Nice tips, you two above me. It seems that the good old Maily Telegraph is in a bit of a flap about cannabis too - it was very happy to report The Independent's U-turn after ten years of campaigning to decriminalise the drug.

Can the medical report (linking cannabis to psychosis) in The Lancet, mentioned in yesterday's Torygraph's article, be trusted? What sort of tests were undertaken to confirm this notion? Have similar methods been used to establish a link between skunk and addiction? I am very cynical about what the right-wing press publish concerning Mary Jane. Why not write reams of articles about cocaine and heroin to scare the sh*t out of us?

As you might have guessed, I haven't much of a clue about cannabis. It seems to me, however, that all the legal drugs available to us, such as booze and fags, don't really do much to give us what we really want. Some renegade scientists say that the need to get 'high' is not dissimilar to the drive for oxygen, food and sex. Others go further and state that the War on Drugs is a war on consciousness.

SUPER-strength cannabis so potent that just one puff can cause schizophrenia is being grown by Merseyside drug gangs.

Puppy's cannabis find in park



A PUPPY had to be rushed to the vets after eating what is thought to be cannabis during a walk in Towneley Park.

Dog owner Miss Clare Fallows took 11-month-old Dalmatian Bella on the walk on Monday along her usual route near Towneley Golf Course and into the woods. The boisterous puppy played in the grass for around an hour along with Miss Fallow's son, Thomas Fallows-Baker, his friend, Harvey Green, and the family's other dog Toby.

On returning home to Dall Street, Miss Fallows noticed Bella behaving strangely and becoming very ill, vomiting and shaking. Alarmed, she called the emergency vet and rushed Bella to Oakmount Veterinary Centre in Trafalgar Street. The vet told her that the most likely cause of the sickness was the dog eating something in the woods, which could have been cannabis.

After resting for a day, Bella had fully recovered from her ordeal.

Miss Fallows said: "I was a bit shocked, but I was just relieved to be told she would be OK. I was beside myself because I thought I was going to lose her at one point. She was that ill because she was shaking so violently, was being constantly sick and was also having diarrhoea.

"The vet said the symptoms were consistent with an animal that had swallowed something like cannabis, and that Bella could have eaten it while on a walk. She is a lively dog and always sniffs around when I am walking her, so it is hard to keep track of what she is smelling or trying to eat.

"She did eat a bit of grass that evening so if there were drugs, she could have eaten them at the same time. I didn't see anything suspicious, but the vet said it could have been a lump of cannabis or a plant."

She added: "I still take her on walks down there but now I have her in a muzzle so she can smell everything but can't eat anything. I am worried people will think she is a dangerous dog because of that but she isn't at all, she is a gentle and lively puppy. I just don't want to risk this sort of thing happening again."

Miss Fallows contacted the police who visited the woods with a trained sniffer dog but did not find any cannabis plants or anything suspicious.

Oxford-educated Matthew Courtney, the 27-year-old son of former World Cup referee George Courtney, had been working up to 14 hours a day at a top City law firm in the run-up to his death.

The day before, Mr Courtney had told his psychiatrist that he was worried his long hours were triggering a relapse of manic depression, for which he had been receiving treatment for seven years.

This unfortunate death should have been publicised more to highlight the dangers of cannabis and undermine the great lie about it being somehow "harmless".

- Dave, Barnsley

This unfortunate death should have been publicised more to highlight the dangers of our long hours culture and undermine the great lie about it being somehow "beneficial for the economy and family life".

She was ill - she had a mental illness. But people are ignorant of mental illness, and they labelled her as a loony. They did and said horrible things."

In one incident drinkers in a local pub put up a newspaper cutting with the headline "Troubled Britney Spears" but wrote Laura's name over it.

The effects of the bullying, coupled with a course of anti-psychotic prescription drugs, left her so depressed that she felt unable even to leave the house.

Her mother added: "Laura was an extremely sensitive girl, and at this point she was vulnerable. I think she just felt there was no future.

"I know she didn't do it to hurt us - she never could. She had just come to the conclusion that the best parts of her life had already been lived."

Laura, who had battled anorexia in the past, could not be resuscitated after she was discovered hanging from her bed last Friday afternoon.

Sounds more like a pushy parent and a child unable to attain what the parents expect.

A single joint and she killed herself? Really?

- John Miller, London

David Aubrey, defending, said that the killing arose because of Evans' "deluded beliefs about religion, himself and the destruction of the world".
Mr Aubrey said: "He believed he was Jesus, God and the anti-Christ, and believed he would save the world from nuclear armegeddon.
"The killing was to bring to the wider public what his beliefs were.
"He was suffering from severe mental illness, delusional, paranoid beliefs, directed towards the activities of the church.
"He genuinely beleieved an impending nuclear war would bring about the end of the world and he was the only one who could stop it."
The court heard Evans was also obsessed with numerology and was convinced the sixth of the sixth and seventh of the seventh were significant.
Mr Aubrey said that Evans had been a regular cannabis user and while it was regarded as a soft drug, it could have severe effect on people with underlying mental illness.

Is this another wonderful example of care in the community? Poor, poor man, and his poor, traumatised family. Lock him up somewhere secure and throw away the key.

- Ali, Basingstoke, Hants

Cannabis farming began in London about six years ago, sometimes in factory units but most often in houses bought or rented for that purpose.

Growing numbers of teenage boys are being treated for impotence after smoking cannabis for several years.

Doctors have reported a large rise in cases of young men seeking advice to combat potential lifelong impotence.

Professor Sheena Lewis, one of the UK's leading experts on male reproduction, said: "I don't know of anyone who has done research on impotence and cannabis. It's about time someone did."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=562448&in_page_id=1770

Quote:

Cannabis 'is making teenagers impotent', say doctors

Yet further on there is this bit:



So a story on some doctors treating more young men for impotance is turned into an anti weed article.

They do realise smoking regular fags has been linked to impotence too? Thats much more likely the cause, the fact you're smoking, not the weed.

Still, a good thing for Mail readers. Those who smoke cannabis = inherently bad = more likely to produce children young = more benefits = impotence is great!