Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. It was once so rich that Concorde used to fly from Caracas to Paris. But in the last three years its economy has collapsed. Hunger has gripped the nation for years. Now, it’s killing people and animals that are dying of starvation. The Venezuelan government knows, but won’t admit it!!! Four in five Venezuelans live in poverty. People queue for hours to buy food. Much of the time they go without. People are also dying from a lack of medicines. Inflation is at 82,766% and there are warnings it could exceed one million per cent by the end of this year. Venezuelans are trying to get out. The UN says 2.3 million people have fled the country - 7% of the population.

Showing posts with label California. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

FBI: State Senator Took Bribes to Influence Film Tax Credit Legislation (Report)

Ronald Calderon allegedly accepted $60,000 after telling undercover agents posing as movie execs he would help them lower the budget threshold for films eligible for the movie tax incentive.

A California state senator allegedly offered to influence the state's movie tax incentive in exchange for money from FBI agents he thought were movie executives.
OUR EDITOR RECOMMENDS

Al Jazeera America Plots More Bureaus, New Hires, Expanded Coverage and Programming

Hollywood Petitions California Legislators for More Film and TV Tax Incentives

Time Warner Cable, Al Jazeera America Reach Carriage Deal
During a year-long FBI investigation, State Sen. Ronald Calderon allegedly accepted $60,000 in bribes from agents posing as movie executives, according to a report from Al Jazeera America's investigative unit that appeared on America Tonight. The report cites a sealed, 124-page affidavit filed by the FBI in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.
According to the affidavit, agents posing as execs from a fictitious independent studio asked Calderon to help lower the budget threshold for films to qualify for a 20 percent tax credit from $1 million to $500,000.
Calderon, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on California's Film and Television Industries, said he could lower the threshold to $750,000 if the agents would give financial assistance to his adult children. The FBI says Calderon funneled payments to himself through his children, as well as a nonprofit connected to the California Latino Legislative Caucus.
PHOTOS: The Top Celebrity Political Twitter Commentators
It also says Calderon helped hire an undercover agent posing as an aspiring model for a legislative position in Sacramento, even though she had no relevant qualifications. Calderon also allegedly accepted a number of other gifts from the agents, including allowing them to pay for a table at a Las Vegas nightclub, where Calderon and an aide spent nearly $4,000.
Calderon has not been charged with any crimes. His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hollywood Reporter

More info:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for reading us,
Thank you for your time,
Hope you'll found the information you expected,
Don't hesitate contacting us,
Have a great day ☼
Chicas Team ❤
--------------------------------------------------------> Submit to: Show contact info
In order to avoid all the SCAMS, we decide not to publish all the info of the recruter in the job postings. You'll find the Daily Password in our Monthly Newsletter. You can Subscribe to our Newsletter here Thanks. A.

www.chicas-productions.com
------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MPAA’s Chris Dodd Calls for California to Expand Tax Credits to Lure Big Budget

Speaking on Friday to a San Fernando Valley business group, MPAA chairman Chris Dodd called for an expansion of California's production tax incentive program to include big-budget films, noting that the state has lost out to others on projects like the sequels to "Man of Steel" and "The Amazing Spider-Man."

California's incentive program, adopted in 2009, provides $100 million per year for film and TV productions, but movies with budgets above $75 million are not eligible. The intent was to prevent only a handful of movies from depleting the annual outlay, but Dodd said that the result has been a dearth of big-budget tentpoles shooting in the Los Angeles region.

It should be no surprise, then, that "11 of this year's 12 biggest blockbusters were filmed in states like Louisiana and New Mexico instead of California," Dodd said, according to his prepared remarks to the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. "And this trend is only going to continue."

"The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ shot in New York, and the sequel to "Man of Steel" will shoot in Michigan, he noted.

The MPAA actually advocates for incentives nationwide, and the industry's lobbying org, in seeking congressional support, has often promoted the fact that so many states benefit from production jobs.

Dodd said his "job at the Motion Picture Association is to advocate on behalf of my studios, not the locations of their productions, but I know the studios I represent would prefer, everything else being equal, to make their films and television programs here in California, for many reasons."

He warned that with other states offering incentives, "It does not take long for those states and countries to attract and train talented local people to do the work that historically could only be found here and a few other places."

Dodd also called for a California incentive program that will make it possible for long-term productions, like TV series, to budget well into the future. The state program was renewed last year until 2015, even after advocates called for a longer-term extension.

Critics of incentive programs have called it a "race to the bottom" and have challenged some claims of job growth when productions shoot at a location. And while Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has put runaway production on his priority list, with a plan to lobby state lawmakers to expand the California program, he will have to convince them to do so against many competing interests.

Critics of expanding the incentives, however, have questioned the urgency given that NBCUniversal, Disney and Paramount each have plans to expand their production facilities in Southern California. Indeed, Dodd said that the "film industry is not suddenly folding its tent and moving elsewhere." He said that the expansion plans indicate that the industry "is betting on California's future as well." But he said that "more needs to be done to keep this industry from slowly slipping away."

Dodd also called on Google to do more to fight piracy, citing a study funded by the entertainment industry showing that 74% of consumers surveyed cited using search engines to discover or navigate to infringing sites in their initial effort to download a movie or TV show.

"These search engines have the ability to stop directing audiences to sites with illegitimate content, and I am still hopeful that we can work with them in the coming days to find ways to make this happen," Dodd said.

Thank you Variety

California Lawmakers Say They Will Introduce Bill to Boost Film and TV Production

California Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles) and and state Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles) say that they plan to introduce a film and TV production tax credit legislation in January, 2014, once the legislature returns from an interim recess.

GET CALIFORNIA FILM TAX CREDIT NEWS AND ALERTS FREE TO YOUR INBOX

California's existing tax incentive program, which originally passed in 2009, provides credits up to $100 million per year. Critics say that the sum is insufficient to meet the demand or to compete with other states, and that the credit is not available to categories like premium cable shows and commercials.

Gatto and de Leon have key roles in Sacramento as chairmen of their respective chamber's appropriations committees.

In an interview, Gatto said that specifics of the legislation are still being drawn up, but he said that an expansion of the total amount available to producers is "the most obvious thing to consider."

He also said that they are looking at proposals to try to draw tentpole feature film production back to California, which are not eligible for the current credit because it is capped to features with budgets over $75 million. What they are looking at, he said, is removing the restrictions on those big-budget movies, but limiting the amount of credit that is available to them. That would be a way to try to lure such productions without burning through the state's total incentive budget with just a handful of productions.

"Those tentpole productions can be very lucrative to a local economy for a long time," Gatto said.

Another area they are looking at is a way to give some sort of extra incentive for productions that shoot in areas of the state that rarely see much movie and TV production, as a way of addressing criticism from lawmakers who may see the program as solely benefiting Los Angeles.

Also being studied, he said, is a "tiered system," where producers would be eligible for credits for locating their production in California and for another type of credit for wages that are paid to state residents.

Gatto also said that they were looking at ways to expand the eligibility of more types of TV production, in particular TV pilots and hourlong drama series. "We think the bread and butter are scripted hourlongs," he said.

He also said that they are working on measures to retain post-production and other types of production infrastructure.

Gatto and de Leon said that they have been meeting with below-the-line workers and small business owners to create their legislation. Gatto also said that his staff has been collecting the many studies that have been done on film and TV tax incentives — some of them favorable, some of them critical — so as to "try to get a sense of what works and what doesn't work" and to "try and anticipate what critics will say."

Although the state's tax incentive program has been extended twice, they have been for short increments, with proposals for five-year extensions whittled down in the face of opposition. Orgs like the California Federation of Labor and the California Teachers Assn. have been on record opposing incentive legislation, arguing that the measures didn't make sense at a time of strained resources for areas like education. The last extension, for two years and $200 million, was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last fall.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has made the issue of runaway production a priority of his administration, but he has suggested that the key to meaningful incentives lies in Sacramento. He and his newly appointed film czar, Tom Sherak, plan to lobby Sacramento lawmakers.

Gatto acknowledged that the legislation will be a "heavy lift." "If it was easy to get done, there would be a much bigger, broader incentive than the one on the books," he said. He also acknowledged what Garcetti has: That Brown also remains to be convinced to expand the program. A big push among advocates for the industry is expected to be the impact it has on middle-class workers and related businesses.

Thank you Variety

More info:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for reading us,
Thank you for your time,
Hope you'll found the information you expected,
Don't hesitate contacting us,
Have a great day ☼
Chicas Team ❤

--------------------------------------------------------> Submit to: Show contact info
In order to avoid all the SCAMS, we decide not to publish all the info of the recruter in the job postings. You'll find the Daily Password in our Monthly Newsletter. You can Subscribe to our Newsletter here Thanks. A.

www.chicas-productions.com
------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VES Calls for California to Expand Incentives...

Society also wants a vfx congress for artists worldwide

The Visual Effects Society, prodded to action by recent protests and anger among vfx pros worldwide, has issued a statement with two calls to action for the visual effects industry.

The first calls on the California legisltature and Gov. Jerry Brown to "immediately expand its tax incentive program for the entertainment industry and to include a focused approach concentrated on the visual effects and post-production sectors of the industry."

That aligns the VES with the California portion of the vfx industry, which has complained subisides in other states and countries put it at a fatal disadvantage. However taking such a stand risks alienating much of its membership, which works in those other states and countries. Many of the protesters at Sunday's pre-Oscars visual effects street demonstration complained about foreign subsidies.

"We know that there are some out there who are calling for the elimination of all subsidies and tax incentives everywhere around the world," said the VES statement. "We think that's a great idea and if there were a magic button that could be pressed to make that a reality, we would press it in a nanosecond. Why? Because California can compete with anyone, anywhere if there's a level playing field."

The second VES call to action is the announcement of a visual effects congress to allow "all artists from around the world" to share their concerns and find common ground.

Following Sunday's street prostest planning continues for more action to raise awareness of the problems facing the vfx industry and its artists. Protest organizers are calling for a "Pi day" walkout on March 14 (3.14), in which vfx artists worldwide would not report to work. Efforts by IATSE to organize vfx artists are also expected to pick up.

However the Sunday protest included several distinct factions. Pro-union, anti-subsidy, and general pro-fairness demonstrators walked side by side. VES chair Jeffrey Okun posted a statement following the protest saying that while change is needed and he supported the protesters, "We need a clearer sense of strategic thinking about what we should be asking for with the support of the entire VFX community. I felt that to organize a formal protest without well defined goals was not the best way to capitalize on the anger in our community (although I was heartened to hear that hundreds of artists from our community took part)."

Thank you Variety

What if Cannabis Cured Cancer (Serbian subtitle)

What if Cannabis Cured Cancer

(Serbian subtitle) video

Could the chemicals found in marijuana prevent and even heal several deadly cancers? Could the tumor regulating properties of cannabinoids someday replace the debilitating drugs, chemotherapy, and radiation that harms as often as it heals? Discover the truth about this ancient medicine as world renowned scientists in the field of cannabinoid research explain and illustrate their truly mind-blowing discoveries. QUOTES: "What If Cannabis Cured Cancer summarizes the remarkable research findings of recent years about the cancer-protective effects of novel compounds in marijuana. Most medical doctors are not aware of this information and its implications for prevention and treatment. If we need more evidence that our current policy on cannabis is counterproductive and foolish, here it is." -Andrew Weil, M.D. "A hugely important film" - Julie Holland, M.D. NYU School of Medicine Written by Anonymous

watch here

Oncologist Donald Abrams defends Medical Cannabis on NPR’s “Science Friday”

Listen to the podcast here:
Feds to Debate Marijuana as Medicine

Transcript from NPR:

The federal government lists marijuana as a Schedule I controlled substance—meaning it has no medically accepted use. Next week, interest group Americans for Safe Access will present the scientific case for marijuana’s therapeutic effects to a federal appeals court, in hopes of relaxing federal restrictions. Oncologist Donald Abrams reviews the evidence on cannabis.

Published: October 12, 2012
IRA FLATOW, HOST:

Next Tuesday, marijuana will have its day in court because the United States Court of Appeals is set to hear arguments about the drug’s therapeutic and medicinal effects. But some doctors, like one of my next guests, disagrees with the government’s ban on medical use of marijuana, pointing to the drug’s ability to suppress nausea, stimulate the appetite, relieve pain, improve sleep, even fight cancer cells, in test tubes at least.

Is the science on cannabis compelling enough to convince federal officials? And have we done the rigorous science on marijuana that’s required of all drugs to get it to your pharmacy? Dr. Donald Abrams is chief of oncology at San Francisco General Hospital. He’s also a professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He joins us by phone. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY, Dr. Abrams.

DR. DONALD ABRAMS: Thank you, good to be here.

FLATOW: You’re welcome. Dr. Bertha Madras is professor of psychology – psychobiology, I’m sorry, in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Med School in Southborough, Massachusetts. She joins us by phone. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

DR. BERTHA MADRAS: Thank you, good afternoon.

FLATOW: Good afternoon to you. Dr. Abrams, do you think it’s time? Do you think the evidence is there that the federal government should OK cannabis for general use?

ABRAMS: Well, I mean, let’s take a step back. Cannabis was on the formulary of the United States until 1942, when it was removed. So cannabis, which has been a medicine for thousands of years in other parts of the world, was available in this country, again, until ’42, when it was taken off our pharmacopoeia. So yes, I think that the Institute of Medicine in their last report in 1999 suggested that cannabis and cannabinoids, their active components, have use in treatment of nausea, vomiting, pain and loss of appetite.

And as a cancer doctor, I see patients every day, people who are benefitting from the use of cannabis. The problem is the government does not allow cannabis to be studied as a therapeutic agent because the only legal source is the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and they have a congressional mandate only to study substances abused as substances of abuse. So that’s a bit of a catch-22.

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, would you agree with that?

MADRAS: Frankly I disagree, and here are my reasons why. Number one is, yes, marijuana was removed from the pharmacopeia in the late 1930s, in fact, but because it was found that the safety and efficacy issues did not reach the bar that was necessary for drug approval.

The fact that Dr. Abrams claims that we cannot study cannabis in scientific studies is disingenuous because the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, of which he’s a part of, in California, has conducted and has received millions of dollars from the California Legislature to study smoked marijuana as a medicine.

And as of today, I have looked at their site. They have precisely four published manuscripts on the medicinal uses of cannabis for which the Proposition 15 approved marijuana and a number of other publications that bear no relationship to these clinical trials.

So the clinical trials can go on. The marijuana is available for them. Cannabinoids are being studied and synthesized at horrendously large rates by medicinal chemists, and yet…

FLATOW: I have to interrupt you. We’ll get back to you, Dr. Madras. We have to take a break. Stay with us. Also Dr. Abrams, we’ll be right back after this break. I’m Ira Flatow, this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

FLATOW: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I’m Ira Flatow. We’re talking this hour about legalization of cannabis and the use of cannabis, otherwise marijuana, in research studies. When I interrupted Dr. Bertha Madras, she was talking about the fact that there were lots of studies in California and plenty of samples of cannabis to get if you needed to study it. Dr. Abrams, how do you answer that?

ABRAMS: Yeah, so the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research was set up in California for that reason, to fund studies to look at the potential effectiveness of cannabis. And I did two, one that demonstrated in patients with HIV and painful nerve damage cannabis was better than placebo in relieving their pain.

And I also did a study funded actually by NIDA because it was a safety study to show that it was safe for patients on chronic opiates to add cannabis to their regimen. It did not change the level of opiates in their bloodstream, and if anything, it may have improved their pain relief.

FLATOW: So you think there’s enough evidence, then, that the courts should approve it?

ABRAMS: Well, no, you know, again, evidence, that’s what I’m saying. It’s difficult to do clinical trials looking at cannabis as a therapy because of the catch-22 that NIDA, you know, is preferentially supplying their cannabis to studies that look at its danger.

So the evidence, you know, clinically the evidence is there, and I do disagree that the reason that it was removed from the pharmacopeia, the American Medical Association in 1937, after the introduction of the Cannabis Tax Act, was – stood alone in saying that there is no evidence that cannabis is dangerous and that this act would impede the ability to research it for its effectiveness.

And then it was removed from the pharmacopeia and subjected to Schedule 1, and, you know, the main target in this country’s failed war on drugs.

FLATOW: So you think there are not enough resources to conduct the clinical studies that would be needed?

ABRAMS: Well, not many people want to study cannabis. It’s sort of a difficult thing in your career because, you know, I think the more – science is not driving the train, that’s what I’ll say. I mean, the more evidence that people accumulate – we now have three studies demonstrating cannabis’ utility in peripheral neuropathy, which is a very challenging medical condition to treat.

Oftentimes people are put on opiates, and then their life is one string of opiates after another. Better – cannabis, this is a flower we’re talking about it. It’s a flower. It’s not a dangerous substance like the opiates that I prescribe and others prescribe for patients living with cancer and pain.

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, would you acknowledge that cannabis and cannabinoids have some therapeutic effects like Dr. Abrams mentioned?

MADRAS: I acknowledge that cannabinoids may have some therapeutic effects. I disagree with Dr. Abrams vehemently on the thought that one’s hands are tied in doing the science. Once again, the Centers for Medicinal Cannabis…

ABRAMS: Oh don’t repeat yourself on that, that’s silly.

MADRAS: Had all money available to do with – and they have…

ABRAMS: Three million dollars a year for three years.

MADRAS: But let me please finish. They had to cancel five studies because they could not recruit enough patients. One of the criteria for recruiting patients is that they had to be experienced marijuana users. How many elderly cancer patients in this day and age are experienced marijuana users? They also are not allowed to drive because there was fear of liability in case they got into a car accident because they were under the influence.

So there – so what Dr. Abrams should say is that there was money, there was cannabis available for the studies. Why did five of the major studies that they had proposed at the onset of this program, why were they canceled?

FLATOW: Dr. Abrams, any answer?

ABRAMS: Well, I mean, you know, again, all of my studies were done in the in-patient clinical research center so we could observe the patients and make sure they weren’t diverting this Schedule 1 substance. And cancer patients, I don’t think, are that enthusiastic about spending, you know, some of the remaining days of their lives in the hospital doing a research study.

Plus there was always a concern that the cannabis that NIDA provides is not particularly potent and that because we live in California, where we’ve had cannabis available as a medicine for patients since 1996, if patients really wanted to use it, they could.

And as a cancer doctor, ma’am, many patients in my age group, who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s, with cancer are cannabis-experienced people. So that is not a problem. The problem is the closing of the dispensaries now by the federal government in California, when we voted for it in 1996, is not allowing my elderly patients access to their medicine.

MADRAS: And NIDA provides marijuana cigarettes at 3.5 and seven percent THC. Do you think that you need more than that, especially considering one of the studies that came out of the CMCR that said that at seven percent the side effects were quite above the boundary of acceptable side effects, meaning psychoactive dizziness, confusion and so on?

So my feeling is that the doses that are available for this research are in fact available, but once you get into seven percent or six percent cannabis, you do have side effects that have to be reported in clinical trials, far beyond that boundary of what are…

ABRAMS: Yeah. Again, I hate to disagree with you, but the cannabis available in dispensaries averages from 10 to 15 percent, and legal cannabis in The Netherlands is 14 percent that you get from the pharmacy. So three and seven percent is not a huge amount, and I think patients need to self-titrate.

It’s very different from other medicines, you know, where you tell the patient try it and see what works for you. You know, if it…

MADRAS: But that’s not how the FDA works.

ABRAMS: Well, of course not. This is not…

MADRAS: The FDA requires and insists that one does a window of therapeutic efficacy compared with a window of a side effect profile that may render a drug unacceptable in the market. And if you do a full-dose response curve, you will find that past a certain percentage of THC, a person is quite incompetent.

ABRAMS: Well, that’s absolutely correct, same with alcohol. You know, I mean, I personally believe that this is a flower, and it should be regulated like tobacco or alcohol. And, you know, trying to get FDA approval for a medicine that’s been a medicine for thousands of years and was on the U.S. pharmacopeia until 1942, when it was removed by an act of Congress submitted by a racist, you know, what are we doing in this country.

This is a flower. We’re spending $4 billion a year on the war on drugs and incarcerating 180,000 Americans.

MADRAS: Well, you know, ephedrine from the ma huang plant…

ABRAMS: Oh, you could give me all the examples you want. I’m not in favor of cocaine, either.

MADRAS: Pardon? Most of our medications, at least 30 percent, are originally derived from plants.

ABRAMS: Right.

MADRAS: The active ingredients were isolated, such as cocaine, such as digitalis, such as aspirin, such as morphine. They were isolated. They were studied in isolation in order to determine how fast they get into the brain, how fast they get into the blood…

ABRAMS: That’s the Western pharmaceutically dominated paradigm, you know…

MADRAS: And also what the…

FLATOW: I’m going to jump in here. I’m going to jump in, and I’m going to ask…

ABRAMS: There are thousands of years of research where people use the whole plant as medicine.

FLATOW: Dr. Abrams, do you think it’s possible to create studies that would satisfy the FDA requirements?

ABRAMS: I’m sorry, I do not. I continue to do this work, but I don’t think that this is going to happen in my lifetime unless other people start looking at the ridiculousness of our current policies in this country. I’m sorry.

FLATOW: Ridiculous meaning what?

ABRAMS: Well, this is a flower. You know, I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. I went to Brown University and Stanford University School of Medicine. Cannabis was my substance of choice, not alcohol. And I’m very happy with the person that I’ve become today, and I would be very different if alcohol was what I used for relaxation.

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, have you done studies on cannabis?

MADRAS: I have done a few limited studies on isolated cannabinoids, not in patients, in preclinical research. I have studied the literature extensively because I am very interested in the scientific issues, not as much the political issues.

FLATOW: Well, do you believe that the studies…

ABRAMS: Science does not drive the politics…

MADRAS: I believe…

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, do you believe that studies can be done that would satisfy the FDA?

MADRAS: I certainly do.

ABRAMS: Oh, my goodness.

MADRAS: I think that…

FLATOW: And who would do them?

MADRAS: Well, (unintelligible)…

ABRAMS: Good question.

MADRAS: …and I have no, you know, full disclosure, I have absolutely no outside funding from any sources.

FLATOW: So who should do this? Who should get the funding to do this?

MADRAS: So drug companies – RGW Pharmaceuticals in England, they’ve approved an inhaled form of…

ABRAMS: It’s not inhaled, dear. It’s sprayed under the tongue.

MADRAS: …THC combined with cannabidiol, which does not have psychoactive effects but therapeutic effects and different types of formularies that can deliver a reasonable bolus of active…

FLATOW: Well, Great Britain…

MADRAS: …ingredients to the brain would satisfy the FDA. At this point, the real issue is the relationship between psychoactive effects and therapeutic effects. The faster a drug gets into the brain, the more addictive it – more…

ABRAMS: No. Don’t start with addictive.

MADRAS: …addictive potential and the more its psychoactive effects. And this is the problem with a substance such as marijuana smoke. The other issue is: Do we want smoked marijuana as a delivery system for medications? It has between 60 and 80 cannabinoids in it of uneven quantities because every one produces different ratios…

FLATOW: OK.

MADRAS: …of all of them.

FLATOW: I have to stop you from filibustering. Let me get another question in here. Dr. Abrams, for people who already have problems, health problems, what about the smoking issue? Isn’t smoking a bad solution?

ABRAMS: Yeah. My friend and colleague Donald Tashkin at the University of California, Los Angeles has spent 40 years of his career doing studies for NIDA looking for the danger of inhaling cannabis and basically finds that chronic users may have a little bronchitis. Actually, it appears from his (unintelligible) study of 1,365 patients with aerodigestive malignancies in Los Angeles that regular cannabis use decreased the risk of lung cancer. A recent study in young people followed for 20 years show that those who regularly use cannabis had better pulmonary function tests than those who didn’t.

So there are other ways to deliver cannabis than smoking, and we’ve investigated a vaporizer, and vaporization is now widely used by patients here in California as a smokeless delivery system. But in my opinion, smoking is not that dangerous, either, and I’m sure that will get some disagreement from my colleague.

FLATOW: A lot of people think that it’s the high that you get from smoking marijuana that is the therapeutic effect. Is that correct?

ABRAMS: I think that the cannabinoids – we have two receptors in our bodies, the CB1, which is in the brain, and the CB2, which is in the immune system. And the activation of these receptors causes chemical reactions in cells which have many different effects besides the psychoactivity. As my colleague said, another cannabinoid, cannabidiol is very potently analgesic and anti-inflammatory without being psychoactive. So the concern that there’s 60 or 70 other cannabinoids in the plant is exactly something, I think, is a good thing.

As a student of traditional Chinese medicine, a medicine that’s been practiced for 5,000 years, they frequently use the whole plant instead of following the Western pharmaceutically industry dominated paradigm of isolating the active component, make it into a pill that people swallow and charging large amounts of money. So I think that the cannabinoids, as well as the other components of the plant – terpenoids and flavonoids – all have the potential for medical benefits.

FLATOW: All right. Let me remind everybody that this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. Let me ask you, Dr. Madras, one more time, do you think there are studies that can be done in the United States that would convince the FDA, and who would do them?

MADRAS: I think there are studies. I think we have to, A, alter the delivery system to remove smoke. Marijuana smoke has ammonia up to 20 times greater than tobacco smoke. It has hydrogen cyanide and nitric oxide and some aromatic amines that are three to five times higher in marijuana than tobacco smoke. And there are many other problems associated with marijuana smoke. So what are the criteria? One should change the method of delivery…

FLATOW: Who will do…

MADRAS: …and (unintelligible)…

FLATOW: Who will do the study? Ma’am. Ma’am, who will do the study?

MADRAS: …(unintelligible) change the method of delivery as well as study and…

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, who will…

MADRAS: …focus on single cannabinoids.

FLATOW: Dr. Madras, who will do these studies?

MADRAS: Well, there are pharmaceutical companies that are quite interested in…

FLATOW: Have they – will they…

ABRAMS: It’s a flower. Nobody can patent a flower.

FLATOW: Will they…

ABRAMS: Nobody can patent a flower. They’re not going to make any money.

FLATOW: Who’s going to…

MADRAS: They can patent methods of delivery. They can patent single isolated cannabinoids. They can (unintelligible)…

ABRAMS: And they’ve done that. We have that on the market.

MADRAS: They can (unintelligible).

ABRAMS: That’s called dronabinol and nabilone. Those are available for patients. I’ll tell you, as a cancer doctor, I’m…

MADRAS: Yes. Generic drugs are very, very lucrative for companies such as Teva Pharmaceuticals. They can be made as generics as well.

FLATOW: Who will? Can is a large population. Who is doing it and will do it and pay for it?

ABRAMS: Can I – there’s no answer to that, so I can just say as a cancer doctor now for 30 years in a state where we have tolerance to the use of cannabis as medicine, that a day doesn’t go by when I don’t see a cancer patient who has nausea, loss of appetite, pain, depression and insomnia. And I could recommend one medicine to that patient and instead of writing prescriptions for five or six different pharmaceuticals that may interact with each other or with the patient’s chemotherapy. And this is a medicine that my cancer patients can grow if they want to.

I ask all of my patients: What brings you joy? And the percentage of people living and, in fact, dying with cancer who tell me gardening brings them joy is not insubstantial because bringing life out of the ground is a pleasure. And if this life that people bring out of the ground is also their medicine, why don’t we let them have it? The number of patients who come to me saying they were given narcotics and at their – the end of life and they can’t communicate with their family, and then they wean themselves off of their opiates with cannabis so that they could have a more pleasurable interaction in their final days of life. Why do we deny people this medicine?

MADRAS: Well, why is it that the recommendations currently are that serotonin 5-HT3 antagonists are much better at preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea than marijuana?

ABRAMS: Yeah, I’m not going to – it’s not a question about ranking, but I think…

MADRAS: Why is that there are so many alternatives now to smoking marijuana, sending the wrong message to kids…

ABRAMS: I hope you never have to repeat chemotherapy.

MADRAS: …than what you’re claiming? I’m afraid…

ABRAMS: Right. But what about Melissa Etheridge? She’s the one that went public, saying she could not have tolerated her chemotherapy for her breast cancer if she didn’t use cannabis. We have many medicines, but if they don’t work and cannabis does, why deprive people of their medicine?

FLATOW: All right. I have to stop it right there. Dr. Bertha Madras, professor of psychobiology at the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard. Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of oncology, San Francisco General Hospital. Thank you both for taking time to be with us.

ABRAMS: Sure.

Dr Madras, there are MANY other delivery systems for medical cannabis, check us out!http://www.cannakitchenandresearch.com/menu-of-products.html

THANK YOU http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com !!!

More info: http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2012/10/12/oncologist-donald-abrams-defends-medical-cannabis-on-nprs-science-friday/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for reading us,
Thank you for your time,
Hope you'll found the information you expected,
Don't hesitate contacting us,
Have a great day ☼
Chicas Team ❤

MPAA's Chris Dodd extends olive branch to Silicon Valley...

Chris Dodd, Hollywood's chief lobbyist, extended an olive branch to Silicon Valley.

Eager to put to rest a bruising battle with Google and other tech companies over ill-fated anti-piracy bills this year, Dodd stressed common ground between California's two signature industries in a speech Tuesday at the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco.

"What I don't want to do is relive the SOPA debate -- and I hope you don't either,'' Dodd said, alluding to the Stop Online Piracy Act that sparked an unprecedented online protest led by Google, Wikipedia and other tech giants. They saw the bill as threat to the Internet.

"Issues surrounding piracy and how we protect the hard work of many thousands of American creators and makers in movies and television are important though, and worth talking about together without heated rhetoric and raised voices. And I accept my share of responsibility for some of that in the past."

Dodd even praised Google for recent steps to curb online piracy and touted common interests shared with Hollywood.

He cited the joint initiative known as UltraViolet, an effort by dozens of content and tech companies to allow customers to purchase and acquire content in one form and then have the ability to watch it on any of their devices.

"We share a belief in innovation,'' Dodd said. "We call them audiences, you call them users, but giving them the best possible experience is a shared goal. In the end, we all report to the same people."

Thank you Los Angeles Times

California Assembly approves state film, TV tax credit extension...

By Richard Verrier

The California Assembly overwhelmingly approved a bill that would preserve funding for the state's film and television tax credit.

The Assembly voted 70-4 in favor of the bill, which extends funding for the program another two years. California allocates $100 million annually toward tax credits, which are doled out by lottery because of limited funds. Funding was due to expire next year.

The film industry had been pressing for a five-year extension to show the state's commitment to the industry, which is being lured away by other states with strong incentives. But that proved a tall order in light of the state's budget woes.

The state Senate is expected to hold its first committee hearing on a similar bill next week.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter

California Movie And TV Tax Credit Extension Moves Forward...

The bill was altered to extend the $100 million annual tax credit program to two years instead of five, matching a bill in the state Senate.

A bill to extend California's program of tax credits designed to stop movie and TV production from leaving the state passed a key test Wednesday and now is headed to the full Assembly for a vote, probably next week.

New York Attempts to Lure Hollywood By Tripling Post Production Tax Credit

California Senate Committee Approves Tax Credit Extension, Cuts Term to 2 Years
Before passage, the bill was changed to mandate a two-year extension of the $100 million annual program. An earlier version called for a five-year extension. The two-year term matches a similar bill making its way through the state Senate.
The bill was heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee, which then passed it by a unanimous vote.
The bill introduced by Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes (D, 39th district -- which includes San Fernando, North Hollywood). It had previously passed the State Assembly Arts and Entertainment Committee.
The Senate version was introduced by Senator Ron Calderon (D, South East Los Angeles). It is expected to be heard by the full Senate in the coming weeks.
Gov. Jerry Brown has yet to announce whether he supports an extension of the tax credits meant to stem runaway production, a program that began in 2009 under then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Brown signed a one year extension at the end of the legislative session last year.

Thank you Hollywood Reporter