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12 hours ago, Responsible Choice said:

Subscribers only Grug :( 

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Cannabis boom not so certain as philanthropist lobbies for cheap imports

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been a strong supporter of medicinal cannabis which is dispensed to children with ...
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has been a strong supporter of medicinal cannabis which is dispensed to children with severe epilepsy. Supplied

Buying shares in medicinal cannabis stocks is the new gold rush.

Brave fundies and retail investors are punting on exponential growth in profits from the "pot stocks" supplying cannabinoids to the domestic market and for export overseas.

The prospect of stellar returns has seen entrepreneurs rush to list companies on the ASX including backdoor listings of old mining shells into medicinal cannabis companies.

But it is not one big speculative bubble as shown by the minority investments made in a couple of Australian companies by two of Canada's biggest cannabis companies, Aurora Cannabis and Canopy Growth Corporation.

Financial Review rich lister Barry Lambert has called for reform of medicinal cannabis laws after his son was found ...
Financial Review rich lister Barry Lambert has called for reform of medicinal cannabis laws after his son was found guilty of possessing the drug, which he was using to treat his child. James Brickwood

Canada leads the world in the wide social acceptance of marijuana. In keeping with an election promise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has put forward legislation to legalise the use of cannabis for recreational use in Canada by July 1 next year.

Australia's has actually moved faster than Canada did to establish a medicinal cannabis industry. It is a tribute to bipartisan politics that the federal government passed a law and created what looks like a well regulated system in about 18 months.

There are now eight companies with medicinal cannabis licences, which allows them to cultivate and produce, five companies with cannabis research licences and four with manufacturing licences.

First commercial crop

The first commercial cannabis crop under Australia's new laws was produced last month by Cann Group at a secret location in Victoria.

 

The bipartisan political agreement to foster the new industry included the willingness of the Victorian government, which had first mover advantage, to adjust its laws to ensure there was uniform federal legislation.

For politicians such as Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale and NSW senator David Leyonhjelm the successful establishment of a well regulated medicinal cannabis industry has marked the end of a long and sometimes tough campaign to have the drug legalised for medical use.

In the rural sector, cannabis growing is seen as the new frontier for high tech agriculture. It brings together bioscience and genomics as scientists and cannabis farmers find best strains for serving the needs of patients.

The industry's respectability has been helped by the fact that respected and wealthy rural identities such as Tassal Group chairman Allan McCallum and Nufarm founder Doug Rathbone are backers of Cann Group. This company has won the support of two well known fundies, Ellerston Capital and Tribeca Investment Partners.

 

Australia's marijuana crop could end up being a world leading industry given the involvement of the CSIRO and the increasing number of universities conducting medicinal cannabis research.

There is a fourth stakeholder that cannot be ignored in this new gold rush – the parents of children with severe epilepsy and Tourette syndrome.

These are likely to be the single most important market for Australian made cannabinoids. The question is will the product be affordable?

That question needs to be considered in the context of the daily living arrangements for families that have a child suffering epilepsy or tourette's. Usually only one person can work because of the demands of care at home.

 

At this early stage in Australia's development of the medicinal cannabis industry it would seem the main users of the drugs are being forced to pay too much for treatment.

That might augur well for the emerging producers of medicinal cannabis but it raises questions about the ultimate philosophy behind developing a local industry.

Carole Ireland, the chief executive of the Epilepsy Action Group, says the cannabidiols available on prescription cost about $560 for 10 days treatment. She says spending $1000 a month on a course of treatment is too much.

She says there are 250,000 people in Australia with epilepsy and about 65 per cent of these are able to cope with existing drug therapies. She says the remaining 35 per cent have severe episodes of epilepsy and are potential users of medicinal cannabis.

 

A recent presentation to investors by Cann Group estimated there were 146,000 people in Australia with epilepsy in the pool of potential patients for medicinal cannabis.

The same presentation, which drew on work done by researchers at Sydney University, said the largest numbers of patients in the pool were 4.8 million with chronic pain, 3.85 million people with arthritis, 650,000 with osteoporosis, and 130,000 with cancer.

The Cann Group presentation said the potential size of the market in Australia in terms of revenue was $380 million by 2018 and $1.3 billion by 2026.

Global shortage

Peter Crock, who is CEO of Cann Group, says there is likely to be a global shortage of medicinal cannabis and that is why the Office of Drug Control in Australia was willing to recently explore the possibility of allowing exports of Australian made medicinal cannabis.

He says when the Office of Drug Control did its first road shows about medicinal cannabis last year, it suggested exports would be three to five years away. The Minister for Health, Greg Hunt, says he does not want to constrain a growing industry.

The government has allowed imports of medicinal cannabis to help meet demand in the local market ahead of the ramp up of production by the new producers.

But it will not allow imports of cannabidiols made from hemp plants. This has triggered a campaign for reform of Australia's nascent medicinal cannabis laws by Barry Lambert.

 

He is the founder of the Count financial advisory group, which was bought by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Lambert and his wife Joy provided $33.7 million in funding for research at Sydney University into medicinal cannabis trials.

They were motivated by their granddaughter Katelyn, who has a dangerous form of childhood epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome. Lambert says the best treatment for his daughter comes from a cannabidiol from the hemp plant.

This is illegal in Australia but is grown freely like a crop in the United States. Lambert put $10 million of his own money to ensure the production of the hemp by a company called Ecofibre.

In the US there are two separate approaches to marijuana and hemp. Hemp is allowed to be grown because only 0.1 per cent of its flower includes THC, which is the drug in cannabis that gives people a high.

Lambert is devoting his entire life to helping Katelyn and this includes a non-stop campaign to convince state and federal politicians to change the law.

He met recently with Di Natale and Leyonhjelm. He meet recently with NSW Minister for Health Brad Hazzard.

If Lambert is successful in his campaign and hemp based oils are allowed into Australia it will change the economics of the medicinal cannabis market.

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Big tobacco has expressed interest in this type of growing? No shit Victorian government stooges!

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2015-10-07/6832708

 

We've got to liase with industry so as to transition blahblah.

 

I'm sure the Victorian public have never, and would never, ask the Victorian governement to liase with Big tobacco on ANYTHING even remotely related to cannabis. Just sayin.

Edited by Responsible Choice
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On ‎9‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 3:14 PM, Responsible Choice said:

Medical cannabis processing plant proposal welcomed by Richmond Valley Council

You don't say?! :o:wink:

 

"All the screaming and yelling from the Reefer Madness people turned out to be completely hollow; it's been a win-win for everyone."

 

The amazing power of money. It's almost like, we can make shitloads of money out of this. Suddenly it isn't such a bad thing.....

 

Don't get me wrong, I just struggle with the greed aspect of it, and the hypocrisy. They change the game so dealing in cannabis is only legal for a select few. And underlying this particular legislation is their persistent inference that if you buy it from the place you've sourced it from for the last 3 years, you're somehow at an increased risk of harm, than if you source it from their regulated supplier. 

 

It's not exactly a win-win for everyone. Yet. I am hopeful this type of change eventually leads the way to full legalization, including "recreational" use. I think there's a good chance it will.

 

"Anyway, how dumb are all the hippies saying it's a good medicine all these years?"  LMFAO.  :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

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On ‎9‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 7:42 AM, Responsible Choice said:

Big tobacco has expressed interest in this type of growing? No shit Victorian government stooges!

 

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/inside-sydney-and-melbournes-illegal-tobacco-hotspots-that-are-costing-the-economy-millions/ar-AAsErbG?li=AAgfIYZ&ocid=mailsignout

 

A list of tip offs shared with the Australian Border Force, NSW, Victorian and Federal Police has revealed more than 60 stores allegedly trading in illegal tobacco around the western suburbs of Sydney, and the east-west ring of Melbourne, with other centres  in Griffith, Ballarat and Bendigo. 

 

You can bet your left testicle the tobacco industry was involved in this. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this scenario appears just too convenient given the current and impending restructuring of cannabis laws.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-04-20/marijuana-could-be-big-tobacco-s-next-pot-of-gold

 

According to this 2016 Bloomberg report, the tobacco industry, as well as the food and beverage industry, are only too well aware of the opportunity legalized cannabis represents if they enter this market, especially given the decline in tobacco sales over the last 10 years, down 21%. 

 

"it's such a compelling opportunity for the tobacco companies to look at closely,"  And in fact, they have -- roughly 40 years ago. Documents from the 1970s revealed that former executives at companies such as Philip Morris began looking into both the threat of and opportunity in cannabis in anticipation of it becoming legalized by the U.S. government. Similarly, packaged-food companies, which are also looking for ways to grow and attract younger generations, could expand into edible cannabis products.

 

Add into this equation the fact now just 2 companies, Reynolds and Altria, are responsible for over 80% of all tobacco sales, entering a regulated cannabis industry would mean more than offsetting the decline in tobacco sales. It is literally a "pot" of gold. What this means from an Australian consumer perspective, however, is the prospective tax placed on a recreational cannabis sales will more than likely be closer to that of tobacco. As at .01.09.2017 the Australian tax on tobacco (per .8g cigarette) moved form 61% to  almost 70%, and is legislated to increase by 12.5% annually over the next 3 years.

 

After all, we've seen Reynolds acquire Niconovum, a Swedish company, which makes nicotine gum and other nicotine replacement products designed to wean smokers off cigarettes. High tax rate on those things because while the government wants to be seen as proactive in getting folk to quit smoking, they have to replace the tax revenue lost due to the dropping number of smokers.

 

Back to the local scene...

 

A spokesman for the Australian Border Force said since 2015 it has seized 400 tonnes of illicit tobacco, amounting to $294 million in lost taxes. 

A report from KPMG commissioned by big tobacco claims the total is closer to $1.6 billion, but the Cancer Council strongly disputes this figure. 

They claim it is part of a big tobacco campaign to overestimate the influence of illegal operators to stop their profits from sliding further

 

What??? Big tobacco wouldn't resort to such tactics, surely. Perhaps our cig packs should carry the warning: "Tobacco companies' loss of revenue is a health hazard."

 

In 2015, the ATO gave figures of approx. $9 billion collected in federal tax from legal tobacco sales, a 4 fold increase over a 15 year period. If we take big tobacco's claim of a $1.6 billion tax revenue loss, that equates to approximately 18%. At $294 million, the ABF estimate is closer to 3%. This either means a shitload more people buy tobacco illegally or someone is stretching their figures. (It is estimated 13.3% of Australian adults smoke daily, about 2.6 billion people).

That's equivalent to approx. 86.7 million folk buying illegally according to the ABF and approx. 468 million according to bug tobacco.

 

A parliamentary inquiry into illicit tobacco that began in 2015 still has yet to make any recommendations, while the federal government's Black Economy Task Force has called for a "blitz" on the industry, warning the economic cost of the tax gap is growing as it prepares to release its final report in October. 

 A spokesman for the Australian Tax Office said the ATO was working with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection on developing a final estimate of tax losses.

"The illicit tobacco tax gap will be released when we are satisfied we have an estimate that is both credible and reliable," he said.

 

Might have been what he said; what he meant is "...the illicit tobacco tax gap will be released when we arrive at a figure which suits our collective agenda."

 

Regardless of what transpires with taxation on cannabis, for my mind the primary factor driving the tobacco black market and associated crime is the high tax rate. I see regulated recreational cannabis following the same.

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Well it took fucking ages, but we have finally caught up to the rest of the world:

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-11-13/hemp-food-products-hit-the-shelves-as-crop-edibles-legalised/9138934

 

Just had to let everyone on the inside get a nice cosy spot before we allowed the health concerns of the public to be addressed... STRAYA!

Edited by Responsible Choice
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11 hours ago, Responsible Choice said:

Well it took fucking ages, but we have finally caught up to the rest of the world:

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2017-11-13/hemp-food-products-hit-the-shelves-as-crop-edibles-legalised/9138934

 

Just had to let everyone on the inside get a nice cosy spot before we allowed the health concerns of the public to be addressed... STRAYA!

Lol yeah, my Mrs bought me some hemp cacao bars recently and the shopkeeper had to state and point out a sticker on it that said they were soap, and only for cosmetic use!

 

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Thanks Responsible Choice for keeping us informed.   I check this thread every few days.  

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Now if they could just exploit the fibre as well... but it's a threat to existing industries.

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Here is where cannabis can make a huge difference for many Australians, if the docs and their masters Big Pharma say it's OK though...

 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-27/antipsychotic-drugs-restraints-and-seclusion-in-mental-health/9286208

 

Brisbane psychiatrist Niall McLaren sometimes prescribes antipsychotic drugs, but he is also very cautious and says they are being used illiberally.

"We know that Australia uses antipsychotics at an extremely high rate by international standards," Dr McLaren said.

"The overuse of antipsychotics is a major problem in this country, it will be a bigger problem because these drugs have long-term side effects.

"People that take it in the long term, will die 19 years younger than un-drugged peers."

It is a scary reality for some people who take the medication.

Edited by Responsible Choice
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On 12/27/2017 at 7:26 PM, Responsible Choice said:

"The overuse of antipsychotics is a major problem in this country, it will be a bigger problem because these drugs have long-term side effects.

"People that take it in the long term, will die 19 years younger than un-drugged peers."

 

I wouldn't expect anything less from a criminal cartel born in the concentration camps of nazi Germany - big pharma that is.

 

That's standard practice in the medical world, they compatmentalise everything and then take the myopic view that if it fixes/suppresses the symptom in question it must be good and disregard any side effects. Then they get to  sell you other drugs to suppress the side effects of the original drug while you spiral into your grave with their hands in your wallet whole time.

 

Edited by Sallubrious
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This is an often overlooked health-consequence of vaping (and I mean with flowers, not BHO like this article slips in at the end):

 

https://hightimes.com/health/science/vaping-cannabis-may-reduce-tobacco-use/

 

Pretty likely correlation when you think about it. Don't know anyone who vapes with tobacco, and if you've tried it you'll know why (again talking dried leaf). :puke:

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Fuck DisneyLand bro!

 

https://hightimes.com/culture/mike-tyson-reveals-his-secret-plan-to-revolutionize-weed/

 

Mike Tyson And His One Stop Weed Shop

Tyson, who broke ground on the land back on December 20, finally revealed on Monday that he purchased the 40-acre plot of land in California City, a desert location about two hours north of Los Angeles, with plans to convert the land into a one-stop cannabis shop and amusement park.

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http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/medicinal-cannabis-exports-get-green-light/news-story/c0391c6cb1407dad869f1f3b9237824d

 

"The federal health department says 350 patients have accessed Australian-grown medicinal cannabis products."

 

..... Wow. 350 patients. Why not more....? Well, perhaps because,

 

"However, there are some concerns doctors are reluctant to prescribe the products."

 

Mmmm, no. They're not reluctant. They just find the state regulatory processes too fucking hard to navigate in order to prescribe it. But that's OK; so long as we export our medicinal cannabis, we'll at least make the exporting business and the economy far more healthy.

 

 

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Medicinal cannabis firm Medifarm welcomes export opportunities but says Australian patients its focus

By Jennifer Nichols and Joanne Shoebridge

The first Australian company to be licensed to cultivate and manufacture medicinal marijuana has praised the Federal Government's plan to allow exports of cannabis-based medicines.

Privately-owned and Queensland-based Medifarm is close to completing construction of a secure facility in a secret location on the Sunshine Coast.

Medifarm founder, Adam Benjamin welcomedHealth Minister Greg Hunt's 'excellent' export announcement.

"We consider the news another great step forward."

Medifarm has an exclusive international intellectual property partnership with Israeli based company, Tikun Olam, which pioneered world production 12 years ago.

Tikun Olam will provide the mother stock for Medifarm's medicinal marijuana plants.

"We're hoping to have these first genetic materials landed within a month and local production out the farm gate within the next three to four months," Mr Benjamin said.

"We were consulted by the Office of Drug Control, the federal licensing authority, last year about whether we were interested in exporting.

"While we think it's a good idea, we are to treat Australian patients first and in particular we're treating Queensland patients first.

Mr Benjamin said his company had not yet investigated export opportunities, but potential markets included Canada, South America, Germany, Holland, Spain and Israel.

Those nations already have federal frameworks in place for legalised medicinal cannabis industries.

Overseas markets could play an crucial role for Australia's formative industry, which is not allowed to stockpile product and faces delays in securing approvals for patients to be treated.

Crop largely without psychoactive component

Medifarm conservatively hopes to produce enough medicinal cannabis products to supply up to 5,000 Australian patients this year, and contrary to many people's conceptions, Mr Benjamin said just five per cent of the crop will contain the psychoactive compound THC.

"I think what's very important for patients and doctors is that once they get their heads around the idea that it's not making anyone high, it's got other medical components to it.

"Secondly, it's not being smoked.

"Someone might have chronic pain, another patient might have multiple sclerosis. We have all these receptors in our body that can work with the hundreds of different medical cannabis plant strains.

Mr Benjamin believed just four companies had been licensed to grow and manufacture marijuana for therapeutic use in Australia, three of which were publicly listed.

An allocation of $2.5 million has been established to setting-up the Australian Centre for Cannibinoid Clinical and Research Excellence at the University of Newcastle to coordinate federal trials.

Doctors awaiting education

Late last year, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia warned that many GPs were unprepared to prescribe medicinal cannabis, despite patients requesting access to the controversial drugs.

Anecdotally, Mr Benjamin believed just 11 scripts had been written in Queensland, four of which were for the same patient.

"I know of plenty of doctors who have attempted to prescribe it but they need to be pre-authorised by both their relevant state or territory health department and the Federal Therapeutic Goods Administration," he said.

"That's what's put the handbrake on in Queensland which has the most progressive health legislation in Australia.

"GPs can prescribe it in Queensland. That's not the case in all states."

Mr Benjamin believed that rather than being actively reluctant, many doctors were waiting for more education.

"So in their mind, much like most of us, they're coming out of the back of recreational concepts.

"We're not saying this is a cure-all, but if you're the right patient and this is the right treatment, this is a new tool in the doctors bag.

"If you're a doctor you should be very well aware of all your tools."

Economic boom overblown says producer

Meantime, a Nimbin hemp producer with interests in medicinal marijuana companies has poured water on claims by the Federal Health Minister that Australia could become the largest exporter of medicinal cannabis in the world.

Nimbin farmer Andrew Kavasilas said politicians were blowing hot air in claims of an economic boom.

"It's a good call that they would like to potentially be the biggest exporter, but in reality we really are a long way from that," Mr Kavasilas said.

He said there were only a small number of companies in the world that own a lawful source of cannabis, approved for scientific and medical research under international drug conventions.

"For instance, in the United States, all those states that are doing medical cannabis you have to understand that it's illegal federally.

"In those states, under the US Constitution, they conducted citizens-initiated referendums that overruled that.

"There really is that bottleneck at the very top, all around the world, where researchers are in need of a lawful source of cannabis to do any kind of research so they can do clinical trials."

The Federal Health Minister's office has been asked for a response.

Edited by etherealdrifter
because you can
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a while back they couldn't guarantee a steady supply to the sick kids herer, epileptics, seizure sufferers, cancer chemo patients etc but now they've 'seen the tax light' they're going to ramp up production of shitty genetics that have been hybridized to oblivion and are now in a'position' to provide medicinal gm phenotypes , chemically enhanced shit to sell to the international market for a massive profit and these seeds are being created under license using their stolen patents( i mean really who owns land race stock anyway -us - or the country of origin that that it came from that has no  intellectual property constitutional laws in place over their own seeds because of shit poor economic reasons?

Now is the time of our  discontent Shakespeareans.

 

 

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^ just ludicrous.  Poppy fields are less protected.  Reefer madness is still alive and well in Australia.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-17/what-the-marijuana-genome-map-means-for-the-future-of-pot

 

And so it begins......Money, money,money. I imagine there might be some valuable good which could eventuate from this, but an article which mentions hooch and Monsanto in the same breath (and alludes to pharmaceuticals) raises me 'ackles.

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