Abe’s brilliant academic career

Some might recall Abraham Christie claiming that he has an ‘honourary PhD’ in nutrition (presumably with a speciality in hemp).

Back in May, a commenter on the late and very much unlamented Hamster Research asked him about this:

W says: May 20, 2015 at 3:08 pm
Abraham, I would be most interested to hear more about your research into hemp. Can you tell me which university awarded you your honorary doctorate and who supervised your research? Thank you.

Abe responded:

Hempstars says: May 20, 2015 at 3:42 pm
W, thank you for your interest, as a rule we don’t generally reply to individual posts, however Dr.Anneke Westra from Glastonbury awarded my honorary doctorate in 2013.
We begun full time Nutritional research in 1996 at the House Of Hemp in Redchurch St. London, where we were invited to head the House of Hemp, Hempseed research dept. We were supported in our research by David Wolfe, an Internationally recognised authority on Raw food nutrition, a young scientist from Southampton and others . We can’t say that we were supervised by anyone other than ourselves . We trust that this is useful.
As previously mentioned, we feel that it is our work with fresh raw Cannabis juice as an ideal “plant based” blood transfusion liquid for humans, ( that precludes the consumption of human blood for blood transfusion purposes ) which causes us to be the natural nemesis of this murderous human blood drinking/flesh eating cult.
For more information see http://www.cannabisinternational.org/

“(F)ull time Nutritional research in 1996 at the House Of Hemp”…because that’s a fully recognised academic degree-granting institution, yep. “We can’t say that we were supervised by anyone other than ourselves”…oh, stop!

When we’d picked ourselves up from the floor after laughing ourselves silly, we wondered: who is Dr Anneke Westra of Glastonbury, and by what mysterious power was she able to grant Abe an honourary doctorate?  An Anneke Westra does indeed appear to live in Glastonbury (and on Facebook we noted that she’s friends with Araya Soma). A quick Google search indicates that a person introducing themselves as Dr. Anneke Westra Ph.D Biotech., BSc. Biochem. spoke on behalf of a mental health survivors’ group at the Conservative Party Conference in 2004:

Dr Westra sounds like a very dedicated person, and we wouldn’t wish to cast aspersions on her character, but we’d suggest that any ‘degree’ granted by her, honourary or otherwise, should not be taken terribly seriously.

It’s not personal—it’s just that individuals are not empowered to grant any sort of academic degree. Accredited educational institutions may, at their discretion, award honourary degrees to certain people who have not completed the usual requirements, including matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations. Honourary degrees, when given, are not considered academic qualifications, nor listed on one’s resumé as such. So even if Abe had received an honourary degree (and not just some random person saying, “Oh, Abe, you’re so smart, you should have a PhD!”) he would have been requested to not to use the title ‘Dr’ anywhere other than at the degree-granting institution.

So. No honourary degree, then. We’re sure you’re as shocked as we are.

Well, what about David Wolfe, then? Apparently he’s a Big Thing in the raw foods community, though to be honest we’d never heard of him. Apparently we’ve been missing out.

On Mr Wolfe’s blog, he endorses juicing cannabis rather than smoking it, for amazing health benefits. Interestingly, he states that “Cannabis Leaf Juice Will Not Make You High (Or At Least Not As High as Smoking)” (emphasis ours). Given his affiliation with Mr Wolfe, we’d expect Abe to understand that ‘not as high as smoking’ should mean that Ricky Dearman’s children shouldn’t have been given juiced cannabis. Perhaps he wasn’t really paying strict attention while he was at the feet of the master.

Then again, when we saw this comment on Facebook, we wondered whether Abe might have absorbed more of Mr Wolfe’s oeuvre than we at first suspected:

Just another one of those things that make us go “Hmm”.