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Trial Of The Plant 2017 Comments & Updates -Trial Postponed until further notice


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Starting this thread up for any Trial Of The Plant updates or questions. Anything related to the trial which got underway at 11am today at the Pretoria High Court. If you're in the area go show your support. Right now there appears to be a rent-a-crowd of some sort screaming ridiculous anti cannabis bullshit. Get out there and drown them out.

 

If you'd like to follow the trial you can do so by going to www.highalert.co.za and subscribe to their push notifications. Click on the red bell icon at the bottom left to subscribe.

 

As of now there is no live streaming of the trial

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Quoting a post from Bongalong

 

"The trail has been postponed until tomorrow after issues surrounding the proceedings of the court. Broadcasting applications submitted to the Court two months ago are now some how being queried by the Court. Is this a ploy to limit the exposure of the case, who can say..."

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Major confusion on who's allowed to live stream the trial. Trying my best to find a live stream. State also stalling the trial as much as possible, looks like we may go through another day without this trial getting started.

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It's been quite shocking to see how unprepared the state has been! Also not unexpected when you coming to a battle to fight facts. Positive vibrations for another day at the battle field! 

All those going to the Silent Protest, enjoy the show ;)

 

Peace and love :-peace:-rastapuff:-meditate

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Prof David Nutt is still running through his evidence. Yet to be cross examined

 

Edit:  To sum it up so far... The trial only got underway on Thursday because the state delayed the case for 3 days, first trying to have the livestream disallowed, I think they going to argue that in the Supreme court of appeal, but in the mean time the stream can go on. They also tried to have quite a bit of the Dagga Couple's evidence dismissed, they failed at that too. This whole delay lead to one of the DC's witnesses, Dr Donald Abrams, not being able to testify as he had to fly back to the states on Saturday last weekend. So on Thursday they called Prof David Nutt to the stand and he has been giving evidence since

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Too bad the live stream cut off. The state started the cross examination of the plaintiffs expert witness Prof. Nutt

 

Cross is often boring, frustrating and repetitive on purpose. They attempt to attack the testimony of the witness from as many angles as possible to spot discrepancies in their rendition of the testimony.

Frustration is a big part of this game because an frustrated person is more liable to make mistakes. So asking the same questions in varying degrees of irreverence or as similarity as possible are the orders of the day.

 

Basically the state was trying to frustrate him and get him to answer questions in a manner that framed his arguments unfavorably [falsely].

Such as:

Accusing of him of being irresponsible by leading laymen to believe that Cannabis could be used to cure HIV, when he stated it could be used to treat some of the symptoms and side effects. (Wasting, nausea from other treatments etc.).

Or:

Asking for his opinion on something, but then when he answers, saying that this is just his opinion on not fact. An attempt to frame some parts of his testimony as opinion rather than fact.

 

 

The state further tried to frustrate him by making him answer loaded questions with a limited set of answers that were reductionist and missed the content and spirit of his testimony.

Essentially oversimplifications and false equivocations.

Such as:

Asking if he believes there should be more research into the harms of cannabis (with only yes or no as the answer set), implying that it may not be well or fully understood.

[Personal opinion] Allowing the state to argue that until it is fully understood a decision would be irresponsible to make, a delaying tactic.

Or:

Portraying the idea of legalization of Cannabis as a free-market model, when it has been clearly stated that state control is the best model for legalization.

Interestingly there are essentially four models of Cannabis regulation:

Prohibited, completely illegal except [sometimes] in circumstances such as research. (our current model)

Decriminalized, activities related to Cannabis are seen as civil infractions not criminal ones. Which means fines/community service instead of jail/criminal records (Portugal)

Legalized - State controlled, this is where Cannabis is legalized but regulated by the state. This can range from state only/state licensed production and distribution with sales and possession limits (like ammunition), to distribution only limits, such as only 5gramms per purchase etc.

Legalized - Free Market, this is where Cannabis can be produced, consumed, distributed by anyone in the market with little to no regulation.

 

As the expert says, and I must agree, State Controlled is probably the best option [a lax state control]. Cannabis does have harms, and abusing it does have negative effects, they are small but they exist.

Policy should be to reduce the amount of harms in a given society while maximizing the benefit.

Prof Nutt and many like him have done tons, and tons, and tons of research on this topic and are highly qualified to make these statements.

 

It boils down to the fact that State Controlled gives users access to Cannabis should they want/need it without increasing overall usage by significant amounts, thereby minimizing the harms overall.

The experts agree that moving people from an alcohol recreational use population to a Cannabis recreational use population is beneficial overall because the harms [of Cannabis] are so much lower to the individual, society, environment, & economy. But those who are not users of either, and have no medical need, should abstain from both.

 

I assume the state is trying to make it seem:

That there are unique factors in RSA that are unaccounted because the research is all eurocentric.

Research is incomplete and there may be yet unidentified harms.

That managing a cannabis market is not tenable in RSA.

And as stated, even by Prof. Nutt, there are harms, and it is better to prevent harms than enable them.

South Africa does not have the infrastructure nor overhead control to manage it effectively.

Cannabis is already available for medical research and use. [albeit not easily]

 

Personal opinions:

An interesting point is I find people tend to glorify Cannabis as some sort of cure all and only good, or an evil destructive narcotic.

The truth is that it is neither wholly good nor bad, it has benefits and it has harms. I find lots of people to be polarized in their view of Cannabis.

 

P.S. Even the plaintiffs expert witness stated that driving under the influence of Cannabis is risky. By a factor of 2x the risk [as compared to sober driving], compared to alcohol which is 8x. Just an interesting thought looking at the poll on the homepage. And combining the the two is additive [10x] or even multiplicative [16x].

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That was fantastic Trickerst,  thank you.

I must agree on the fact that there is both a positive and negative impact to the use of cannabis, therefore I will also agree that for now it's probably and unfortunately best the state has control of things. At the same time I hope they don't ban the possibility of being able to grow ones property as stated in the most recent judgement.

I think that and a more regulatory manner to get access to cannabis is probably what most seek, except the state.

 

 

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

 

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My pleasure Justin.

 

I agree with you, I am pro state regulation with people being allowed to grow for personal use. This should work for most of us here and for others.

I know some people will disagree and prefer a free market model, and that is down to personal opinion. I also don't think that the users of this forum would be pro no home growing lol.

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Trickerst mentioned that the research is eurocentric. I'm curious, what does everyone think of the relevance of this with regards to the data Prof. Nutt has collected/analysed/presented? For example, is addiction to cannabis fueled by social context as much as by the psychoactive chemicals themselves?

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  • 1 month later...

Don’t fool yourself bud- you can use that line, to the magistrate. That’s after the cops have knocked you around, torn up your place, harassed your loved ones, stolen your belongings. Then, you’re spending the night in the jail cells, 3 nights if you’re caught on a Friday.

Our hobby is in the spotlight- both sides are ramping up.

Word of advice- make sure you have lots of smokes with you, and give anyone in the cell who asks, and smile, and speak only when spoken to.

 

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