That’s got to be a big nail in the coffin of prohibition, surely?

You’d think so wouldn’t you. In reality though they’ll prob just get even more draconian/spiteful. LIFE IMPRISONMENT for ANYONE (poor or black) with the letters D,R,U,G, or S in their name or address.

Junkyard – Lazarus

Legalising or decriminalising will should happen one day

FTFY. Unfortunately saying that is political suicide, evidence based reasoning loses to knee jerk tough actions.

Legalising is all well and good.
I smoked far too much in my youth. I even got caught with a load in my pocket and got done at a U2 concert(never got to see U2, every cloud has a silver lining)
What I did realise at the time is I was suffering from mental illness. I was paranoid, delusional, having bouts of extreme anger – which usually ended up in me smashing either me or something up. Weed was magnifying this a thousand fold.
It’s been over twenty years since my last spliff and I d intend to ever have another.

FTFY. Unfortunately saying that is political suicide, evidence based reasoning loses to knee jerk tough actions.

Hopefully a phased approach will win over the more entrenched. Medical use only hopefully can’t be too far away. A lot of drugs have nasty side effects, so the potential side effects from weed can’t be used as an argument against.

From there hopefully we get on to the path to decriminalization then eventually full legalization. Though I suspect it’ll take a generation or two to get there in the UK. The war on drugs, no matter how futile is not one any government will currently want to stop.

Do you think any of your peers drank to much beer and got a bit fighty as a result?

FWIW many young people act as you do its pretty hard to prove whether the drug is causal or whether its a symptom.
IMHO it is not likely to help anyone with a underlying mental health condition but the jury is still out on to what extent it exacerbates the risk. Its psycho active and therefore likely to have some effect

TBH i am more concerned it made you like U2 😉

The only reason I went to U2 was because I took a beautiful young lady from Detroit to Cardiff arms park to see them with the intention of having a great weekend of sex. I got nicked. She was fuming. She jumped on the next bus (while I was in the cells) and that was the last I heard from her.

I took a beautiful young lady from Detroit to Cardiff

Wow, that’s quite a trip !

(SWIDT ?)

In that case your reason are laudable 😀
I can see why you were so angry and went mental as well 😉

Having been an early heavy user I have first hand experience of the mental health issues it can bring on.
Haven’t touched the stuff again in over 25 years and have no wish to.
That said I would wholeheartedly support full legalisation.

In answer to the can you vape weed enquiry I met a yank over Christmas in my local, in from California, vaping MJ, had to check it out, was pretty realistic, but without the kick to the back of the throat we ex smokers seek as the real reason we sometimes like to participate.

He was prescribed it for ‘health’ reasons, said something about his shoulder, co incidentally I have a frozen shoulder but can’t seem to get it prescribed over here just yet, but given it’s a vape thing, I can’t see plod spotting it, anyway, just a heads up, it’s available to vape, just thought y’all ought to know that.

zippykona : There have been a number of positive peer reviewed medical studies into the treatment of chronic neuropathic pain through use of Cannibinoids, whether that be use of licensed medical products such as Marinol/Nabinol or direct inhalation of vapours from a vaporiser (or simply taking a toke – quite often the easiest option) so i see no reason why it would not possibly help the suffering of a patient with Fybromylagia, which after all is just a medical term for Neuropathic nerve pain – have a search online using the terms above and arm yourself with the data for your next visit with your doctor/consultant, i’m unaware of any trial using Sativex (GW Pharmaceuticals – UK firm led by Dr Geoffrey Guy) but as it is being clinically trialled to treat neural pain as experienced by cancer patients i see no reason why it could not be trialled for a debilitating illness such as Fibromylagia, the current issue with getting access to such a treatment is that the current medical guidelines for “out of the medical box treatment” (wooly term – sorry) is woeful and often to the detriment of the patients quality of life.

Rather dry and research heavy but good link to US National Library of Research regarding use of Cannabinoids in the management of difficult to treat pain

Link to GW Pharmaceuticals – Sativex

Independant Drug Monitering Unit – Cannabinoids and Pain Relief

10 yr old study by the Royal College of Physicians regarding Cannabis based Medicine

Given the amount of personal use reports alongside the amounting medical evidence to support medical use of Cannabis it is genuinely frustrating as to why it is still currently illegal, as per usual the politicians are only worried about perceived public perception regarding being soft on drugs rather than listening to the advice from medical professionals.

PS – Has Gabapentin been offered as a solution?, at the moment i’m using 2400mg a day, 8 x 300mg tablets along with 300mg Tramadol as i had a stupid little off on my bike 8 weeks ago and landed spine first on pointy rocks which fecked my already buggered spine, i broke a facet joint and displaced it quite a bit on T7 which has really messed up with the nerve.

Soma, shall show all this to my mum and see what medication they are giving her.
Thanks.

somafunk – I realise a man of your calibre will be wise to this, but take it easy on the Tramadol if you’re also enjoying yourself in other recreational ways.

I’m aware of a lad local to me, in his late 20s, who is currently in hospital recovering from a heart attack after a few weeks of taking it on prescription. Admittedly he was boozing it up a fair bit, but it’s made me think twice about trying to obtain some for ‘evaluation’ reasons.

I’m sure it’s fine when the rules are observed – which he plainly didn’t regard – but I thought it worth mentioning.

Don’t worry steve, but you’re well right to be cautious, i’ve been taking Tramadol on/off for the past 20 years and i’m quite aware of the shortcomings of the drug, along with the shortcomings of Dihydrocodeine, Pethidine/oxycodon etc, i usually only take two a day max when i’m working, one first thing in the morning and one early afternoon but since my little off i’ve had to up the dose otherwise i cannot stand at work for more than a few minutes at a time which is totally impractical for my job.

I’m back in early March to the spinal clinic (who’ve repaired/worked with my spine for the past 20+ years) so hopefully the nerve response will have settled down by then but sometimes the nerves take months to recover/desensitise, i’ve done them in many times before so i know how best to treat them.

As for other recreational ways?, nah…..can’t really be arsed with it these days….apart from very special occasions, perhaps once/twice a year but even then it’s a half arsed attempt…damn this hitting 40…spoils all the fun 😀

I’ll bet your back specialists know the back of their hands like your spine 😉

I’ve the prospect of recreationals in a few weeks, very special occasion, unlikely to be repeated, but I’m fairly terrified by the idea. Still, I probably will. Better to regret what you’ve done than what you haven’t done and all that.

36hours of operations and 7 months in hospital over the years so you could say i deserve frequent flyer miles in the spinal unit, you’d think they would give me my own private suite but nae such thing 🙁 – it’s thanks to the surgical team that i can still continue to place one foot in front of the other, albeit at a wobbly sedate pace these days but the original prognosis was so much worse so there’s always something to be thankful for 🙂 such as this unexpected day off from work t’day, i went in this morning but an overnight power cut had reset the chocolate tempering machines (i’m a chocolatier) so nothing was workable and i thought “bugger it, i’m taking the day off” – so i went out on the Tripster for 4 hours in glorious but chilly sunshine.

just myself, the bike, and a hipflask full of Balvenie, and 25 miles of deserted singlelane Galloway roads, only met tractors the entire journey.

Just bliss….

PS : enjoy your “occasion”, a truly worthwhile event is few and far between these days so they are to be savoured and enjoyed. I’ve a box full of various top quality consumables that i got in for new year but i had the flu bug for a fortnight over the xmas/new year period so i just hid in the house and felt sorry for myself -so i’m looking forward to a decent blow out at some point this year, prob a decks n’ lasers beach party come summer time.