Archives for June 19, 2017

Brisbane man Michael Stoopman is a cancer survivor who believes the benefits of medicinal cannabis go way beyond palliative care.

Last year he had a large ulcerating tumour eating into his carotid artery in his neck that threatened his life.

Ulcerating tumours rarely heal and doctors told him little could be done other than managing his symptoms. So he started taking cannabis oil.

“Even though I’d been told by over 28 oncologists altogether and four other doctors that there’s no coming back from a tumour that size, it stopped growing,” Mr Stoopman said.

“Then one month later the whole wound closed up.”

Within six months of starting cannabis treatment he was declared cancer free.

Warning: This story contains a graphic image

Palliative care expert at Lifehouse Cancer Hospital in Sydney Judith Lacey said there was insufficient evidence to prove that medicinal cannabis can cure cancer, but that new studies had shown some cancers in mice were effectively treated with cannabis.

“So it’s really interesting looking at the potential benefit for cannabis in controlling cancer cell growth,” Dr Lacey said.

“It’s a really interesting field. People are conducting studies to see if perhaps in the future it may be potentially used for treating some cancer.”

Dr Lacey recently started prescribing medicinal cannabis to help terminally ill patients manage their symptoms.

She said the initial results were very positive — particularly for people suffering from chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.

“The gut feeling is we’re on to something really good and this is going to potentially change the lives of people who are living with cancer,” she said.

Marijuana a complex drug

Dr Lacey is one of about 50 doctors from around the country who will converge on Melbourne to attend an Australian-first training course on how to prescribe medical cannabis.

So why do doctors need specific training?

“If I’m prescribing something I really need to understand it and the more I learn about it, the less I know,” Dr Lacey said.

“It’s quite a complex drug or herb and it’s got a lot of nuances in to how to prescribe it.

“People assume that cannabis is one product and it’s actually a really complex collection of plants and species of plants.”

Each cannabis plant has up to 100 different cannabinoids, which are chemical compounds found in marijuana plants.

Dr Lacey said science was still learning about the potential medicinal effects of each cannabinoid.

“There are multiple strains and there are multiple cannabinoids within each strain and you need to have the right drug for the right indication for the right person,” she said.

She said she was optimistic science would soon discover lots of new medicinal uses for cannabis.

“I think this is a really exciting time in medical history,” she said.

Doctors ‘uncomfortable’ with cannabis

The training program has been organised by medical cannabis advocate Lucy Haslam.

“Australian doctors don’t have that expertise or experience,” Mrs Haslam said.

“They’re really quite uncomfortable about prescribing cannabis so we want to make them feel comfortable.

“It’s really important that we get international expertise here and guide our doctors.”

Mrs Haslam started campaigning for better access to medicinal cannabis after watching her son, Dan, die from bowel cancer two years ago.

“No medication that was given to him touched his nausea and vomiting until he touched cannabis,” she said.

“It was that miraculous my husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘My God, if this can do this for Dan then this is something that’s worth fighting for’.”

Mr Stoopman said the doctors’ training program and three-day symposium would be one of the most important events to understand and advance the uses of medical cannabis in Australia.

“I think Lucy Haslam has done a great job bringing international speakers and doctors together for this symposium,” he said.

Mrs Haslam said she hoped the symposium would lead to more patients having access to medical cannabis.

• At least one person is dead and 10 injured after a van ploughed into worshippers near a mosque in London
• The driver of the van has been arrested by the police; there are no other suspects
• British Prime Minister Theresa May says the incident is being treated as a potential terrorist attack
• Ms. May will chair an emergency meeting Monday morning in London
• The area has been cordoned off as police continue their investigation

A van ploughed into worshippers leaving a London mosque on Monday, killing at least one person and injuring several in what Britain’s largest Muslim organisation said was a deliberate act of Islamophobia.

The Muslim Council of Britain said the vehicle hit people as they were leaving the Finsbury Park Mosque, one of the biggest in the country. The attack comes during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when people attend prayers at night.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said police had confirmed it was being treated as a potential terrorist attack and said she would chair an emergency response meeting later on Monday.

In photos: Van rams Muslim worshippers leaving London mosque

Police said one man was pronounced dead at the scene and that the van driver, 48, had been detained by members of the public before being arrested. The driver would undergo a mental health assessment in due course, police said.

The London Ambulance Service said it had taken eight people to hospital, while two were treated at the scene.

Prime Minister May said her thoughts were with those injured in “this terrible incident”. The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, said he was “totally shocked”.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said it was an attack on common values.

“Like the terrible attacks in Manchester, Westminster and London Bridge it is also an assault on all our shared values of tolerance, freedom and respect,” he said in a statement.

Khan said there would be extra police to reassure communities, especially those observing Ramadan.

The Muslim Council said the incident was the most violent manifestation of Islamophobia in Britain in recent months and called for extra security at places of worship as the end of Ramadan nears.

“It appears that a white man in a van intentionally ploughed into a group of worshippers who were already tending to someone who had been taken ill,” the council said in a statement.

Police said they were called just after 12:20 a.m. (2320 GMT Sunday) to reports of a collision on Seven Sisters Road, which runs through the Finsbury Park area of north London.

“From the window, I started hearing a lot of yelling and screeching, a lot of chaos outside. … Everybody was shouting: ‘A van’s hit people, a van’s hit people’,” one woman who lives opposite the scene told the BBC.

“There was this white van stopped outside Finsbury Park mosque that seemed to have hit people who were coming out after prayers had finished.”

The incident comes just over two weeks after three Islamist militants drove into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed people at nearby restaurants and bars, killing eight. .

It also comes at a time of political turmoil, as Prime Minister May plunges into divorce talks with the European Union weakened by the loss of her parliamentary majority in a June 8 election.

She has faced heavy criticism for her response to a fire in a London tower block on Wednesday which killed at least 58 people, and for her record on security after a series of attacks blamed on Islamist militants in recent months.

One witness told CNN it was clear that the attacker at Finsbury Park had deliberately targeted Muslims.

“He tried to kill a lot of people so obviously it’s a terrorist attack. He targeted Muslims this time,” the witness, identified only as Rayan, said.

Other witnesses told Sky television that the van had hit at least 10 people.

Miqdaad Versi, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said the van had deliberately swerved into a group of people who were helping a man who was ill and had fallen to the ground.

“Basically, a van swerved into them deliberately,” Versi told Reuters, citing a witness.

He said the driver had run out of the van but a group of people caught him and held him until police arrived.

Britain has been hit by a series of attacks in recent months, including the van-and-knife attack on London Bridge on June 3.

On March 22, a man drove a rented car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in London and stabbed a policeman to death before being shot dead. His attack killed five people.

On May 22, a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England.

The attacks were a factor in campaigning ahead of the June 8 election, with Prime Minister May criticised for overseeing a drop of 20,000 in the number of police officers in England and Wales as interior minister from 2010 to 2016.

She was also criticised for keeping her distance from angry residents during her visit to the charred remains of the 24-storey Grenfell Tower.

She said on Saturday the response to the fire, in which at least 58 people were killed on Wednesday, had been “not good enough”.

The Finsbury Park Mosque gained notoriety more than a decade ago for sermons by radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in January 2015 for his conviction on terrorism-related charges.

A new board of trustees and management took over in February 2005, a year after Abu Hamza was arrested by British police, since when attendance has greatly increased among worshippers from various communities, according to the mosque’s website.