Nigel Kennedy admits smoking cannabis at drugs raid party

The award-winning violinist suggested he was a regular user of the drug and that he could not work without it.

He is understood to be one of two people facing charges after police raided the hotel, in the Bavarian town of Bad Wörishofen, following complaints of a raucous late night celebration.

Kennedy, 53, told Germany's Bild newspaper: "I smoked a little grass.

"I can't do this job without it, I need it to relax."

The self-proclaimed "bad boy of classical music"was among 20 people questioned after the raid at the Steigenberger Sonnenhof hotel at 3.15am on September 26.

Two were reported to the public prosecutor on suspicion of having used either marijuana or heroin.

Kennedy, however, denied any knowledge of the presence of heroin.

Officers are understood to have found equipment used to smoke illegal drugs in rooms rented out by other guests at the party.

Police have said they believe traces of heroin were on the paraphernalia they took away.

Johan Kreuzpointer, the local prosecutor, is awaiting the results of toxicology reports on the drugs found in the pipes, expected this week, before he decides on charges.

While neither he nor local police will confirm whether Kennedy is in line for prosecution, the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper said its sources state he is one of the two who may be charged.

Kennedy, widely considered one of Britain's finest ever musicians, has previously admitted using drugs. The Birmingham-born star, whose interpretation of Vivaldi's Four Seasons remains the best selling classical record of all time, has told how he occasionally smokes marijuana to help him unwind after concerts.

But he is believed to have calmed down since the wild days of the 1980s and early 1990s when he was famed for conducting interviews whilst swigging champagne.

Charles Hynes Mindless bigot ?

"Medical marijuana? You must be high!    Marijuana may provide relief to patients with serious diseases as well as chronic pain sufferers, but the plant contains THC, a psychoactive chemical substance.      Each year, my office — along with the NYPD — seizes large quantities of marijuana that originate from multiple states and even other countries. THC levels vary widely among marijuana depending on the source, and at high levels may adversely affect people with pre-existing health and psychiatric issues.    
Only a licensed physician should be prescribing marijuana with specificity in dosage, just like any other prescription drug. In addition, pesticides, chemicals, and other illegal substances like PCP are found in marijuana, often far beyond dangerous levels."
This article appeared in the yournabe.com on the 7/9/10   it was written by charles j. hynes, brooklyn, district attorney I I have never read in all my life, anything with as many untruths as this except perhaps The Cat in the Hat, How did this raveing loony become anything to do with the law. This is what we are up against, Mindless bigots who only care about there own agenda.

Marijuana-Tumor Research hidden by U.S. Government

A Spanish medical team’s study released in Madrid in February 2000 has shown that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active chemical in marijuana, destroys tumors in lab rats. These findings, however, are not news to the U.S. government. A study in Virginia in 1974 yielded similar results but was suppressed by the DEA, and in 1983 the Reagan/Bush administration tried to persuade U.S. universities and researchers to destroy all cannabis research work done between 1966 and 1976, including compendiums in libraries.

The research was conducted by a medical team led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutence University in Madrid. In the study, brains of 45 lab rats were injected with a cancer cell, which produced tumors. On the twelfth day of the experiment, 15 of the rats were injected with THC and 15 with Win-55, 212-2, a synthetic compound similar to THC. The untreated rats died 12-18 days after the development of the tumors. THC treated rats lived significantly longer than the control group. Although three were unaffected by the THC, nine lived 19-35 days, while tumors were completely eradicated in three others. The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

In an e-mail interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. “I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by theses people, but it has proven impossible,” Guzman said. His response wasn’t surprising, considering that in 1983 the Reagan/Bush administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966/76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer. “We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared,” he says.

Guzman provided the title of the work-”Antineoplastic Activity of Cannabinoids,” an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute-and author Raymond Cushing obtained a copy at the UC Medical School Library in Davis, California, and faxed it to Madrid. The 1975 article does not mention breast cancer tumors, which were featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study in the local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. The headline read, “Cancer Curb Is Studied,” and was followed in part by, “The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered. The researchers found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers, and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

Drug Enforcement Agency officials shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on these events in his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes. In 1976, President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies. These companies set out-unsuccessfully-to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.”

Update by Raymond Cushing

Update by Raymond Cushing

When I was a cub reporter twenty-eight years ago at the daily Advocate in Stamford, Connecticut, my first city editor-a white-haired veteran of the International Herald Tribune named Marian Campbell-told me that the cure for cancer was the holy grail of all news stories.

“Unless they discover the cure for cancer,” she would say over the clackety-clack of the manual typewriters, “this paper goes to press on time.”

What I found out a quarter-century later is that not even the cure for cancer is a big enough story to crack the Berlin Wall of media censorship in this country. Toss in the facts that the cure appears to be a benign substance that has been illegal for 63 years, and that the government knowingly suppressed evidence of its curative powers 25 years, and you get twice the storyæand twice the censorship.

I won’t name the “investigative journalists” who didn’t respond when I sent them this story. I won’t list the numerous “progressive” publications that ignored it. I won’t describe the forbidding sense of professional isolation I endured in the months I tried to place the story.

Suffice it to say that it’s what one would expect in a society that has criminalized its own young for two generations around the cannabis issue simply because we were told to do so.

Thousands of innocent people who are in U.S. prisons for possessing or selling “the cure for cancer” await liberation and reparations. Someday our grandchildren will look back and ask, “What did you do to set the cannabis prisoners free?”

Here’s what any responsible journalist should be doing:

Go to primary sources when evaluating cannabis research. The AP and other news organizations love to elevate “bad science” and suppress “good science” when it comes to cannabis. You have to read the original research articles yourself and make your own judgments.

Investigate and report on the war on children that is a major component of the war on drugs. The marijuana laws are the main tool the police use to persecute minors. No other policy affects more families in more insidious and devastating ways than cannabis prohibition.

Learn about the history of cannabis prohibition and about the pharmaceutical, liquor, and tobacco giants that are behind it. If you don’t know the history of cannabis and hemp prohibition, you’re too ignorant to justifiably call yourself a journalist.

If it turns out-as my story would seem to indicate-that cannabis is the cure for cancer and the government suppressed this information for 25 years (and continues to suppress it), then the body count alone will make this the biggest holocaust in recorded history. Virtually all federal drug policy makers of both parties since 1975-including legislators, presidents and the DEA-will be complicit and criminally liable.

That’s why they don’t want this story covered.

To learn the history of cannabis prohibition, read http://www.jackherer.com. 

Cannabis And Cognition Claim

Washington, DC: Research published this week in the journal Neurology speculating that marijuana's effects on the cerebrovascular system may bring about residual cognitive deficits in longtime users is not supported by the majority of available clinical evidence.

Numerous prior reviews of marijuana's potential impact on neurocognitive performance include:

A 2003 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society that "failed to reveal a substantial, systematic effect of long-term, regular cannabis consumption on the neurocognitive functioning of users who were not acutely intoxicated;"

A 2002 clinical trial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that determined, "Marijuana does not have a long-term negative impact on global intelligence;"

A 2001 study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry that found that long-term cannabis smokers who abstained from the drug for one week "showed virtually no significant differences from control subjects (those who had smoked marijuana less than 50 times in their lives) on a battery of 10 neuropsychological tests." Researchers added, "Former heavy users, who had consumed little or no cannabis in the three months before testing, [also] showed no significant differences from control subjects on any of these tests on any of the testing days;"

A 1999 clinical trial published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that found "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis" over a 15-year period.

More recently, a study published last fall in the journal Psychological Medicineexamining the potential long-term residual effects of cannabis on cognition in monozygotic male twins reported "an absence of marked long-term residual effects of marijuana use on cognitive abilities."

In addition, a scientific review published earlier this month in the journalCurrent Opinion in Pharmacology concluded, "There is little evidence ... that long-term cannabis uses causes permanent cognitive impairment. ... Overall, by comparison with other drugs used mainly for 'recreational' purposes, cannabis could be rated a relatively safe drug."

For more information, please contact, Shimon , using the box below,or Email knowyourcannabis@gmail.com  or Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Law