Victims of \’monkey dust\’: Ravaged faces of 23 lives ruined by psychotic £2 drug

Monkey dust – which is highly addictive – has seen users turn to a live of crime to fund their addiction and can be bought for as little as a few pounds

THE 23 FACES WHO HAVE BEEN RAVAGED BY MONKEY DUST – Shocking photos show the ravaged faces of those whose lives have been ruined by \’monkey dust\’. The drug, which can be bought for a mere £2 has led users to a dark path of crime, as well as violent and psychotic episodes. Some users, dubbed \’dustheads\’, have been responsible for a whole spectrum of offences – from petty shoplifting to brutal stabbings and terrifying rooftop sieges.

What is monkey dust?

This is what the perpetual promotion of drug use leads to! Permission, not Prohibition Models are systematically driving ever increasing drug us! #preventdontpromote

CANNABIS IS TO BLAME FOR MY SON’S DEATH — PLEASE DON’T LEGALISE

13/8/19

The following is the bulk of a letter from Janie Hamilton to Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Great Britain. We thank Mary Brett informing us, and Janie Hamilton for allowing us to share this letter. 

Dear Mr. Johnson:

Our beloved son, James, died on 31st July 2015 after a cannabis-induced psychotic refusal to accept life-saving treatment for testicular cancer.  He was 36 and did not have to die. The cannabis stole his life three times over — first it stole his young life from under our very eyes, then it possibly caused the testicular cancer, and then it stole his capacity to make a right-minded decision to have treatment at the first sign of the lump.

I now speak to hundreds of young people in schools, giving assemblies about the dangers of cannabis on the developing brain. They listen without moving and are left stunned and shocked and very saddened by James’ story. I have also spoken at Police Conferences and at a DrugFAM Conference. James’ story has also been heard on the radio a few times and appeared in a magazine. I have also been on TV a few times and James was the top story on BBC South Today in November 2017 after they came to film here.

How James’ story relates to legalization

I am dismayed beyond words at the stupidity of those who consider that legalizing cannabis is going to solve the problem and my heart sinks on two levels: firstly at the increase of lives to be derailed and wrecked and secondly, at the ignorance of the politicians. Unless they have lived with, witnessed and had first-hand experience of the misery, stress and grief caused by watching a beloved child changing out of all recognition after starting on cannabis, they truly can have no conception of the damage done by this drug.

Legalisation will cause more and more young people to experiment, because the message being sent out is that it’s legal — therefore it must be ok. From thereon, it’s just a ticking time-bomb in the lives of the many who don’t get away with it.

James was 14 when he began taking cannabis and it was only when he was 20, after 6 months of bizarre behaviour, that we even began to consider that he might be mentally ill.

Confronting our loss

Cannabis was doing its damage in James’ brain all those years. And finally, it stole his life. Your politicians should try sitting beside the grave of their child, as I did, a few days ago, on the 4th anniversary of his needless death.

If the politicians refuse to listen to those of us who know what damage cannabis does, then they will have to wait until the TRUTH speaks for itself and the mental health wards will be overflowing and unable to cope.

I would very much like to be able to come and tell James’ story to the relevant MPs — my presentation would take about 50 minutes. Is that too much to ask on a matter as serious as this? Cannabis is everyone’s problem — they just don’t know it yet. Legalisation is NOT the answer but educating the young in schools IS making a difference. It’s too late once they become politicians, it seems………………………….

For complete story go to  please don’t do this!

DOPE DISASTER : Legalising cannabis in the UK would fuel violent crime and turn a new generation into hard drug addicts, warn experts

EXCLUSIVE: Graeme Culliford    Daniel Bates   4 Aug 2019,

LEGALISING cannabis will fuel violent conflict in our towns and turn a new generation of people on to hard drugs, experts warn.

A cross-party group of MPs is calling for the UK to follow Canada and make dope available on the high street for recreational use.

Experts are warning that the legalisation of cannabis in the UK could do nothing to solve gang violence or get rid of dealersCredit: Getty

Bike thugs storm Asda punching shopper & wrestling OAP in shocking video

But British drug counsellor Seven Graham has seen the damage that easily available cannabis can cause after moving to Los Angeles, where recreational marijuana sale is legal.

Seven tells The Sun on Sunday: “If you think knife crime is bad now, it could get worse if marijuana is legalised.

“Legal cannabis does not get rid of the dealers, it normalises drug use and makes the problem worse.

“In America, the black market in weed has boomed. Soon they want new, cheaper and more potent varieties that are not available from licensed sellers, and competition to supply it is still fierce.

“Legalisation has done nothing to solve gang violence. You would have to be mad to legalise cannabis in Britain.”

Yet hard drug use rocketed in Holland after marijuana was decriminalised.

Former Met detective chief inspector Mick Neville says: “Cannabis is a gateway drug, and letting shops sell it will tempt more people to smoke it.

“Some will get addicted and move on to other substances. Others will go straight to hard drugs because cannabis is legal and no longer ‘cool’.

For complete story https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9649511/legalising-cannabis-disaster-crime-addicts/

August 08, 2019 By Miranda Devine

You can’t walk through the streets of Manhattan these days without smelling weed.

Even as evidence mounts of the health problems associated with marijuana, New York has insisted on joining other greedy states scrambling to legalize this deceptively dangerous drug.

It makes no sense at a time when American youth is suffering from an unprecedented mental health crisis.

And, in all honesty, we cannot rule out a connection between increasing marijuana use, mental illness and the recent spate of mass shootings by disturbed young males.

We don’t yet know much about the mental state or drug use of the El Paso or Dayton killers. But a former girlfriend of Dayton killer Connor Betts, 24, has indicated he was mentally ill, and two of his friends interviewed by reporters this week mentioned his previous drug use.

Just last year, the Parents Opposed to Pot lobby group tried to sound the alarm on the link between marijuana and mass shootings, compiling a list of mass killers it claims were heavy users of marijuana from a young age, from Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes and Tucson, Ariz., shooter Jared Loughner to Chattanooga, Tenn., shooter Mohammad Abdulazeez.

Until we understand those links, it is nuts to enact lax laws that ­encourage more young people to use a drug proven to trigger mental illness.

President Trump was right to highlight mental illness in his remarks Wednesday on the El Paso and Dayton shootings, not that his unscrupulous critics will listen, so determined are they to brand him a white supremacist.

We know from a 2018 FBI report that 40% of “active shooters” in the US between 2008 and 2013 had been diagnosed with a mental illness before the attack and 70% had “mental health stressors” or “mental health concerning behaviors.”

So for anyone actually interested in preventing future such massacres, the so-called “red flag” legislation Trump is advocating to deny people with mental illness access to firearms is the most logical measure and the one most likely to be embraced by both sides of politics.

But it also should apply to marijuana use, seeing as the two go hand in hand.

You can’t address the youth mental health crisis without considering the effect of rising teen marijuana use.

Among American teenagers, the drug’s “daily use has become as, or more, popular than daily cigarette smoking” according to the National Institute of Health’s 2017 Monitoring the Future study.

We’ve successfully demonized cigarettes while new laws send kids the message that marijuana is harmless.

Yet we’ve known for more than a decade of the link between marijuana and psychosis, depression and schizophrenia.

In 2007 the prestigious medical journal Lancet recanted its previous benign view of marijuana, citing studies showing “an increase in risk of psychosis of about 40 percent.”

A seminal long-term study of 50,465 Swedish army conscripts found those who had tried marijuana by age 18 had 2.4 times the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia in the following 15 years than those who had never used the drug. Heavy users were 6.7 times more likely to be admitted to a hospital for schizophrenia.

Another study, of 1,037 people in New Zealand, found those who used cannabis at ages 15 and 18 had higher rates of psychotic symptoms at age 26 than non-users.

A 2011 study in the British Medical Journal of 2,000 teenagers found those who smoked marijuana were twice as likely to develop psychosis as those who didn’t.

Another BMJ study estimated that “13 percent of cases of schizophrenia could be averted if all cannabis use were prevented.”

That’s more than 400,000 Americans who could be saved from a fate worse than death.

Young people and those with a genetic predisposition are most at risk, particularly during adolescence, when the brain is exquisitely vulnerable.

The evidence of harm is overwhelming, and it defies logic to think that legalizing marijuana won’t increase the harm.

And yet marijuana activists pretend there is no problem and baby-boomer lawmakers, perhaps recalling their own youthful toking, ­ignore the science.

To make matters worse, the marijuana sold at legal dispensaries today is five times more potent than the pot of the 1970s and ’80s, according to a thoroughly researched new book by former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson: “Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Violence and Mental Health.”

Berenson reports that the first four states to legalize marijuana, Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, have seen “sharp increases” in violent crime since 2014.

If we care about mental illness, which has been spiking up at an alarming rate in recent years among young people, especially teenage boys, we should care about the convincing evidence of marijuana-induced psychosis.

We didn’t have to wait for three mass shootings in two weeks to know that young males are in ­crisis.

Youth suicide is at an all-time high and rates of serious mental illness in this country are on the rise, especially among people aged 18 to 25, the cohort most likely to use marijuana.

For complete article go to Marijuana and Mass Murder?

Scotland’s drug shame: Addiction is out of control — and nothing is being done

“Years ago, when I started selling it, I wouldn’t sell it to a woman if she had a kid in a pram,” a middle-aged drug-dealer tells me, within spitting distance of his MP’s constituency office in a Glasgow housing scheme. Like many dealers, this gentleman made his initial incursion into the grim, morally-ambivalent world of drugs as a low-level supplier, turning a modest profit by purchasing relatively small amounts from a bigger player to meet the local demand in his area.

Serious heroin addicts with a high tolerance for the drug become trapped in the hellish cycle of scoring drugs to escape withdrawal symptoms, which isn’t cheap. This is why criminality becomes a necessity for many.

Data recently published has revealed that in Scotland, drug-related deaths rose by a shameful 27% last year to 1,187. That means the death-toll in Scotland was equivalent to five Lockerbie bombings or fifty 7/7s. It is nearly three times that of the UK as a whole, and, per capita, the drug death rate in Scotland is higher than that of the U.S. Yet no national emergency has been declared.

These are called tranquilisers for a good reason. They induce a peace, serenity and sense of well-being that is difficult for even the most prolific and articulate drug-abusers to describe.

To the uninitiated, such a drug may hold an alluring curiosity. “How do the dealers come up with this stuff?” you may ask. But this drug is not the vulgar concoction of illicit dealers, it is a pharmaceutical-grade, state-approved chemical-compound. And one which was so widely prescribed by GPs in the Nineties, that addicts have been chasing its effects ever since.

That’s why, even though drug-abuse is so often framed as an issue for the feckless individual, we must also consider why and how these substances are created – and how thoughtlessly (and sometimes malignantly) they are introduced into society.

What risk-assessments were undertaken before drugs such as methadone, diazepam and tranquillisers were introduced through the NHS? Beyond the risk-benefit analysis on the individuals being legally prescribed them, what other factors were taken into consideration? When drugs are road-tested for approval, their broader social-implications are rarely contemplated.

In poorer communities, ill-health is more commonplace, increasing both the likelihood of treatment and the risk that a patient (or someone in the household taking the drugs) may become dependent. Society is awash with psychoactive substances in an age of chronic emotional and psychological stress. Increasing numbers are turning to drugs designed to treat chronic physical pain and mental health problems to self-medicate the emotional pain, stress and anxiety of poverty and social alienation.

I tell them I have never tried heroin, and they all warn me to keep it that way. Even though they have only just met me, because I have showed them a modicum of respect, they have a genuine concern for my well-being. For in their world of addiction, crime and social-exclusion, telling someone never to try heroin is an act of purest love.

For complete story go to Scotland’s Drug Shame (Uherd.com)

Also Read The absurdity of legalising drugs — Campaigners who say they want to legalise ‘all drugs’ and also regulate them are contradicting themselves

ALL FOR NOTHING, BECAUSE OF POT

When we launched with Patrick Kennedy at the Denver Press Club in early 2013, we sounded the alarm that if legalization expands, it is only a matter of time until Big Tobacco fully invests in pot.

That time is now.

And boy, do I wish we were wrong.

As you know, our neighbor to the north legalized marijuana and created a nationwide commercial industry last October. Since then, we have seen massive investments from companies relying on addiction for profit. Altria, the parent company of Phillip Morris and maker of Marlboro cigarettes has already poured more than $2 billion into Canadian marijuana facilities. Alcohol-giant Constellation Brands has dumped in over $5 billion into the industry, too.

Just this week, another giant of Big Tobacco has entered the fray, Imperial Brands.

Imperial is the fourth largest tobacco company in the world, and they just invested over $100 million into Auxly, a marijuana developer. While the stake isn\’t as large, what\’s concerning is that these companies are now teaming up to work on marijuana vaping technology.

It is painfully obvious what is going on.

Cigarette sales are plummeting. As a result of years of work by public health advocates, millions are waking up to the reality of the harms of smoking. Tobacco giants know this, but they aren\’t going to give up…they are going to change their business model.

While cigarette sales are falling, rates of vaping are up. Specifically, youth vaping, driven in large part by Juul (which, by the way, is an offshoot of a marijuana company) is through the roof. And young people aren\’t simply vaping flavored nicotine. A recent survey in the British Medical Journal found that young people who vaped tobacco were significantly more likely to have ever vaped marijuana than their peers.

Additionally, according to the latest Monitoring the Future Survey (MTF), the percentage of eighth and tenth graders reporting vaping marijuana increased 63% between 2017 and 2018.

Ready for the cherry on the top? A recent Gallup poll found that young people are now more likely to smoke marijuana than cigarettes. This echoes MTF data from over the last ten years finding the same result.

Knowing this, ask yourself why Big Tobacco is investing such massive amounts of money into pot.

Friend, we don\’t have billions of dollars to go toe to toe with the industry and combat their lobbying and PR campaigns. But we have science, common sense, and grassroots activism – the same recipe that helped turn tobacco use around in this country. And, as you remember, we won in virtually every state this year, including New York and New Jersey.

Please, chip in today to help us continue to put public health over corporate greed by clicking here. By contributing to SAM, you can very well help save lives.

Thanks for all you do,

Dr. Kevin Sabet,

Founder and President — Smart Approaches to Marijuana
About SAM: Smart Approaches to Marijuana is a nonpartisan, non-profit alliance of physicians, policy makers, prevention workers, treatment and recovery professionals, scientists, and other concerned citizens opposed to marijuana legalization who want health and scientific evidence to guide marijuana policies. SAM has affiliates in more than 30 states.

The undeniable facts every would-be cannabis smoker should know

By  Mary Brett August 5, 2019

PREDICTABLY, the new Home Secretary Priti Patel has been accused of being ‘out of touch’ over her welcome new commitment to a zero tolerance approachto drug use after years of de facto decriminalisation — a ‘turning a blind eye’ policy.

Those genuinely concerned to eradicate the scourge of drugs that has afflicted so many children and corrupted so many communities however have greeted her comments with a sigh of relief.

For such a policy to work it also needs to be backed by a proper programme of prevention and education, meaning scientifically based drugs education in schools in place of the disastrous current ‘informed choice’ harm reduction approach, especially essential in the section which focuses on teens’ drug of choice, cannabis.

In my experience as a biology teacher, I found the best way to make an impression on both children and adults, and to prevent them from starting to take the drug in the first place, was to provide a simple scientific explanation of how cannabis causes its damage. Not only did my grammar-school boys express their appreciation of this approach, so did their parents. I have had the same reaction following the talks I have given to youth clubs, to staff in schools around the country and perhaps, most movingly of all, to deeply drug-damaged young men, in rehabilitation, in recovery from their addiction. Why, they asked me, in all the lessons at school had no one ever informed them of these scientific facts, especially the way cannabis impacts on the brain and mental functioning? Why hadn’t they been told what they would be doing to themselves, the results of which they were suffering?

None was aware before beginning their cannabis careers that when the cannabinoid THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive ingredient giving the ‘high’ in cannabis, enters the brain, it sets in motion a chain of reactions that are inevitable, unpredictable and uncontrollable. Nor, despite using the drug for years, were they even familiar with the terminology. They were totally ignorant about both the drug and what it was doing and had done to them.

I found that simply telling people that cannabis can cause addiction and psychosis, affect learning and memory and cause vehicle accidents was not enough. They needed to understand the biology and the chemistry and the factual results and conclusions of an ever-growing body of confirmatory scientific research that cannot be disputed.

I have yet to hear other teachers, policy advisers or even drug treatment counsellors adopt this ‘explain the science’ tactic in public, when to me it is sheer common sense.

Would members of the general public, parents and politicians still be perfectly happy to see cannabis legalised — and therefore more available for their children’s use — if they knew these infrequently shared facts?

When a joint is smoked, THC immediately enters the brain and takes control, replacing anandamide, one of the most important neurotransmitters (chemicals that carry messages from cell to cell). This controls by suppression the levels of other neurotransmitters all carrying differing instructions. Unfortunately the fat-soluble THC is many times stronger than anandamide and stays for weeks in the brain cells still exerting its influence. There are no enzymes to break it down. This ‘dumbing down’ of the brain’s activities has various damaging results.

These include messages carried to the hippocampus, the centre of learning and memory. These messages fail to reach its cells; some die and the hippocampus shrinks. Learning and memory are badly affected and grades fall. No wonder they call it ‘dope’. Reaction times are slowed, so driving accidents, including fatalities, result. The supply of serotonin, our ‘happiness’ neurotransmitter, decreases and depression can set in, sometimes leading to suicide.

In mental illnesses such as psychosis, schizophrenia and paranoia which can sometimes result in violence or murder, the mechanism is the same but slightly more complex. THC first suppresses GABA, an inhibiting neurotransmitter which normally depresses dopamine (a feel-good neurotransmitter) so dopamine surges. Excess dopamine is found in the brains of people with psychosis and schizophrenia. It is widely thought that genetic vulnerability plays a part in some cases of schizophrenia. Many cases of violence and homicide are increasingly linked to the use of cannabis by the perpetrator.

Why cannabis is addictive: If a person stops using the drug, the anandamide receptor sites on the cells are left empty. This gives the withdrawal experience with all its nasty consequences: irritability, anxiety, restlessness, sleep problems, depression etc. The body needs time to resume its production of anandamide. According to addiction specialists, teenage cannabis addiction has proved to be the most challenging to treat; even more worrying, the addiction rate with teenage users has been found to be one in six, as opposed to one in ten of adults.

Rarely mentioned but surely the most disastrous effect of cannabis is that THC affects DNA (our genetic code — the instructions for life). Astonishingly this has been known (but not disseminated) since the nineties when it was found that new cells being made in an adult body (sperm, foetal and white blood cells) were fewer as ‘apoptosis’ (programmed cell death) occurred prematurely. Impotence and infertility have been documented and the immune system is impaired.

More recently it has been found that THC disrupts cell division. The strands required to pull apart the chromosomes to form the new cells fail to form properly so the chromosomes are unable to separate correctly. They may break up and re-join haphazardly, causing genetic mutations that can be very harmful and frequently fatal to the dividing cells.

The resulting foetal defects can be varied and include gastroschisis (when a baby is born with its intestines outside the body), which disturbingly appears now to be rising in the geographic areas where cannabis has been legalised either fully or for so-called medical purposes. A critical paper is available here. Anencephaly (absence of brain parts) and shortened limbs also appear to be associated. Oncogenes (genes that cause cancer) can be switched on. Bladder, testicle and childhood cancers such as neuroblastoma have all been reported. The DNA in mitochondria (energy producers in cells) can be damaged.

For complete story go to Stop the Pot Rot

This letter is to advise you that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed your website at the Internet address https://curaleafhemp.com External Link Disclaimer in April and June 2019 and has determined that you take orders there for the products “CBD Lotion,” “CBD Pain-Relief Patch,” “CBD Tincture” (5 versions), “CBD Disposable Vape Pen” (5 versions) and “Bido CBD for Pets” (3 versions), all of which you promote as products containing cannabidiol (CBD).1 We have also reviewed your social media websites at www.facebook.com/CuraleafHemp External Link Disclaimer and https://twitter.com/curaleafhemp External Link Disclaimer; these websites direct consumers to your website, https://curaleafhemp.comExternal  Link Disclaimer, to purchase your products. FDA has determined that your “CBD Lotion,” “CBD Pain-Relief Patch,” “CBD Tincture,” and “CBD Disposable Vape Pen” products are unapproved new drugs sold in violation of sections 505(a) and 301(d) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the FD&C Act), 21 U.S.C. 355(a) and 331(d). Furthermore, these products are misbranded drugs under section 502(f)(1) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 352(f)(1). FDA has also determined that your “Bido CBD for Pets” products are unapproved new animal drugs that are unsafe under section 512(a) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 360b(a), and adulterated under section 501(a)(5) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 351(a)(5). As explained further below, introducing or delivering these products for introduction into interstate commerce for such uses violates the FD&C Act. You can find the FD&C Act and FDA regulations through links on FDA’s home page at www.fda.gov.

Unapproved New and Misbranded Human Drug Products

Based on our review of your website, your “CBD Lotion,” “CBD Pain-Relief Patch,” “CBD Tincture,” and “CBD Disposable Vape Pen” products are drugs under section 201(g)(1) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 321(g)(1), because they are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease and/or intended to affect the structure or any function of the body.

Examples of claims observed on your website and social media accounts in April 2019 that establish the intended use of your products as drugs include, but may not be limited to, the following:

On your product webpage for CBD Disposable Vape Pen (Relieve):
– “[F]or chronic pain.”

On your product webpage for CBD Tincture (Relieve):
– “[S]oothing tincture for chronic pain.” …..