Thanks Peter. The phrase was half-inched from Terence McKenna’s excellent book, “Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge.”
That would be so unfair to us country pumpkins… hot pizza is overrated as a munchies, crisps, pea nuts, Doritos, pickles…and cold pizza are all fine.
& don’t forget chocolate Hobnobbs
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Ultimately I will never agree with Cannabis useage, but I am coming to accept that the only way is legalisation,with strict regulation ,control,tax etc People found with ‘ Narbis who haven’t purchased it legitimately should face severe punishment
I must admit I am also uncomfortable with cannabis - but I am not sure why, is it that different from tobacco or alcohol?
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It’s about time, though not a user myself (it brings on projectile vomiting) this stuff is nature’s cure all. There’s a bloke in Canada that distills it to something akin to marmite. He claims to have cured a stage 4 cancer, glaucoma, high blood pressure, diabetes and another thing but I can’t remember what. He doesn’t charge for his product and risks imprisonment and fines every time he helps someone. The indigenous Americans were using it to cure all sorts till the US government decided to ban it because the big pharmaceutical companies can’t make money out of it. There’s a rule that says you can’t patent a natural product/plant so they just banned it. Queen Victoria used it for pain relief during labour and menstruation, used correctly it will not make you stoned. One of the main complaints is can lead to mental health problems but that is because the dealers have messed about with the THC levels to produce a product that makes you stoned is better for their business. The entire plant is so useful is excellent for building materials, replacing wood and paper products and if you are in a real hurry to build your house from Hempcrete you can get up to 3 crops a year from the same plot.
With the problem of global warming and diminishing natural resources this wonderful plant will go a long way to helping humanity, so long as the ultra rich feckers don’t get their mitts on it.
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Hmmm, claims such as these are usually spurious and rarley stand up to the most cursory inspection.
This claim also does not stand up to inspection.
Tobacco is a natural product but it has not stopped the tobacco industry making trillions out of it - yes, it is a bit inconsistent that tobacco is legal and cannabis not.
It’s also a myth that drug companies can’t make money from “natural products” - Aspirin is based on salicylic acid, originally extracted from Willow leaves, and still provides a healthy profit even today.
In terms of cancer treatment there are several classes of drugs which originated in the natural world.
Anthracyclines - from Streptomyces bacterium
Taxanes - Pacific Yew bark
Vinca alkaloids - Periwinkle family
Epothilones - produced by soil-dwelling myxobacteria (Sorangium cellulosum)
Camptothecin - from the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminata
In fact this 2015 paper estimated as many as 60% of anti-cancer drugs originate in nature.
Also drug companies are very, very, very good at making minor chemical modifications to known starting points to produce novel chemicals with more favourable properties (solubility, toxicity, efficiency etc) - it is, in many ways one of their fundamental activities - these novel compounds are entirely patentable.
Well, yes - drug dealers are in the business of selling ways to get high after all. But those self-same dealers probably have a stock of Heroin (diacetyl morphine) which, also, “used correctly” will relieve pain without intoxicating. It, and morphine, are widely used in hospitals.
I agree that hemp is a useful fibre, but I don’t think that is especially contentious.
But cannabis is not a “miracle substance” that is being suppressed due to some global conspiracy - the simple truth is that if it or a derivative, were unambiguously effective as a medicine we’d already be using it. There is some research and it might have some use as an analgesic/anxiolytic but it is simply not established or that interesting therapeutically.
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this is a research paper on medicinal cannabis, long read but quite interesting. Israel is on the forefront of cannabis research, but until big pharma is ready to file patents on new drugs…
You still get ill informed people demonstrating when farmers grow hemp for fibre.
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They are always ready to do that.
But if you read the paper that Bettina quoted you will find that cannabinoids have some modest results as an anti-emetic, anxiolytic, antispasmodic, and analgesic for neuropathic pain but do not stand out anywhere in particular.
Were they as, or more, effective than existing treatments - trust me - the pharmaceutical industry would be all over it.
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Yeah, never underestimate the stupidity of humans in large groups.
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