Friday, June 8, 2012 -

    Dear Dame Helena, Chief Executive Of The British Lung Foundation

    Dame Helena Shovelton DBE, MBA, CInstM
    Chief Executive
    British Lung Foundation
    73-75 Goswell Road
    London
    EC1V 7ER                                                                                                                                            8th June 2012

    Dear Dame Helena,

    “The impact of cannabis on your lungs”

    This is an open letter to you in your capacity as chief executive of the British Lung Foundation. It is also published on the CLEAR website and released to the media.

    Your report, published two days ago, is an object lesson in how to create and promote misleading propaganda.

    It is predicated on a fundamental prejudice against cannabis and cannabis users. It seeks to promote the lie that cannabis is dangerous – government sponsored misinformation that has only arisen in the past century and flies in the face of more than 5000 years of human experience and countless scientific studies demonstrating the efficacy of cannabis as medicine and its relative safety.

    Your report constructs an entirely false and unbalanced argument citing evidence to suit itself but skating over and dismissing evidence that doesn’t suit its predetermined conclusion. This is not a work of science. It is a work of propaganda. It is scaremongering, exaggeration and calculated deception.

    In particular, you claim that:

    “Young people in particular are smoking cannabis unaware that, for instance, each cannabis cigarette they smoke could increase their chances of developing lung cancer by as much as an entire packet of 20 tobacco cigarettes.”

    This is sensationalist and misleading, based on cherry picked evidence. A single study in New Zealand in 2008 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18238947) looked at fewer than 80 lung cancer patients and used “logistic regression” to calculate the ratio on which you base your preposterous claim.

    The European Respiratory Journal condemned the New Zealand study just six months after it was published (http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/32/3/815.long), yet you make this the headline statement of your report?

    It is scandalous that a charitable institution such as yours should be using tabloid newspaper techniques of disinformation and deceit to mislead the public.

    Today, in a letter to the Metro about your report, Professor David Nutt says “…some prefer to cherry-pick evidence to support their prejudices”. He says that the public may well be right in believing that cannabis is less of a cancer risk than tobacco and supports the CLEAR Tokepure campaign that says the most dangerous thing about cannabis is smoking it with tobacco.

    It is self-evident that the entire purpose of your report is to demonise cannabis. It is not a genuine attempt to assess the evidence. The evidence referenced is just thrown in, in great quantity, and in many instances does not support the claims made. Your press and campaigns manager, Alistair Martin, claims that your report has been subject to “…external, independent peer review, in order to ensure that it reflects the current evidence in as accurate and balanced way as possible.” I suggest you publish details of this review. Let’s see whether any credible scientist is prepared to put their name to such nonsense?

    What really exposes the motivation behind your report is when it strays into mental health issues, motor vehicle accidents and dismisses the now overwhelming evidence for medicinal cannabis in a couple of sentences. This reveals the dishonesty, preconceived agenda and bias that it is based on. It is a disgrace and shames you, the trustees of the British Lung Foundation and everyone involved in its publication.

    It is clear that you have been extremely badly advised in publishing this report and in the way you have promoted it. It will have caused severe and lasting damage to your charity. May I suggest that if you have genuine concern about the lung health of the millions who use cannabis in Britain, you should join with us in promoting our campaign TokePure (http://clear-uk.org/tokepure/) which advises against the use of tobacco? This way you could perhaps restore some credibility and do some real good.

    Yours sincerely,

    Peter Reynolds

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    • Focusonpeace

      You tell em Peter!! Dont let em get away with this modern day reefer madness propaganda.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Derek-Williams/1072934911 Derek Williams

      You could have added my name to that Peter. Well said.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Derek-Williams/1072934911 Derek Williams

      The BLF are interested in hearing your views of their cannabis report – you can give them via their facebook page http://t.co/LPwXLy3Z Be polite!

    • Tom Longland

      My letter was published in the Metro today.  I’m pretty pleased to be alongside Professor David Nutt :)  

      In My original letter, I did mention the tokepure campaign but that was edited out along with other points I made including slagging them off and comparing them to the Daily Mail ;)

      Anyway, keep up the good work Peter! It’s a fantastic letter which I hope she replies to.

    • georgeclear

      Thanks Peter, I think you’ve covered it all there! I wonder if you’ll get a reply worth reading.. I’m guessing not. The hoo-hah that this BLF “report” has generated is almost comical, if it weren’t so serious anyway. All eyes on these independent peers, whoever they may be.

    • venom2255

      nice work peter . my mum reminded me of a fact , rolling tobacco is safer than ready made straights ,the smoking doctor said this fact.  when i was 18 i knew someone, he moved from a big city  and he looked down on my little towns ways we smoked joints with drum gv whatever so he was smoking cannabis with tobacco from a straight meant to be smoked with a filter because of all the crap in them bits of twig and whatever else, so id like to know what the blf has to say about straight fags against rolling tobacco ,how much is the increased risk of lung disease .also about 6 years ago they said smoking 3 cigs a day instead of 20 is not going to decrease risks of heart attacks and lung caner , ok smoking is as addictive as heroin can you imagine the withdrawal people would go through only smoking 1 2 or 3 cigs a day .     

    • venom2255

      the government give 12 million to help Africa get educated and takes it from this country’s schools ,ok just say e-petitions 30 000 votes each of them 30 £ week 900000 a week i know its not the people on this sight who are so dumb to realise ,i am sure many of you have read howard marks book of dope stories hitler unbelievably said the majority of people are more likely to fall for a big lie than a small one .
         

    • sykesbenson

      Nice one Peter!:-)

    • steve a

      This is unfair.  I have no idea how many people support what the BLF is doing but getting a few of us out for a run is not a bad thing and all those philanthropists have been had over by what at first look appears to be a government sponsored disinformation campaign.  They have every right to complain.

       

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Derek-Williams/1072934911 Derek Williams

      Many years ago I was a joint smoker, I never smoked fags and didn’t consider myself to be a smoker. Then I started going backpack travelling to distant countries and when I was away I gave no thought to cannabis at all. Tobacco, however, was an entirely different thing and as soon as I got to the airport I had bought some fags.

      I would smoke perhaps four or five joints a day, one fag per joint – pretty well all at night in front of the TV and usually shared with house mates. When I went travelling I was hitting around 20 – 30 fags a day all to myself.

      The way I rationalised that was that spliffs gave a huge hit of tobacco, probably caused by the lack of filter and the deep smoking you do with joints, holding the smoke down for maximum effect.

      It was because of this that eventually six years later and after several futile attempts to cut down I cold turkied my way out of it. An interesting experience but not one I would recommend which was only made possible by chocolate, but that’s another story.

      All this is a way of saying that one tobacco joint seems to have been the same as smoking perhaps 10 fags for me, given the joints were usually shared.

      Even more interesting was that when the cold turkey was over and I no longer needed to smoke tobacco, my cannabis intake dropped by around half. When I eventually decided to stop using cannabis, I just stopped using cannabis, the nearest thing to cold turkey were powerful dreams that just always stayed on the right side of the line between an interesting dream and a nightmare, lasted a few weeks and made going to sleep very enjoyable.

      The biggest danger cannabis users face is so obviously tobacco.

    • maxwood

      @venom 2255 is the kind of person who needs to self-familiarize with ALTERNATIVES to both the (usu. 500 mg) ryo joint and the (usu. 700 mg) $igarette– including, if you have the money, a plug-in vapouriser for use in your residence or office (no smoke, no carbon monoxide); an e-cigarette (thousands of recipes now available both with and without nicotine); and, finally, a ONE-HITTER (miniature pipe with narrow screened crater capable of 25-mg servings). 

      The long-hidden fact is that with a L2 ONE-HITTER you can Purely VapeToke (any species: Suck Slow, Don’t Glow), almost as good as with a L200 vapouriser, and the best part is that in a 25-mg cannabis single toke there’s no need or room to mix in any tobacckgo (just follow directions at wikiHow.com: How to Sift Herbs for Smoking Use).

      Interesting to read of Derek’s early struggles with joint and fag, and we should try to make it easier for present-day contestants like @venom to ”CUT DOWN”– not to “1-3 cigs a day” but to 28-84 single tokes (yes, that’s how many reassuring “light-ups” you’ll get, do the math, 28 x 25 mg = one 700-mg cigarette; 40 x 25 mg = one gram).   PROMOTE a domestic calumet, chillum, kiseru, midwakh or sebsi manufacturing industry  and imagine longtime heavy ”smokers” now ”lighting up” instead of a pack a day (20 cigs = 14 grams), just, say, 40 single tokes (= one gram)– gettin’ real control over dosage!  This provides the Responsible Use, Control, Regulation, Sobriety etc. Peter talks about projecting in order to win respect for cannabis users, Medicinal and Inspirational alike, and let’s now also do what we can to spill that message over among the fatal puffsuckin’ $ig addict masses.

    • venom2255

      i like my joints to much, my way is to detox for at least 2 months. i smoked weed and cigs for 9 years and found it hard to breath i then gave up both for 3 years ever since then like i say i will have a stint on weed and tobacco and then time off ,maybe one day i will toke pure

    • georgeclear

      I know exactly what you mean by “i like my joints to much” .. I used to say/think the same…  it took a while after quitting ciggies but that feeling 99% passes and actually a smallish water bong is more satisfying than toking on a spliff and a similar experience with multiple one-hit reloads. The taste is far better too, juicy :) If you think about it then it’s not entirely the nicotine it’s the habit of smoking a tangible object that you desire, holding it in your fingers, the wisping smoke, the first drag – once you get over that it’s perfectly fine to just use a bong (and various other contraptions but I prefer the bong because there’s still smoke). I smoked joints and ciggies for 10 years, stopped both 5yrs ago (apart from a blunt now and then with hemp papers) and I much prefer how I smoke now, as do my lungs and partner! TokePure. Peace.

    • alan duncan

      a mate sent me this, so i thought i would share it.

    • Focusonpeace

      Completely agree, people dont realise its the tobacco in the joint that gets you hooked. I keep telling people who smoke cannabis ”try not adding tobacco, or at least cut down the amount of tobacco you mix in” And the main responses i get are ”I cannot afford to smoke pure”, or ”tobacco helps the joint burn better”. And even though they know adding tobacco is the worst thing they can do, they seem to keep adding it. From where im standing that’s a nicotine addiction.

    • venom2255

      ok toke pure is a good idea but just a fought  how long before we truly see the health benefits of say lung problems 5 10 15 years.+ the government is going to want stacks of evidence .toke pure  is good but we need weed legal now. over 100 years  of discrimination, now is the time ! 

    • steve a

      Tokepure, just like the clean needle exchange for injecting addicts and condoms for practising homosexuals is not there to stop people doing what they enjoy but to make cannabis even safer than it is and really is the sort of thing the government should be sponsoring without even asking for evidence.

      The problem for the government and other prohibitionist sympathisers is that if they are seen to be supporting the Tokepure campaign to help us give up the evil weed they are, by implication, allying themselves with us.  This upsets their paymasters and so, because of this, they would happily front for 10 years of expensive select committee inquiry that examines all the evidence in minute detail and then, when it finally publishes its report, fails to draw conclusions based upon it rather than give us so much as the time of day let alone support anything as sensible as calls to restrict our tobacco use.

    • venom2255

      ok iv just read cannabis may be removed from anti -dopeing agency wada they say in sports where athleticism is needed cannabis is no help what so ever ,but shooting , golf where you need a steady hand pin point accuracy and perception of distance a clean back swing lots of hand eye coordination  it can help, so i will be incapable of driving a car but i could play golf like tiger woods really

    • Teleterkji

      I remember hearing this BLF bollocks  about 15 years ago,when i started smoking cannabis.I got really anxious about it,and dreaded each cough as a sure sign that i was ready for the bodybag.But years passed and i remember reading a healthstudy on the heavy smokers in Jamaica,who mixed ganja with tobacco,and there was no evidence on elevated lung cancer incidents on the island,so i slowly started to enjoy the medicine again.

    • JaniceWells

      Hope we get a reply, nice work Peter !
      Tokepure! so you can really appreciate your herb!