 | NORML News: Robert Connell Clarke INTERVIEW |
 Noted cannabis author, scientist, breeder and scholar Robert Connell Clarke recently visited New Zealand to meet the cannabis community and get in some serious fishing (he won the Far North Easter fishing tournament).
Breeder of famous strains such as Silver Pearl and Haze, author of classic cannabis books such as Hashish! and Marijuana Botany, and currently growing hemp in South East Asia, Rob Clarke was a special guest judge at Auckland's First Annual Cannabis Cup and took part in the Drug Policy Forum Trust's recent medicinal cannabis conference. Chris Fowlie talked to Rob over a joint or two and a nice cup of tea.
CF: Kiaora Rob, what have you been up recently? RCC: I came to enjoy the beauties of New Zealand. I spent some time with the hemp pioneers here as well as growers of more recreational varieties, and with the medical conference in Wellington. With David Hadorn I tried to help develop some strategies to move forward with medical cannabis in New Zealand. Something needs to be done.
How do you think we stack up against the rest of the world, and what can we learn from what's happening around the rest of the world? You really don't have any kind of medical cannabis policy. The BC Compassion Club and Michael and Valerie Corral from WAMM actually provide cannabis to caregivers. Their operations are technically illegal, but they continue to operate. There's that kind of action in New Zealand too, there are a couple of groups who are ardently trying to see that those who need medical cannabis have access to it.
It varies so much around the world. The Dutch have gone from having a coffeeshop system - there are still over 1000 coffee shops in Holland, but nobody had medical cannabis until five or six years ago when Maripharm and some other groups who now grow for the government started growing and distributing it on their own to pharmacies. Now it's done by the government - they were forced to do it, basically, because it was happening anyway. Now the government monitors it and has these people growing for them, and they distribute it to the pharmacies.
That's the most upfront system. The Dutch once again are a model. They are so conservative but so practical - it's a great combination. I'm a Dutch resident, by the way.
And is that being exported it to Canada? They can export it as long as other governments approve the import. They can export cannabis to be used in clinical trials and eventually to be given to patients. You can get medical products very soon from GW Pharmaceuticals - they'll have their spray with THC in it, made from natural sources.
Our government has said they are waiting for this medicine to come out of England but it keeps being delayed.
People thought it might have been approved before the end of last year. I don't know what the current hangup is, but they have not got the final government approval to release it. It has gone through sufficient trials and they have been positive - largely for the relief of MS and other kinds of spasticity problems and relief of certain kinds of pain. It will be prescribed for all kinds of conditions that people already use raw cannabis for.
Are there limits in the Netherlands to what it can be prescribed for? No. It's up to the doctor to decide what medicines to prescribe. They have a good website (www.cannabisoffice.nl) with a lot of information on it.
The situation in Canada is diverse. Canada is trying to get a program together at government level to provide cannabis to patients. It's going in fits and starts. The Canadian Medical Association is comfortable with it. They're going in the right direction. Vancouver's compassion club is I think in its seventh year and they serve 3000 patients. They're doing a marvellous job. They haven't been arrested because Hilary Black (director of the club) went to the police and said, this is what we're going to do, very politely, and they said - we'll watch you. She's a 21 year old woman. She stuck her neck out.
Michael and Valerie Corral from Santa Cruz (California) have been busted three times.
They now have an injunction against the federal government, so it's de facto legal for as long as that injunction exists, and they're growing right now.
It seems that for medical marijuana, and legalisation in general, it has been activists leading the way and governments catching up. What lessons are there for New Zealand? I think people will probably just have to go ahead and do it.
The government has a chance to react to the advice that's coming their way. I'm not an activist type myself particularly, I've basically spent my life being a scientist, studying cannabis and the people around it - but that's what ends up getting the job done. It's taken people actually getting arrested, which is unfortunate. Activism's easy to ignore until people really push the envelope. Then the government must react and they do, by and large. Then there's a court case, and that's where the real meat of issues gets decided.
It's unfortunate, because governments can set policies that basically people are happy with, and they don't need to go through this process. I don't know why governments can't be that foresighted. They can handle the situation any way they want. They can wait for Sativex or whatever, but it won't stop people from smoking cannabis, because it exists here anyway. Some people like medical cannabis better than whatever pharmaceutical product might be offered. They could just have a tolerant policy, turn a blind eye to it. There's not an overwhelming mass of population that's going to start flocking in, claiming they're ill and want cannabis. You can buy it anywhere you want here.
The police and courts have such wildly varying treatment of people. Some people are let off while others go to jail, and police are still actively arresting medical users.
It's interesting because in England the police simply don't anymore arrest medical users and medical growers. Old ladies with a couple plants in their backyard are not a problem, or somebody with an attic full of it for medical use, that's not a problem as long as they're not selling it. Some medical patients actually smoke more than your average recreational user - way more - so they sometimes have good sized grows.
That's been an unfortunate part of a lot of med-pot cases, that they're caught with quite large amounts. And we have the presumption in New Zealand that more than ten plants and you're presumed to be doing it for supply.
People can use very little cannabis or quite a bit to achieve their medical relief.
Some patients use up to five grams a day, which is really a lot. I think consistent smokers who smoke all day long would smoke more like a gram or two a day. A large number of people who use medical cannabis have life-threatening diseases. They are trying to ameliorate the pain and suffering caused by a disease that in the end is going to kill them anyway. Is this a compassion issue, or what? If heroin alleviated their suffering, why shouldn't they have that too?
Tell us about the varieties you've developed for medical uses.
We started developing medical cannabis grows, which were licensed to GW Pharmaceuticals. That's what Sativex is actually made from. We developed it medically under license, legally, in the Netherlands during a five-year period.
We polished up varieties that were around and made them correct for medical use. A number of different cannabinoid profiles - not all pure THC varieties. A number of different terpene profiles - and taught them how to grow, and helped them set up their growing operations. So we were seminal in that.
It's always been an issue with me, the medicalisation of cannabis - and in this case, the commercial medicalisation of cannabis. In my opinion, cannabis should be free from all systems of control entirely. It's not dangerous, and it's never really been commercial. It doesn't compare in profits to all the hard drugs, despite its popularity. It's never going to go away and it should just be legalised. People should learn the lessons of history and just be progressive and legalise it.
Maybe do the same with other drugs too, but why not start with a really harmless one like cannabis and see what happens.
It's not going to be the end of the world. A little social experiment - be a little more brave, folks - just try it out.
Next issue: Part 2 of our interview with Rob Clarke.
Picture: Silver Pearl, one of Rob's creations.
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