your site. One of these days. One of them.
May 30th, 2008
the inmates have taken over the asylum, sugar! i’ll have yet another example over at my place tomorrow. xox
May 30th, 2008
things jest don’t make sense sumtimes :/
ps. I’m voting for Captain Kirk for US President! ;D
May 30th, 2008
Eliza, that is horrific. What must the poor man’s family be going through.
MS is a terrible illness, I’ve seen some of its handiwork. It’s wicked to withhold a medicine from someone suffering to that degree. Wicked.
It’s just a molecule and a relatively safe one at that, but some people have decided to call this molecule a drug rather than a medicine. The sooner medical marijuana is legalised the better. I reckon it should be legal anyway but while we fight that one out, let’s just give it to the people who desperately need that medicine.
May 30th, 2008
The guy was on the Pat Kenny Show this this morning (1st. item on show, will be available online later on rte.ie). Worth listening to. There was a man from the Dutch Dept. of Health (lucky fuckers, they actually have one that works) supporting his case while periodically allowing his jaw to drop at the reaction of Health Board pencilpushers here to the request to allow the man bring his medicine in. The notion that producing documents to show it is a heath related issue seemed beyond them.
In fairness, Kenny gave a sympathetic ear and wondered out loud about the usual ham-fisted bureaucratic mess that passes for a Health Service here.
May 30th, 2008
Eliza: Bastards!
d@/e : He could do that, but the point is the idiocy of the people who run the system.
Audrey: Rilo Kiley
Brian : There’s no logic behind any of it.
Yobbah: It’s my job. Sorry.
Savannah: I’ll check it out.
HGF: You might as well vote for Captain Flint, for all the difference it’ll make.
ProblemSam: Exactly.
Hoof: I just missed it. Over in Holland they have more than a working health service. They also have a fully-functioning country.
May 30th, 2008
Here’s a link to the show, Bock. Relevant piece is on just after the news bulletin and intro.
Lasts for 35 minutes or so.
Isn’t often I say it - but credit where it’s due -well done Pat Kenny for highlighting yet another shameful aspect of our Health “laws” and the mindless stupidity that treats human beings in this manner.
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/player_av.html?0,null,200,http://dynamic.rte.ie/quickaxs/209-rte-todaywithpatkenny-Friday.smil
May 30th, 2008
it’s daft alright. i think it’s worse in the states though. i believe that in some states it can be prescribed and in other states you can get life in jail for a pinch of pot.
June 1st, 2008
Hi Bock,
my comment re Capt Kirk was in reference to a vid I put on my blog. A funny satire on the current sad state of affairs.
Hi Savannah,
thanks for your comment on mah blog there, sugah!
Cannabis for medical uses is the same as Willow Bark: aspirin, Foxglove: Digitalis. The only difference being the mind altering inluence, so categorize it as a scheduled/controlled drug. Simple.
But, maybe that’s the problem…bureaucrats don’t understand simple. Or perhaps it’s the issue of the pharmaceutical lobby, and making money?
I do know that medical cannabis is allowed in certain counties in California. Hopefully, groups can lobby using the already present legislation (worldwide) to put pressure on their respective governments and allow for this (compassionate) use.
June 1st, 2008
yet another reason to vote YES for the lisbon treaty. Just say NO to hard cathofascism.
June 1st, 2008
just a quick observation here but it appears like commentators are of the opinion that lawmakers and bureaucrats are simple idiots (oh lord forgive them they know not what they do) sorry folks but they know well enough by now. typical traits of cathofascists are cruelty and begrudgery. legislation has its price, big pharma knows that and now so do you.
June 5th, 2008
Thanks!
It’s gr8 to sit down here and see the emails that you have written in reaction to Block’s post: I dont hear that kind of atttitude on this matter from (what I assume to be) Irish minds.
Block, the song is great: very appropriate too.
The situation in the US is changing, rapidly.
Currently, medi-cannabis may be prescribed in 12 states (with 8 more to vote on legislation this year). Currently it is N.J. , then NY Michagan and I’m not sure about the running order. NJ is this month, soon.
They are currently hung up on the supply issue, and the assurance of quality control. I should think that my interview should clear that one up full-stop. We’ll see.
California was the first state in 1994, under Proposition 215 (a californian version of a state referendum). However, becuase it is still federally illegal, the Federal law enforcement agencies have been raiding places where the medi-weed is being grown.
this is obviously unnaceptable, and to remedy this the ACP (American College of Physicians - acp.org) issues a position paper in Feb 2008.
There are a few basic demands from the Federlan US government: for instance: stop arresting MS patients on Federlan warrants who are legally prescribed cannabis medicines in their own home states.
You can read the Position Paper at the link underneath: it is 8 pages.
http://www.acponline.org/acp_news/medmarinews.htm
SEE ALSO THE VIDEO SUMMARY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8uJMyETu1M
When I contacted Joe Costello, the one TD in Dublin who actually picks up the phone himself when you call at random, Spokesperson for the Labour Party on Human Rights and European Affairs, I passed him the ACP report information. After all, the ACP is ‘the’ largest organisation of internist consultant physicians in the world and also publish the most cited medical journal of western medicine.
I also pointed out to Joe that the Legislative body in the USofA’s Houses of Congress (the House of Representatives) have already tabled a Bill in reaction to the ACP report’s call for legal indemnity NOW for patients prescribed medicines containing cannabis:
++++++++++
HR 5842 IH 110th CONGRESS 2d Session
H. R. 5842 To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES–April 17, 2008
++A BILL++ To provide for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States.
+++FULL TEXT = 2 pages @ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-5842
+++++++++++++
On the basis of this information I passed onto Joe Costello, he raised it as an issue in the Parliament of Ireland udner the Open Debates
(adjournment) on May 1st 2008. (that was, incidentally, the last day in the Dail as the Phantom Leader, after announcing his …intent… to resign 6 years, one month and one day after the law — that entitles me to travel anywhere in the European Union — came into force in the Republic of Ireland (May 1, 2002).
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20080501.xml&Node=H15-1#H15-1
He got nowhere… and Dep Kitt (from Galway would you believe it???) actually did the Minister of Fat’s job by offering up the answer she “didnt have time to do herself” (KFC had a promo that afternoon?). this answer is the same standard answer given since 2002: and is in rife contradiction to the under the table activities that the fat min has going on behind the scenes with big Pharma concerns and involving “live” patients subjects.
Testing is rigerous, I know. and if the research is already out there and open source: then why not let those people do other things with dignity during the last moments and weeks of their lives? Rather than become test subjects for a foreign company?
It’s strange for me becasue I have not been keeping up with the expansion of this super state we live in. The list of embassies that have confirmed the authenticy of this ’schengen medical certificate to carry narcotics and/or psychotropic substances in accordance with article 75 of the Schengen convention’ include Romania and Bulgaria I learned from my attorneys.
Also, what I find astonishing, is that the Republicas des Irlandes stymied the entry of some eastern-Euroepan states while BH was El Presidente of the EU Council in 2004, on the very grounds that those states ‘had not fully implemented the Schengen acquis to standard in their territories’ (acquis is the collective name for the convention and all ‘Decisions’ made since).
And yet ‘Lo and Behold!’: it now appears to the Commission that it is the Republico del Dous Points that has been talking out of the side of its mouth and pointing the finger at countries trying to get into the Union, while at the same time not even taking care of business at home.
I remember this fella at school in Ballinasloe BNS who used to always be pushing the other kids around and throwing out random clouts.
That is exactly how Ireland now appears on the front pages of the Dutch press this week as they begin to look into this storyline deeper and deeper. Radio, television, all booked up.
Maybe for people living in a state bereft of healthcare (I base that statement on the emails from Irish MS patients forwarded to me via the PatKenny show)…maybe for people living ‘there’ : this is “just another one of those sad stories to moan about and be philospohical….. but not here.
++++++
Or are they talking out of the side of their mouth? There must be some method to this behavious somewhere.
The same Schengen Convention signed by Mr “J” O’Donohue (Min of Justice, Irish Rep.) on 28 Feb 2002 [Google: (2002/192/EC)]
was quickly applied as the legal basis for a “flurry” of FF legislation that WAS PASSED INTO LAW promptly by the FF government:
-Special powers of confication of properties (also abroad) (aka CAB)
-Immigration and Naturalisation ACt 2002 (No expence spared!: the deportations commenced already on April 8th, incl. Czechs! & minors, just 7 days later!!!)
-sepcial powers to tap into the Schengen SIS secret police information new-age big brother international database on criminals and suspects.
-other various ‘handy’ things that the rulers in Dublin Castle thought to themselves: “nice one Brussels”.
other stuff in the agreement signed by J ODonohue were just forgotten about: like the clauses on “Civil Protection” and “Citizens Liberties” … so much for the words “Committments” and “Dublin” even appearing in lights together again!!!
For the press here in the Benelux:
the idea that there is a British Company operating in Ireland test tubing “Live” Irish suffering patients for the benefits of “their own” corporate catalogue, with the Minister of Fat’s expressed consent; juxtaposed against that government’s resolute statements and threats to Dutch patients who are using an “already complete” Dutch product, made in holland, is stalinist protectionism and one does not need to encourage them to want to put a swift end to that whole type of behaviour whereever in the world that they encounter it: this is the home of the free, internal market after all. Thankfully there is a good Commissioner for the Internal EU MArket who will surely and swiftly put an end to this conflicting situation of protectionism in Europe. ( SEE: Eilish O’Regan INDO-Tuesday July 27 2004 -Mind & Body this week: cannabis and pain relief:
“Waterford Regional Hospital is the second healthcare facility in the State to be granted a licence to import cannabis extract for pain relief. A hospital in Cork has also been given the green light.
The trials are being done in conjunction with GW Pharmaceuticals, a UK drugs company which has been involved in similar tests with multiple sclerosis sufferers for the past three years.”
SO THERE IS NOW THE SITUATION of this statelet, on the very far edge of Europe; which is about to decide some major shisse for all of the european superstate members:
and yet this is a state that would deny the Human Rights of their own citizens who only wish to be able to visit their ill mother, in order to protect their “digout?” ‘protectionist’ and preferential ‘business relationship’ with a multi national British Pharma company:
and this (nodisasgoodasawink) ‘agreement’ between a ’state’ on the one hand, and Big Business on the other, so that a foreign Pharma company can come into Irish hospitals to perform ’secret’ research on ‘live subjects’ (Irish subjects who are dying, did I mention that?) .. and that for an unknown licence fee to hte state, what’s more, that company can pack up and head off with all the research information that they have ‘harvested’ from the (dying) Irish during their ‘experimentations’ in Irish hospitals with a substance that the state insists, incidentally, is a ‘pure threat’ to public health. (Launching the National Drugs Strategy in 2002, Noel Ahern even dubbed it “evil”.
Well… there I go again: getting confused between the “Amshterdam drugs types” and the cannabis meds I get provided to me by the Dutch Min of Health via my local pharmacy and only on prescription from the GP each, and every, time I run out.
And what about Universal sufferage: my lawers tell me that it is unconstutional to proceed with the referendum on June 12 is the government refuse to permit me to travel unhindered to the polling station at Ballinasloe Boys National School on Sarsfield Avenue at home in B’sloe.
The Irish Authority have already sucessfully blocked me from entering for the General Elections 2007: but I would like to see them try while most of the constitutional lawers working in the various International Courts in Den Haag are watching them unflinchingly.
this will be a lot of fun to watch.
PS sorry if Ive forgotten some of the links, my arms get a little tired after a while)
Bye, and thanks for the “medeleving” (look it up on google translate!@:)
Noel
June 5th, 2008
Good man, Noel! We’ll fight these idiots for you!
September 26th, 2008
Man, why aren’t you running for President? The government is really messed up. Cannabis can help out so many. You see all the ads on television for a different medications. Shit, the side effects are more detrimental than whatever illness a person has. I totally agree with you! We all need to unite and stand together. You rock! Thank you for this!
Sincerely,
Ruby
September 26th, 2008
Hey, I just sent you a comment and would like to be notified with a follow up comment via my email. Thanks again!
Ruby
September 26th, 2008
Sorry, Ruby. I don’t provide a personal email service to commenters. There’s a box you can tick to receive an automatic confirnmation.
September 26th, 2008
hi Ruby- Are you trying to get in touch with me?
Noel