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IACM: Cannabis - Marijuana News in Brief
BBSN 03-08-31 - "The first bags of officially produced medical marijuana are finally making their way into the hands of patients. The first patients received their supply which contains about 10% THC from their doctor. Each 30-gram pack costs $150 - about $100 cheaper than street prices - and additional sales tax. The program announced in July 2003 by Health Minister Anne McLellan provides marijuana grown by the government in a former copper mine in Manitoba. (Source: Associated Press of 27 August 2003)"

IACM Science: THC Causes Weight Gain and Reduces Agitation in Alzheimer's Disease
BBSN 03-08-31 - "An open study with 48 patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease shows that oral THC causes weight gain in patients with appetite loss. It may also reduce agitation, improve function and mental abilities. The open study conducted at the Meridian Institute for Aging in Manchester Township, USA, was presented at the Eleventh International Congress of the International Psychogeriatric Association on 17-22 August 2003 in Chicago."

IACM Science: Marijuana does not Accelerate HIV Infection
BBSN 03-08-31 - "Smoked cannabis and oral THC given over a course of 21 days did not adversely affect CD4+ cell counts or viral loads in HIV- infected patients, according to a study led by Dr. Donald Abrams at the University of California in San Francisco. In fact, there was a small non-significant positive effect of cannabis and THC on these laboratory parameters compared to placebo. Cannabis and THC also increased appetite and caused weight gain."

BBSN 03-08-31 - "Dutch patients with a doctor's prescription will be able to obtain cannabis from chemists starting from 1 September. Pharmacies will offer two sorts of cannabis, with the cheapest batch priced at 40 EUR per five grams, and the other variant 50-55 EUR per five grams. But the pharmacy association KNMP said patients will have to pay for their cannabis themselves because the drug is not yet included in the ziekenfonds health insurance scheme as a claimable reimbursement. "

Statement by Alastair Campbell: Downing Street Director of Communications and Strategy
BBSN 03-08-29 - "My family, friends and close colleagues know that I have been thinking for some time about leaving my position as Director of Communications and Strategy. I had intended to leave last summer, but as the Iraq issue developed, the Prime Minister asked me to stay on to oversee Government communications on Iraq, and I was happy to do so..."

HRW Peru: Prosecutions Should Follow Truth Commission Report
BBSN 03-08-28 - "HRW: Washington, D.C., August 28, 2003 -- The findings of Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission underscore the need to prosecute the perpetrators of gross human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. The commission's nine-volume report, made public this morning, concludes that more than 60,000 people died or "disappeared" in the guerrilla war that ravaged Peru during the 1980s and 1990s...."

Family of Columbia Astronaut David M. Brown Makes Statement
BBSN 03-08-27 - "Thousands of people, including Shuttle debris searchers, NASA personnel, the public, and the accident investigation board helped to determine what happened to the Space Shuttle Columbia and her crew. Together they produced this well- documented report. We are indebted to all of them. We all benefit from this hindsight..."

HRW Ukraine: Women Facing Job Discrimination
BBSN 03-08-27 - "HRW: New York, August 27, 2003 - Gender discrimination in Ukraine is cutting women out of the work force while the Ukrainian government is doing nothing to stop the problem, Human Rights Watch charged in a new report released today..."

New NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Earth Maps
BBSN 03-08-22 - "Produced by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, the global data set, called "SRTM30," greatly improves maps of Earth's land mass located between 60 degrees north and 60 degrees south of the equator. That's roughly from the southern tip of Greenland to below the southern tip of South America. Until now, the primary source of digital elevation data for scientists and analysts involved in global studies has been the U.S. Geological Survey's "GTOPO30," published in 1996, it consists of elevation measurements spaced every 30-arc- seconds. An arc-second is a measure of latitude and longitude used by geographers that corresponds to about 928 meters, or 1,496 feet at the equator."

HRW Angola: Resettlement Process Highly Flawed
BBSN 03-08-18 - "HRW: Luanda, August 15, 2003 - The Angolan government and the United Nations are failing to ensure the safe and voluntary return of millions of Angolans to their homes, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. The 29-page report, "Struggling Through Peace: Return and Resettlement in Angola," documents several incidents of government authorities using violence, or the threat of violence, to drive people out of camps where they had been living sometimes for years. The Human Rights Watch report also raises concerns about reported incidents of rape and other sexual violence against internally displaced women and returning refugees."

Three Options for Hubble Space Telescope
BBSN 03-08-15 - "An independent panel of astronomers identified three options for NASA to consider for planning the transition from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at the start of the next decade. The panel, chaired by Prof. John Bahcall, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N.J. chartered by NASA earlier this year, submitted their report to the agency this week. NASA's current plans are to extend the life of the HST to 2010 with one Space Shuttle servicing mission (SM 4) in 2005 or 2006."

John P. Walters Marijuana Rhetoric Could Prove Bush Re-election Liability
BBSN 03-08-15 - "In a time when serious questions exist about a new and strange "Bush Doctrine" called "pre-emption" [of a perceived threat] and American troops dying practically each day in Iraq, the last thing President Bush needs is more scandal. Right now the coin of the realm is facts on the ground and good intelligence. And that means getting as close to the truth as possible. "Sexing it up" is causing Tony Blair, President Bush's most dedicated to the US led war on Iraq ally, serious trouble about allegations that his Iraq "dossier" contained language that British intelligence had doubts about. The Lord Hutton review of the facts in that case are making journalists the world over squirm for their brothers and sisters. Nevertheless from either day planner notes or surepticious tape recording the truth is coming out."

HRW: U.S. Should Take Saddam Hussein Alive
BBSN 03-08-12 - "HRW: New York, August 12, 2003 - The U.S. government should take Saddam Hussein into custody if at all possible and make him stand trial, rather than killing him, Human Rights Watch said today. n a letter sent August 8, Human Rights Watch urged U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to state publicly that the United States wants the former Iraqi president to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity before an independent and impartial tribunal. According to media reports, senior U.S. officials, including Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, have been discussing whether it might be preferable to kill Saddam Hussein rather than capture him alive."

Counter-Productive Destructive War on Some Drugs: A Family Perspective
BBSN 03-08-11 - "BBSNews ran an editorial about the possibility that the Volstead Act, or known in many circles as Prohibition I, may have had a very real effect on the economy and it's repeal may have had a positive effect. It was written by Malcolm Kyle. As always we requested photos. Kyle sent a family photo that simply begged the question. How has such a beautiful family come to speak out against the War on Some Drugs? So we asked and what follows is the answer from the Kyle family: We are, I think, just like so many others like us, exasperated by the ignorance and lack of compassion shown by the so called Drug Warriors who, whilst claiming to have our best interests in mind, are as we see it, actually the very people responsible for turning a large number of our inner citys into war zones; criminalizing large numbers of our young people and ruining race-relations by their targeting of ethnic minorities."

HRW Colombia: Aerial Anti-Drug Program Needs Safeguards
BBSN 03-08-08 - "HRW: New York, August 7, 2003 -- The Colombian government should not resume anti-drug surveillance flights unless they include effective safeguards to prevent the unlawful use of lethal force, Human Rights Watch said in a letter sent to President Alvaro Uribe today. The letter called President Uribe's attention to international legal standards that limit the use of lethal force in law enforcement operations. It emphasized that an anti-drug program that authorized the downing of aircraft simply because they fail to observe identification procedures or disregard orders to land would violate these standards."

ASTEROIDS DEDICATED TO SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA CREW
BBSN 03-08-06 - "The final crew of the Space Shuttle Columbia was memorialized in the cosmos as seven asteroids orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter were named in their honor today. The Space Shuttle Columbia crew, Commander Rick Husband; pilot William McCool; Mission Specialists Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Laurel Clark; and Israeli payload specialist Ilan Ramon, will have celestial memorials, easily found from Earth."

ISM: International Activists Released - 21 Israeli Protesters Detained
BBSN 03-08-06 - "ISM: Occupied Palestine - At approximately 2:00 this morning, all but one of the internationals detained yesterday were released from the Ariel settlement police station, after being coerced into signing a document stating that they would not enter the West Bank and Gaza. They signed this agreement after being told that the fate of the Palestinian activist and organizer of the Mas’ha Peace Camp, Nazih Shalabi, arrested yesterday, depended on the acquiescence of the internationals. The four Israelis released earlier in the day also agreed to the same conditions for the same reasons. They were all told that Nazih would be released if they agreed to these conditions."

Editorial: Prohibition Contributed to 1929 Stock Crash - Repeal Helped Economy
BBSN 03-08-06 - "By Malcolm W. Kyle. It has been said that moralizing divides Americans into a righteous US: Shaping America's beliefs, laws and attitudes - and a malevolent THEM: Equal-rights campaigners, Gays, Medical Marijuana-Advocates, and anybody else who dare to think for themselves. Colonial Puritans flogged, pilloried and hanged nonconformists such as Quakers. They were also seized by witch mania. In the late 1800s, when Anthony Comstock enforced laws against "vice" and jailed hundreds of Americans for petty sins, Margaret Sanger found herself imprisoned eight times just for advocating birth control. Later, the Temperance-movement, epitomized by saloon-smashing Carry Nation, pulled America into Prohibition (1919-1933) which became a tumultuous period of booze-smuggling that created organized crime on such a scale that some would reasonably argue: Prohibition possibly caused The wall Street Crash of 1929."

ISM: Another Palestinian home destroyed: 45 Peace Activists Detained by Israeli Troops
BBSN 03-08-05 - "ISM: Occupied West Bank - At approximately 7am this morning, Palestinian, Israeli, and international human rights activists were detained while attempting to block the demolition of part of a Palestinian family's home, near the village of Mas'ha. The building had been slated for demolition by the Israeli Military because it lay in the path of the Apartheid Wall that Israel is building on occupied Palestinian land. The peace activists were violently thrown on busses by Israeli soldiers and border police. Two internationals were beaten; one, a US citizen from Los Angeles, was repeatedly kicked in the stomach and may have sustained broken ribs."

NASA'S FIRST SCOUT MISSION SELECTED FOR 2007 MARS LAUNCH
BBSN 03-08-04 - "NASA today selected Phoenix, an innovative and relatively low cost mission, to study the red planet, as the first Mars Scout mission. The Phoenix lander mission is scheduled for launch in 2007. The 2007 Scout mission joins a growing list of spacecraft aimed at exploring Mars. It also represents NASA's first fully competed opportunity for a dedicated science-driven mission. "