Trials for Medicinal Cannabis in Australia on the Horizon?

20th January 2014

There’s a lot of buzz of late regarding one of the worlds most controversial plants. Hemp, Marijuana, Pot, Cannabis… we know plenty of names it goes by but what many of us don’t know is that there’s a whole host of suppressed information about this plant that has the potential to help millions of people around the world.

In a recent interview with LNP backbencher Jason Woodforth I asked him what his motivations were for rallying support from his colleagues to push for a trial on medicinal cannabis here in Queensland, Australia. “Well it’s a bumpy road with no guarantees but we need to keep chipping away at it so we can get medicinal cannabis trials going”, he said.

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110028″]

Mr Woodforth is prepared to do everything he can to garner support. “I’ll hang my re-election campaign on this. It’s that important” he said.

One of the main problems lies in the public misconceptions of this amazing plant. People who don’t use cannabis and know little about it simply think it is a drug that gets you high and it’s illegal.

Cannabis proponent Dr Andrew Katelaris shared with Real News Australia some little known facts about the cannabis plant:

1. Cannabis hemp is humanity’s oldest cultivated crop. In the nineteenth century hemp was the most cultivated crop on Earth and hemp fibre the most traded commodity.

2. Cannabis was made illegal in the united states in 1937, by a consortium of corrupt police, bankers and the Dupont chemical company, to allow the synthetic nylon to gain market dominance.

3. Cannabis produces the world’s most durable natural fibre.

4. Hemp is very beneficial agronomically. It is a hardy, self mulching weed smother crop which conditions the soil, resulting in enhanced yields in following crops.

5. Cannabis hemp produces the safest of all pharmacologically active substances, with no deaths ever having been attributed to its use.

6. Despite strident claims to the contrary recent evidence has established it amongst the world’s most broadly acting medical substances, with marked activity against spacticity and seizure disorders, chronic pain, inflammatory bowel disease and a host of other ailments, often where all other medication has failed.

7. Published evidence has now established that cannabis has a profound anticancer effect across many tumour types, with no associated toxicity.

8. The National Institute of Health conducted research intending to prove that smoking cannabis caused respiratory disease and lung cancer, but finally published the data that it was protective against both.

“There’s literally dozens and dozens of medicinal uses for cannabis. We’re crazy not to give it a go”, said Mr Woodforth. “There’s countless examples of it helping people with all sorts of ailments even curing cancer”. While he doesn’t advocate legalising the plant so that anyone can get hold of it to smoke and get high, he whole-heartedly supports utilising it for it’s healing and overall health attributes.

The U.S state of Colorado has just legalized the commercial production, sale, and recreational use of cannabis by a slim margin. “I think keeping an eye on Colorado as test case for the open use of the plant is a must. However i emphasise that i support the medicinal use of cannabis not the recreational use”, he said. While Dr Katelaris had this to say, “The legal reforms in Colorado are well overdue. Drug prohibition has fostered increased use through pyramid selling and funnelled enormous wealth to criminal organisations, corrupt police and politicians. Ironically, in countries with decriminalisation (portugal, holland) rates of teenage cannabis use is lower than countries with draconian policies.”

There are definitely hurdles to overcome in terms of getting a trial going in Queensland, Australia. Namely the support of key members of parliament like Health Minister Lawrence Springborg. According to a spokeswoman for the Minister he was not considering a trial. Even with clear evidence that it’s use can heal people of all ages without the possibility of harmful side effects that can be encountered when using pharmaceutical drugs. See the short clip below to see first hand how it has helped this little girl.

Based upon this evidence alone wouldn’t you think that a trial is warranted?

“Investigation of the medical uses of cannabis should not be limited to the medical profession and pharmaceutical firms. Synthetic cannabis (marinol) passed the FDA examination and has been available since the 1970”²s, while herbal cannabis is categorised as a dangerous drug with no medical use.”

“Evidence is now overwhelming that cannabis can treat life threatening illness such as Dravet syndrome, where all other medicine fails. As a final irony cannabidiol (CBD) has been found as effective as the most recent antipsychotic drugs in the treatment of schizophrenia, with a dramatically reduced side effect profile”, said Dr Katelaris.

The below documentary featuring Dr Andrew Katelaris titled The Hemp Revolution delivers an eye-opening presentation of facts that may have you changing your stance to Pro-Cannabis by the end.

“We need to keep an open mind about medicinal cannabis”, said MP Jason Woodforth.

A good source of information on Cannabis as a cancer cure here.

Previous articles by Lee:

About the author:

Lee “General” Maddox is the founder of realnewsaustralia.com, a site dedicated to offering an alternative view to government-controlled media, and helping people to challenge and question what they see on TV, read in newspapers & hear on the radio.

Catch Lee on the conspiracyoz podcast or visit his website: www.realnewsaustralia.com

[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”110027″]

You may also like