Need help putting together legal submission to the Supreme Court of Australia

[johnboy]

Just got this from our lawyers.

A very exciting opportunity has just popped up.

I've had an inside word that the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria (top of the pops apart from the High Court in our system) has convened a full bench to hear two appeals on the 31st of January 2006.

The Court of Appeal doesn't convene a full bench unless it plans to make a very strong statement about what the law is, or overturn existing law.

The cases it is going to hear together are appeals based on the question of whether ecstasy, steroids and cannabis should be treated as comparably harmful to 'hard' drugs - heroin etc - for sentencing purposes. The judges in the cases under appeal said that ecstasy is a dangerous and harmful drug and people being sentenced for ecstasy should be dealt with with the same force of the law applied to those who peddle heroin.

There's this thing, very rarely used in Australia, (but often used in the USA by lobby groups) called an amicus curiae or 'friend of the court' brief. This allows a group or person to intervene in cases where they're not involved to put a point of view to the Court, based on their expertise, on an issue that would inform the court and bring information to their attention that wouldn't otherwise be put to them by the two parties. One things for sure, Judges don't know much about these drugs and could quite easily

Based on my knowledge of some of the Judges convened to hear these cases, there is a chance that they could be persuaded.

Can anyone suggest any specific research, data, or just angles to look into? Post here or email me directly.

 

[illuminati boy]

If memory serves, Shulgin testified in a similar type of hearing on MDMA in Spain I believe.

I B

 

[BilZ0r]

It's a hard one, as I don't know how they would gauge how strongly possession of a drug should be punished; whether they think 'if drug X does overall less harm to society, than drug Y, it should be proportionally less punishable".

If you look a broad, focused sample studies, the evidence doesn't look very good for MDMA, like this one. There's also this study from south africa, that I suspect again to have a somewhat anti-drug bias, because in the intro, when they cover "MDMA is neurotoxic" they don't mention any evidence from humans which shows it to be at least semi-reversaible.

Studies such as this one
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15841106&query_hl=7
Exploratory correlational analyses suggested that SERT measures recover with time, and that loss of the SERT is directly associated with MDMA use intensity

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15229049&query_hl=7
he reduced availability of serotonin transporter, as measured by PET, might be reversible.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15039771&query_hl=7
The reinforcing effects of MDMA are selectively attenuated by chronic MDMA self-administration, although this behavioral change appears to occur in the absence of any frank neurochemical correlates of toxicity

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12621003&query_hl=7
In addition, they might indicate reversibility of the availability of SERT as measured by PET. However, this does not imply full reversibility of the neurotoxic effects.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...d&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=11473208&query_hl=7
As compared to the control group, normalized FDG uptake in the cingulate was reduced in ecstasy users who took ecstasy during the last 6 months, while it was elevated in former ecstasy users who did not consume ecstasy for more than 1 year. FDG uptake was significantly more affected in ecstasy users who started to consume ecstasy before the age of 18 years. In conclusion, ecstasy abuse causes long-lasting effects on glucose metabolism in the human brain. These effects are more severe in the case of very early abuse. However, several questions still remain to be answered, i.e. the correlation of the neuronal alterations and the history of ecstasy use (cumulative dose, and time since the last dose) and its reversibility.

 

[redeemer]

What about MAPS' MDMA Literature Review?

It seems very thorough to me.