Vic cops question pregnant mother & seize cannabis medication for disabled son

[CLICKHEREx]

http://www.bluelight.org/vb/threads/728866-Police-question-pregnant-mother-over-cannabis-treatment-for-disabled-son


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Posts 6,928 11-07-2014 17:35 Fucking pigs. Hope they're proud of themselves

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A heavily pregnant mother has been taken into police custody and questioned after admitting to using cannabis oil to treat her profoundly disabled three-year-old son's epilepsy.

Police seized the treatment, made form a non psychoactive form of cannabis oil, and questioned Cassie Batten of Mernda, north-east of Melbourne at Epping police station on Thursday afternoon.

The mother left the station with her partner Rhett Wallace following the questioning. It is understood no charges were laid.

Ms Batten declined to comment outside the station, saying "I can't say much at this stage".

The couple could face charges at a later stage of possessing a drug of dependence and introducing a drug of dependence into the body of another.

Ms Batten was interviewed by police after featuring in a current affairs program about the use of a product called Mullaways Cannabinoid Tincture.

During an interview on Channel Seven's Sunday Night, Ms Batten said her son Cooper's health had remarkably improveed after the use of the cannabis treatment.

Born at 30 weeks, Cooper has endured a catalogue of health issues, among them cerebral palsy, epilepsy, infantile spasms and global delay development.

His seizures, occurring almost every minute, were so profound he required around-the-clock care and was unable to walk, talk or process sight to recognise family members.

In desperation, the family turned to the tincture, an alcohol-based form of cannabis oil.

Within 15 minutes of his first dose, his parents said that Cooper began tracking objects with his eyes for the first time and a recent EEG showed he was no longer having seizures.

He now smiles and laughs, can say "mum" and "dad" and just weeks ago sat up for the first time.

On Thursday, Cooper's aunt Shirley Kirk, told Fairfax Media she feared her nephew would die without the treatment seized by police.

"My sister is eight months pregnant and I'm also very concerned about her wellbeing," Ms Kirk said.

" I just spoke to her at the police station and she sounded very stressed. This is just outrageous."

The supplier of the cannabis oil, Kempsey, NSW-based Tony Bower, last month served six weeks of a 12-month jail sentence for supplying the tinctures before being released on appeal.

Tamworth mother Lucy Haslam, who is spearheading a national campaign to decriminalise marijuana for the terminally ill, said the treatment of Ms Batten was "sickening".

"It's just sickening and outrageous," Mrs Haslam said. "They are just trying to look after their child and keep it well. It would be like taking away a diabetic's insulin."

The Battens are one of at least 150 families nationwide using the Mullaways tinctures.

A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the Epping Sex Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team executed a search warrant at a home in Mernda shortly before 10am on Thursday.

"A number of items were seized as part of an active investigation," she said.

Dr Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, said there was a lot of “interesting” anecdotal evidence that should not be rejected, but that more research was needed.

“Does it work in childhood epilepsy? My answer is we don't know. We don't have good studies on the use of tinctures and in the absence of [research] I don't think anybody can make any conclusions,” he said.

Epilepsy Foundation chief executive Graeme Shears said he had heard of people using cannabis tinctures to treat epilepsy and reporting effective results, but said more testing was needed.

“We certainly understand when parents or people who have epilepsy, and conventional treatments are not working for them, try alternatives,” he said. “What we would like to have happen is that the appropriate randomised control trials are done for the tinctures…and if it’s proven effective and safe we think it should be legalised and used like any other treatment.”

The Australian Medical Association’s Victorian president Dr Tony Bartone said there was “a growing body of evidence” that cannabis was as an effective treatment for some conditions but that trials must be undertaken to ensure it was safe.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/po...#ixzz3792K9ykZ

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#2 poledriver View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 8,313 11-07-2014 18:09 A Victoria Police spokeswoman said the Epping Sex Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team executed a search warrant at a home in Mernda shortly before 10am on Thursday.

"A number of items were seized as part of an active investigation," she said.
Great work taking medicine off people who really need it.


Dr Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, said there was a lot of “interesting” anecdotal evidence that should not be rejected, but that more research was needed.

“Does it work in childhood epilepsy? My answer is we don't know. We don't have good studies on the use of tinctures and in the absence of [research] I don't think anybody can make any conclusions,” he said.
More research was needed? Take a look at some of the research that has been done from OS, how many years have people in the US been using MMJ now?

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#3 ... View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 267 11-07-2014 22:50 ...to treat her profoundly disabled three-year-old son's epilepsy. Police seized the treatment
Humor.

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#4 KyleOpium View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 78 12-07-2014 10:12 I kinda wish they would stop looking at drug use as such a black and white thing. Yeah, she was using cannabis oil on her son, but it's not psychoactive, and he improved. Any negative side effects that can be attributed to CBD (very few), are far outweighed by the pros. We prescribe chronic pain patients opiates, because even though they will most likely be addicted to them, the pros outweigh the cons (plus the money the government gets through taxes of the pharm companies), should be the same for CBD products. I'm actually fully against under 18's or 21's using psychoactives (it sure fucked my life up), but a non psychoactive medicine is really out of the question here.

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#5 DopeIsKing View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 15 12-07-2014 10:41 If it was helping you would think there would be a better level of understanding between the two. Unfortunately the herb and or concentrates are looked at as evil drugs that will "ruin" society. With all the drugs I've tried, cannabis is one that has never caused me severe or long term mental/physical issues. It's a medicine and a heavenly natural herb as well.

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#6 bit_pattern View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 6,928 13-07-2014 14:57 Former AFP boss backs cannabis oil parents

July 12, 2014

Former Australian Federal Police chief Mick Palmer has urged state law enforcement agencies to exercise discretion when dealing with families who are treating seriously ill children with cannabis oil.

Mr Palmer, who was the AFP commissioner from 1994 to 2001, said prosecuting families who have turned to a non-psychoactive form of the drug - such as an alcohol-based tincture of the oil - may not always be in the public interest.

He said while reports of parents giving the illegal drug to their children put police in a difficult position, treating them as criminals “served no good purpose”.

“We exercise discretion all the time and I think this is a classic case where what has to be seriously considered is what public interest is being served,” he said. “They're people trying to deal with an exceptionally difficult situation in the best way they know how."

Mr Palmer’s comments come as a Victorian couple faces possible charges for using cannabis oil to treat their three-year-old son’s severe epilepsy. Cassie Batten and Rhett Wallace were taken into police custody on Thursday after the Epping Sex Offences and Child Abuse Investigation team raided their Mernda home and seized their supplies of the oil.

Ms Batten and Mr Wallace, who have attracted pro bono legal support from former WikiLeaks Party campaign director and barrister Greg Barns, were released but could still face charges of possessing a drug of dependence and introducing a drug of dependence into the body of another.

The raid followed an appearance on Channel Seven’s Sunday Night program in which Ms Batten said her son Cooper’s condition had improved markedly since using the tincture. She said she turned to the cannabis oil because Cooper’s seizures were occurring almost every minute and rendered him unable to walk, talk or see. Within 15 minutes of his first dose, she said Cooper began tracking objects for the first time. He now smiles, laughs and can say “mum” and “dad”.

The family is one of at least 150 throughout the country that are reported to have turned to the oil, which is advertised by its supplier as having so low a dose of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive in cannabis, that it is not actually illegal.

Medicinal marijuana advocate Lucy Haslam, who is behind a push to legalise marijuana for the terminally ill, said she was “disgusted” with the Batten family’s treatment by police.

Ms Haslam and her former drug squad detective husband have campaigned for marijuana legalisation since seeing its benefits in their son Daniel, who has cancer.

The Haslams’ local police chief and mayor in NSW have publicly backed their campaign.

“I know of suppliers who have been raided and had the tinctures confiscated, but this is the first time that I’ve known of a family,” Ms Haslam said. “You’ve just got to wonder what's prompted it.”

The medical value of the tinctures remains unproven, experts say, due to a lack of research.

President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation Alex Wodak said he was not aware of any study into the use of cannabis to treat childhood epilepsy and that “every obstacle is being put in the way of researchers” wanting to evaluate the possible benefits of using the drug.

Dr Wodak said desperate families should be able to make their case for access to unapproved treatments, which he said could be done via a committee of paediatric neurologists or through the existing special access scheme, which allows terminally ill people to apply for access to unapproved drugs.

“Research is a slow business,” he said. “We don’t have the luxury of just watching these kids and their parents. I would like to see the people making these decisions are not ministers but [are] handed back to experts, the doctors.”

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/fo...#ixzz37K6ctdYp

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#7 poledriver View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 8,313 13-07-2014 15:30 'We won't bust Dan': higher priorities than raiding Haslams, top cop says

TAMWORTH’S police chief has moved to quell fears local cancer patient Dan Haslam could have his cannabis medicine seized in the wake of a shock raid in Melbourne this week.

Medical marijuana advocates are incensed at a Victoria Police decision to raid the home of former Tamworth woman Cassie Batten, who has been using a cannabis tincture to control the life-threatening symptoms of her three-year-old son Cooper’s epilepsy.

Officers from the state’s child abuse squad executed a search warrant and seized the tinctures for testing, taking the heavily pregnant Ms Batten in for questioning.

She could face charges of possessing a drug of dependence and introducing a drug of dependence into the body of another person.

Ms Batten told media yesterday Cooper, who suffers from a litany of conditions, had already begun having seizures again.

Tamworth mum Lucy Haslam, who has made national headlines for defending her son Dan’s right to use cannabis to relieve the symptoms associated with chemotherapy, said the Melbourne raid was “very concerning”.

“Obviously it’s very concerning because we don’t know whether that leaves us open to being arrested,” Mrs Haslam said.

“I know this really worries Dan too. Why should a terminally ill person have to worry about police coming through the door when they’re fighting a much bigger battle?

“This debate needs to be guided by compassion.”

Tamworth’s most senior police officer, Superintendent Clint Pheeney, yesterday allayed concerns the Haslams could be targeted. “My position is unchanged, we have other higher priority areas to target (than the Haslams),” he said.

Superintendent Pheeney has previously publicly supported the Haslams’ political push to decriminalise marijuana for the terminally ill.

Tamworth MP Kevin Anderson is expected to lodge a private members’ bill in the NSW Parliament next month in a bid to enshrine it in law.

Successive polls have shown widespread public support for medical marijuana, yet none of the nation’s health ministers have backed it.

http://www.northerndailyleader.com.a...p-says/?cs=157

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#8 bit_pattern View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 6,928 13-07-2014 22:38 Glad to hear the NSW police have more compassion than the fucking scum down here.

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#9 poledriver View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles Add as Contact
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Posts 8,313 Yesterday 09:59 Mother makes plea for low dose cannabis



MIA MIA resident Cheri O'Connell has welcomed comments made by former Australian Federal Police chief that law enforcement agencies should exercise discretion with families using low dose cannabis to treat their seriously ill children.

Former AFP chief Mick Palmer's comments come as a Melbourne couple faces possible charges for using cannabis oil to treat their child's severe seizures.

Ms O'Connell is concerned for the couple, Cassie Batten and Rhett Wallace, who first accessed medicinal cannabis after they saw the healing effect it had on her daughter, Tara.

Now that the couple's Mernda home has been raided by police, she is concerned for their three-year-old son, Cooper.

"By the end of the week he’ll be in hospital, if not in intensive care," Ms O'Connell said. She said the decision to take the couple into custody and raid their home happened because police were concerned about the drug becoming more common.

"To me this is a, 'oh no, we’ve got 150 families using it now, we better do something now before this gets big'," Ms O'Connell said.

"This all comes down to fact that Victoria Police have never tested it," she said.

Ms Batten and Mr Wallace's situation is at odds with the freedom the O'Connell family have had to administer the same drug to Tara.

Ms O'Connell said Tara not only received the drug from her parents at home but was also given it by trained professionals at hospitals, day care, school and respite centres.

"It's on all her medical records to show that she’s on it and that her IQ has increased. We’ve got one doctor's letter that says it's nothing short of miraculous."

Tara, 9, was suffering up to 65 seizures a day before she began taking medicinal cannabis but is now seizure-free.

Ms O'Connell said she and other families were trying to speak personally with health minister David Davis about the need for legislation for medicinal cannabis but had been unsuccessful in their attempts to meet with him.

http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/...annabis/?cs=80

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CLICKHEREx View Profile View Forum Posts Private Message View Blog Entries View Articles
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Posts 104 Today 13:08

When the law adversely impacts the health of innocent young children and infants, that law is WRONG, and MUST BE CHANGED!

The above stories make me ashamed to be an Australian.

Police can at the very least, use discretion in whether to investigate, charge, or search for and seize any cannabis based medications in such cases. Child protection services must only become involved if there is clearly harm to children, which there was not in this case; in fact, quite the reverse!

Surely they have got higher priorities in pursuing serious criminals, and if they have the time to act as they have done in the above, it's time they were redirected from above, or defunded / have those officers reassigned to the fraud squad, traffic, or assist victims of crime, which may be the only way the message will get through to them.

Edited July 15, 2014 by CLICKHEREx

[Slocombe]

It's a shame that this mother had to resort to giving drugs to her young child without medical supervision. If we didn't have these stupid drug laws her son would have been able to get a prescription from a GP and the police could direct their resources towards protecting the community.

[-RC-]

Mate, at the moment medical cannabis users are sitting ducks. Po-po's gotta keep busy, busting easy targets like this is a good way to do it. How else can they justify their existence, and ever-increasing militarisation and recruitment?

As far as parents giving drugs to their children, big pharma can suck a HUGE dick, because ALL of their drugs are liver toxic AT THE VERY LEAST.

GP's generally know fuck all anyway, except what their big pharma reps tell them, so if it were me and my children there wouldn't even be a question

[hamma]

How can they enforce a proabition that was based

on lies and corruption, shouldn't that be illegal.