Helen Kelly’s courage continues in face of death

1. Its a bloody disgrace……….. All power to you Helen we owe it to do. Cut the crap, booze and meth is used as a government ‘tool’ . Legalize cannabis NOW. (PS I don’t smoke)

2. Medical cannabis should be a medical issue and not a political issue. This seem self-evident but unfortunately those with an agenda wilfully conflates these topics.

   Medical cannabis should involve clinical trials. Is it effective in a placebo controlled manner? What dose is required? For cannabis naive patients what dose is need compared to habitual users?

   There has been little to no clinical trial to answer these questions.

   If it a medical therapeutic argument, lets have the trials. Not the pseudo-science arguments used to decriminalise or legalise recreational cannabis.
   Don’t conflate those two rationales, there is nothing more despicable than to use somebody suffering to further your agenda.

   • Allowing politicians to decide what is medicine and what isn’t medicine isn’t a political issue?
     I suggest that the next time you require some medical attention that you visit your local MP for treatment, that is what those seeking to use cannabis medicinally are currently forced to do.
     Or perhaps you should should seek medical advice from the police, they also like to claim that they are the experts when it comes to prohibited substances.
     The only thing standing in the way of medical trials of cannabis taking place IS politics.

     • i understand there are some early trials underway in Australia on dosing, side effects profile. Doesn’t make sense to wait for data like all other drugs. The cart before the horse.

       If it is just blow-hard reasoning, i could make good case for cocaine, ice/P for medicinal uses at the end of life. It will give you wings; a pick me up when energy level are low.

       As for the decriminalisation for recreational uses, we don’t the long term outcomes for the population.

       We know that access to the drug will increase as the price drops. The price will decrease as there is no risk of imprisonment, and grows like a weed. The social stigma will decrease.

       We know that cannabis use at a young age is linked to Schizophrenia in vulnerable people. Ten-fold the risk and is related to the amount cannabis use.
       IQ drops by 8 points. That means, fish filleting job instead of supervisor; nurse instead of doctor for individuals. How will this affect society?
       Health costs? Will the gap between rich and poor increase further? The gap between Maori and non-Maori?

       We found the effects of wide spread smoking on a population only after 20-30 years of research.

       Positive effects (medicinal) of widespread cannabis is negligible except that in decriminalisation there will be lower costs in enforcing the laws. As in the treasury report, those cost can be estimated but the full costs to society takes decades to be borne out.

   • Yes, medical and recreational are separate aspects of the cannabis issue, but how many times have we heard arguments for medicinal reform rejected because it’s a “slippery slope” towards recreational reform? So who is it fudging these two issues together? It’s become clear to advocates for regulated, legal cannabis sales to adults (over 18) that advancing our cause also helps the cause of medical cannabis. If we can end the hypocritical prohibition against recreational cannabis, medical professionals and patient advocates working specifically on medical marijuana reform won’t have to push back against so much ignorance and bigotry. More importantly, users and their suppliers won’t face arrest or imprisonment for while they are waiting for government-approved medical supplies to be established.

     Speaking of ignorance and bigotry, I’d also like to address your implicit claim that medicinal cannabis hasn’t been properly studied. Unlike NZ, many countries (and 17 US states) allow cannabis to be prescribed as medicine, and there have been hundreds, even thousands of peer-reviewed studies around the world on the medical use of cannabis. A quick web search on the keywords “database medical cannabis research” turns up hundreds of hits, the top three (today) being:
     http://www.safeaccessnow.org/research
     http://www.cannabis-med.org/studies/study.php
     http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/

     There is also a thorough review of the scientific literature on medical cannabis between 2000-2015 here:
     http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/recent-research-on-medical-marijuana

     • Proper studies are placebo blinded randomized trials. There are just doing basic dosing studies now. Your references are advocacy not science.

3. I fully agree Martin.
   It is the government who is criminal in situations similar to this – blinded by their own ignorance and bigotry!

   • ME TOO JONL,

     I DONT SMOKE ANYTHING, AND ONLY DRINK AT SPECIAL OCCASSIONS MAYBE TWO BEERS OR GLASSES OF WINE.

     BUT I DONT THINK CARABIS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL.

     MOST POLITICIANS SHOULD BE ILLEGAL !

     AS TO THE DAMAGE THEY ARE DOING TO US ALL AS THEY PLAN TO SHORTEN OUR LIVES WHEN WE GET TO RETIREMENT AGE.

     SO LEGALISE POT AND STOP KILLING US ALL WITH CHEMICALS IN OUR FOOD,WATER AND AIR.

4. How quick was Peter Dunne to legalize synthetic highs? he’s punishing Helen Kelly and others because she represents and fights for workers and the average person’s rights. The National government are cruel and amoral. Helen Kelly has tweeted that Labour has a bill for doctors to prescribe medical cannabis, this is a no brainier, and the government could make this happen right now with a stroke of a pen, just as quickly as the time it takes National to get it’s govt departments to fudge stats.

   Helen Kelly ‏@helenkellyUnion Jul 21 Wellington City, New Zealand
   Labour has Bill 4 Drs 2 prescribe med cannabis 4 terminal illness or perm pain. Prescribing wld b in hands of Drs. #illsuremissDrPeter

   https://twitter.com/helenkellyUnion

5. It’s scary the darkness and bigotry and cruelty this government moves in. As if there never was an enlightenment to human and decent values but a Dickensian response to suffering. These vile puppets of self interest and gain care not for ordinary kiwis.

6. she is very brave…she is fighting for everyone to have a pain free life

   • Helen is one of her kind at a level of Florence Nightingale or Ann of Arc.
     Helen truly is a spectacular heroine and a legend in her own time.

     Her name will join the halls of those who are famed in infamy.

7. We should vote for her for Nzer of the year.

8. What is the lethal dose of marijuana?

   According to which US Government authority you want to believe, the lethal dose of marijuana is either about one-third your body weight, or about 1,500 pounds, consumed all at once.

   In summary, enormous doses of Delta 9 THC, All THC and concentrated marihuana extract ingested by mouth were unable to produce death or organ pathology in large mammals but did produce fatalities in smaller rodents due to profound central nervous system depression.

   The non-fatal consumption of 3000 mg/kg A THC by the dog and monkey would be comparable to a 154-pound human eating approximately 46 pounds (21 kilograms) of 1%-marihuana or 10 pounds of 5% hashish at one time. In addition, 92 mg/kg THC intravenously produced no fatalities in monkeys. These doses would be comparable to a 154-pound human smoking at one time almost three pounds (1.28 kg) of 1%-marihuana or 250,000 times the usual smoked dose and over a million times the minimal effective dose assuming 50% destruction of the THC by smoking.

   Thus, evidence from animal studies and human case reports appears to indicate that the ratio of lethal dose to effective dose is quite large. This ratio is much more favorable than that of many other common psychoactive agents including alcohol and barbiturates (Phillips et al. 1971, Brill et al. 1970).

   Acute Effects of Marihuana,  from Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding – Table of Contents

   4. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.5. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death. 6. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year. 7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana’s LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death. 8. At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response. 9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity. 10. Another common medical way to determine drug safety is called the therapeutic ratio. This ratio defines the difference between a therapeutically effective dose and a dose which is capable of inducing adverse effects. 11. A commonly used over-the-counter product like aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of around 1:20. Two aspirins are the recommended dose for adult patients. Twenty times this dose, forty aspirins, may cause a lethal reaction in some patients, and will almost certainly cause gross injury to the digestive system, including extensive internal bleeding. 12. The therapeutic ratio for prescribed drugs is commonly around 1:10 or lower. Valium, a commonly used prescriptive drug, may cause very serious biological damage if patients use ten times the recommended (therapeutic) dose. 13. There are, of course, prescriptive drugs which have much lower therapeutic ratios. Many of the drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are highly toxic. The therapeutic ratio of some of the drugs used in antineoplastic therapies, for example, are regarded as extremely toxic poisons with therapeutic ratios that may fall below 1:1.5. These drugs also have very low LD-50 ratios and can result in toxic, even lethal reactions, while being properly employed. 14. By contrast, marijuana’s therapeutic ratio, like its LD-50, is impossible to quantify because it is so high. 15. In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death. 16. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.

   DEA Judge Young’s Ruling on Medical Marijuana

9. It is sad to reflect that access to methamphetamine is now easier than access to cannabis. Access to alcohol and tobacco (as both are legal) is also easier. Cannabis users are still vilified in the mass media and by Police and others – yet cause virtually no harm (apart from criminal activity to fund access due to inflated prices due to the lagal status of the drug). Compare that to the effects of P, alcohol and tobacco. It seems a ‘no brainer’ but the only real ‘no brainers’ are the cannabis prohibitionists – pathetic and aggravating. FFS!

10. Thank you Helen for your wonderful support of justice and fairness for all workers. Thanks for your efforts to help legalize medical marijuana.

    It is a shame that this govt. is so devoid of compassion and integrity on this and many important issues.

    You are cared for and appreciated and I hope you know that. Many of us who do not know you, know of your work and your wonderful contributions and have listened to you for many years. All the best to you.
    You deserve to be New Zealander of the year and we would vote for you.

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