We cannot run them all but below are a selection representing the most commonly held views

We cannot run them all but below are a selection, representing the most commonly held views. I AM a long-term user who now cultivates small quantities of high-grade cannabis for consumption by myself and paying friends. While I cannot say it has medical benefits I have watched vicars with eye problems, disabled old ladies and paraplegic athletes smoke All have spoken of the benefits. We received hundreds of letters in response to our campaign, the majority supporting our action. The Misuse of Drugs Act puts cannabis in Schedule 1 – drugs subject to the strictest controls on the grounds that they have allegedly little or no medical value and cause social problems through misuse. Besides cannabis, the list includes LSD, mescaline, raw opium and coca leaf.

There is a powerful case for taking cannabis into the Schedule 2 list of controlled drugs with medical use, such as morphine, methadone and amphetamines, allowing qualified doctors lawfully to prescribe drugs that they believe will benefit patients.Gordon Prentice is MP for Pendle in Lancashire and secretary of the All Party MS Group.. The drug has for centuries been regarded as having therapeutic value even if, these days, its efficacy is challenged. The BMA magazine’s Doctors Decide Panel of over 100 hospital doctors and GPs wants cannabis to be available on prescription. In an article in the BMA News Review earlier this year, 78 per cent of hospital doctors and three in five GPs agreed that the drug should be available for therapeutic purposes.
There is no doubt in my mind that cannabis and cannabis derivatives can help people cope with a variety of medical conditions. This will reflect opinion within the profession which is moving sharply in favour of legalisation for medical use. If this happens it will simply return us to the position which applied before 1973, when the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act came into force, outlawing medical use of the drug.

Before then doctors could prescribe cannabis which was often dispensed in tincture form, like cough mixture. Later this month the BMA’s Board of Science will, it is believed, recommend wider use of the drug. In July this year the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly for cannabis products to be made available for medical use. Fill in the coupon (bottom right of page) or call 0800 585 691.. If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it correctly.

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Trouble is, according to Which? many of the lenders don’t provide enough information for borrowers to work out what they should be paying, despite a new code of practice that should have brought improvements.The Independent and Independent on Sunday have produced a free Guide to Mortgages, sponsored by Barclays Mortgages, for readers. Unfortunately it will not single-handedly vanquish all your existing mortgage horrors, but, particularly for mortgage novices, it is recommended reading. I look forward to hearing from society executives imminently and will pass on the responses.MORTGAGES need more regulation. Yet another report backing this view is in October’s Which? magazine, published last week (try your public library). Any sensible borrower should check their mortgage statement for mistakes just as they check their bank statement, and probably with even closer scrutiny given the scale of the financial transaction. No wonder many consumers aren’t convinced by the remaining societies’ blandishments.One Bristol-based financial adviser, Stephen Lansdown, whose firm Hargreaves Lansdown has been accused of recommending at least one insurer (NPI) for “carpetbagging”, suggests that building society executives who really want us to believe their claimed commitment, should state in writing they would resign if their society demutualised and paid a windfall.Mind you, such a promise wouldn’t make them immune from takeover any more than those who stayed silent could be relied on to hand over the money But it could be a start.

Most societies, if asked, say they are committed to remaining mutual and not paying a windfall. But Northern Rock was not alone in waffling about the benefits of its mutual status until shortly before it announced its intention to convert. He sold them and bought the underlying bonds, making enormous profits for Salomon and upsetting established Japanese firms such as Yamaichi and Nomura Securities.He had intended to retire in 1995 to study Western art, but continued with Salomon and moved to London, where he lives with his wife and two daughters.As a member of the management committee of the new Salomon Smith Barney, Myojin will be a key player in making the new company work and making sure that Sandy Weill’s biggest bet ever – that Salomon and Smith Barney can work together – doesn’t become his most disastrous of all.. For the long-term saver, there is no other place to be but in the stock market.. Northern Rock’s auspicious entree to the stock market last week – with its shares ending Friday at 473p, making a succulent windfall worth pounds 2,365 a head – marks the last of this year’s run of building society conversions.