Tag Archives: cannabis

I have TWO copies of Vera Twomey’s book ‘For Ava’ (Mercier Press) to giveaway.

Cork-born Vera’s book charts her struggle to obtain legal cannabis for her daughter Ava, who has Dravets  syndrome and whose seizures are ameliorated by using cannabis oil.

It’s a fantastic read and an incredible story.

Now, we all know how beneficial cannabis can be for people like Ava.

But did you know cannabis can also apparently provide, to some adults (who have no existing mental conditions), profound insights, an enormous sense of well-being and uncontrollable giggles?

In fact, you may have experienced this yourself at some point in your life?

If this sounds like you, please complete this sentence.

‘My most memorable experience involving the ‘erb was___________________________________”

Lines MUST close at MIDNIGHT.

For Ava (Mercier Press)

This afternoon.

Via Tilray:

The Tilray products successfully imported will be made available to qualified patients through the Access Programme once distribution approvals are provided by local regulators.

This will allow patients in Ireland access to a locally maintained supply of GMP-certified products, which they can receive in a reasonable time-frame.

Authorised patients are expected to be able to access Tilray medical cannabis products through the Irish community pharmacy network in the second half of the year.

Catherine Jacobson, Tilray’s Vice President of Medical and Regulatory Affairs, said:

“This development in Ireland represents an exciting turning point for patients. We’re proud to have the opportunity to provide patients in Ireland with access to Tilray’s standardized GMP-certified medical cannabis products, and we’re thrilled to see an increasing number of countries improve access to medical cannabis.”

Tilray® Imports GMP-Certified Standardized Medical Cannabis Oil into Ireland (Tilray)

Thanks Fweed

Johnny Green

Is he a herb?

Is he a plant?

No, he’s Johnny Green.

Mild-mannered JohnnyNYC by day.

Caped cannabis crusader by late afternoon.

The stoner we deserve.

Fake reefer news is his kryptonite.

Literally high flying.

You get the picture.

Johnny writes:

The science has been well settled, proved, tested, tested again, debated, argued, calculated, counted, and taxes returned.

There can be no more sneering at its potential, nor can the inevitable need for proper and honest legislation for Irish Weed be ignored.

Last week Solidarity People Before Profit’s Gino Kenny reintroduced medical cannabis into your news cycle, that was conveniently spun off by a dismissively immature response from your Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

So, the first question for Broadsheet readers to ponder on, was this the outcome of bad manners, or was it a deliberate strategic ploy

Slightly more than two years ago, Simon Harris, The Irish Health Minister announced that Ireland would create a medical cannabis programme for its patients who couldn’t be helped by the existing conventional treatment for their health conditions.

From April this year: The Irish Government revealed that it has finally identified and issued an import license to a Danish medical cannabis firm.The license was reportedly issued back in January.

My other questions for Broadsheet readers are;

Why was this initiative not launched into the public domain as aggressively as “Welfare Cheaters Cheat Us All”?

Why has the Media not opened it up and spread it out like a cheap carpet at a street market?

Why is Simon Harris not sharing the details of the license granted?

And why are all these discussions and inspections internal to his department?

While in my honest opinion I do not believe there to be any smoking gun here, certainly not the arsenal around a Rural Broadband Tender, but I am compelled again to ask: why the secrecy?

This column is not intended to promote one market over another, recreational over medicinal, but until it is widely prescribed and the cost of the alternatives, including the provision of front-line services are factored in, deciding on a valid and genuine figure could be reckless.

Obviously, we can only estimate the potential size of the Irish cannabis market; however, I work with cannabis growers and retailers in newly legalised markets, therefore I stand over my expertise and qualification to have some reasonableness to the following valuation.

Just this week a confirmed intake of one billion since the introduction of the legislation that legalised cannabis in Colorado (with a population of 5.5 million it provides a viable benchmark on this occasion.)

One billion in Revenue in its first five years. That is One Billion in a new, just out of the ground industry.

It is not inconceivable to any rational mind that domestic output and earnings in Ireland could match a similar value, with tourism activity alongside exporting to the EU; a market not available to the growers in Colorado, all on your own, and without the need for National Children’s Hospital level spend and timeline.

For the pedants circling this column, let me recreate a value per head to match the given example of Colorado’s experience.

$1,000,000,000 / 5,500,000 = 181.82 per person.

Yesterday’s count in the Republic of Ireland is 4,845,530 and yesterday’s US$ closing price .8899

4,845,530 x (.8899* 181.82) 161.80 = 784,006,754.00.

Or as Vanessa Foran might say 784 million yoyos.

Ireland already has it all to grow on a large industrial scale and export a simple Seed-to-Sale cannabis industry, like what the Irish Dairy Farmers achieved with “Kerrygold.”

All you are missing is the political will and vision, and the transparency that needs be demanded for what is comfortably a three quarters of billion euro industry, and an industry that can generate income within months of legalisation and with little investment, start-up costs, or the need for tax exemptions and grants; or those pesky KPMG reports.

It is for these reasons that I am being deliberately provocative about Simon Harris’ shyness with the licence granted to a Danish entity.

Irish Cannabis is a potential clean energy multi-million revenue industry, on its own, and at all levels of market participation.

Nor are the additional benefits of the mentioned medical treatment and prescription savings that the Irish State has proved again and again it is not capable of controlling, or fit to manage, to be underestimated and taken lightly.

Yet Simon Harris is given the charge of signing away Ireland’s chance of growing its own cannabis, selling its own produce, providing employment, extracting employment taxes, along with an Agri sector desperate for alternatives to beef and dairy farming.

This licence, even though the ink is dried, must be opened up to the public, and at the very least examined and questioned without restrictions by the Public Accounts Committee.

Everyone else seems to be watching what Simon Harris is doing, and here is my final question; why aren’t you?

Johnny Green will attempt to keep Broadsheet readers up-to-date on the growing cannabis industry worldwide. Follow Johnny here on twitter for updates.

Johnny Green illustration by Alan O’Regan

Bishop Eamonn Walsh, Vice Chair of the Bishops’ Drugs Initiative, welcomed the intervention by Cannabis Risk Alliance:

“There always has been a concern about the effect [of cannabis] on the brain and that it’s something that is going under the radar,” he told The Irish Catholic.

Christ.

Do Not Legalise Cannabis (The Irish Catholic)

Previously: Reefer Sadness

Saturday.

Custom House Quay, Dublin 1

Drug-crazed ‘revellers’ celebrate 420 in the sunshine with Bob Marley and a humongous spliff.

Johnny Keenan (top) writes:

I know it’s 3 days after it happened but no stoner and medical cannabis activist were left unturned when standing up and standing out for the legalisation of cannabis on this lovely green isle took place…

Arrest them all.

*giggle*

Update:

Also on the quay.

A blurry belated hello to Kenny Tynan (Activist for Medical Cannabis) and Lorraine Kennedy (Director and Producer of patientsofcannabis.com).

In fairness.

 

 

 

This afternoon.

In the Dáil.

During Leaders’ Questions, which were taken by Fine Gael Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin raised the issue of medicinal cannabis.

Mr Martin said the Health Minister Simon Harris promised two years ago to introduce a “compassionate access scheme” to medicinal cannabis for people in certain circumstances.

He said now, two years later, as there is no such scheme, this represented the “absence of compassion itself” for people who are seeking to access medicinal cannabis legally.

He said “many” are accessing it illegally which presents its own “dangers”.

Mr Martin paid tribute to Cork mum Vera Twomey (top), who had to spend time in the Netherlands, but said there are other families “under stress and strain”.

He said 12 people in Ireland now have a licence to obtain CBT THC – for which they must travel, mainly to the Netherlands.

Mr Martin said he received a letter – which he said “a bit disingenuous towards the end” – from Minister Harris yesterday.

He said the letter suggested the Government has no control over commercial operators and it has no power to compel companies to get involved.

Mr Martin said nobody ever alleged this was the case but said what’s needed is proper engagement with the companies.

He also said, contrary to what the letter said, he knows that there has been engagement with a company/companies and that it would be possible for a company to supply medicinal cannabis in the first quarter of 2019 if “intensive engagement” between the HPRA, the Department of Health and companies took place.

Watch back in full here

Earlier: Cutting Out The ‘Dodgy Guy ON The Corner’

Economist Dan O’Brien

This morning.

On RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Sean O’Rourke.

Economist Dan O’Brien spoke about the benefits of legalising cannabis.

He said:

“People are getting sick because they take drugs, just as people are getting sick because they drink too much or abuse alcohol.

“We tax alcohol, a lot of money is raised from alcohol. We’re not currently taxing drugs. We tax the drugs so we can pay, we’ve more resources to pay for the health outcomes…

“...I would say tax it heavily. Don’t tax it to the point where the gap between the price in a shop and the price from a dealer is such that people do go to the dealer. That needs to be considered, just as it does need to be considered with smoking and alcohol.

“But a lot of money could be raised on this.

“I think, overall, people would prefer to buy something from a pharmacy that they know is a reliable product than to buy it from some dodgy guy on a corner in a bag that they don’t even know what they’re getting.”

Listen back in full here

Darragh McCullough, presenter of RTÉ television’s Ear to the Ground, in Arizona filming and tweeting about the cannabis boom among US farmers.

Grass on Ear to the Ground!

In fairness.

For your consideration.

Patients of Cannabis.

A documentary

Johnny Keenan writes:

This documentary is directed, produced and narrated by concerned citizens Robbie Gannon, Lorraine Kennedy and Terry McMahon.

The testimonies you will see and hear are passionate pleas by our Irish people for clemency and the right to have medical cannabis to deal with their own condition.

These 10 brave souls you will see and hear are the voice of thousands of other Irish people who suffer in silence.

Vera Twomey’s daughter Ava has a rare form of epilepsy that can cause up to 20 seizures a day.

Dave Kelly has a form of motor neuron disease.

Kenny Tynan suffers with a brain tumor.

An anonymous mother talks about aggressive chemotherapy that her son went through. She heard Simon Harris (Minister of Health) talk about a license process where chemo patients could apply for such a license. She could not however get a consultant to sign the application.

Patrick Bradley suffers with chronic pain.

Gerri Sparrow suffers with emphysema and asthma.

Stefano Speranza has chronic pain in his lower back through a work related injury

Dr Garrett McGovern is a GP and Addiction Specialist who is aware of a plant that patients use. These patients find this plant more beneficial than conventional drugs.

Mark Cleary’s mother in law Geraldine Martin suffered with pneumonia and a tumor on her lung.

Caroline Conlon is Alex Baizert’s fiancée who talks about Alex’s struggle as an activist who suffered with epilepsy. Alex passed last April. Please see his testimony here

What brings these ten ordinary people together is the extraordinary power of Medical Cannabis.

It’s a crying shame that these ordinary people have to go to extraordinary measures to get a medicine that should be freely available to them by our HSE.

The question now is, why do the Irish people still have to suffer in pain while the rest of the world has access to medical cannabis?

There is absolutely no logic for the continuation of such ignorance towards our people who need medical cannabis.

Please please look at this essential 37 minute documentary and then act accordingly.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we act together now we can force OUR government to sign into law this year 2018 that Irish citizens are entitled to choose medical cannabis as a form of medicine.

Not alone that. It should be freely available in Ireland to them. With the massive demand for medical cannabis all across the country jobs can be created and Irish businesses can prosper by helping our people who need and want this medicine.

We have pharmaceutical plants all over the country. So why don’t we have green houses for medical cannabis to be produced into medical cannabis oil.

This is logical thinking and should be encouraged rather than been ignored.

If you are suffering and you want to add your video testimony for the legalisation of medical cannabis then follow the link here to Patients Of Cannabis

Yesterday: O Canada

A midnight ‘Bud Drop’ in Toronto to celebrate the passing of laws allowing recreational cannabis use in Canada

Canada has became the first major world economy to legalize recreational marijuana use, beginning a national experiment that will alter the country’s social, cultural and economic fabric, and present the nation with its biggest public policy challenge in decades.

Across  the country, government-run stores were preparing to greet consumers, who will be able to choose among pre-rolled joints, fresh or dried marijuana flowers and cannabis oil — all of which are permitted under the new federal law.

Canada Makes Marijuana Legal, and a National Experiment Begins (New York Times)

Canada legalises marijuana for recreational use (RTÉ)

Pic: Getty

Meanwhile…

Yesterday.

Revenue officers at Portlaoise Mail Centre seized 3.5kgs of cannabis resin – with a “street value of €21,000” – in a parcel which originated in Thailand.

Reefer madness foiled again.

Rollingnews