Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Will a Worthy Opponent Please Step Forward to Debate me on Cannabis Law Reform?
This week I debated Peter Hitchens on cannabis again. It was at Cannabis Europa in the Barbican. The text of my opening speech is below.
After about 14 years of doing this repeatedly. I’ve grown quite fond of the old blowhard but he has nothing new to offer. Just the same evidence-opposed assertions and less than a handful of anecdotes that shed no light on the subject at all.
So please, will someone step forward? I can definitely get such a debate hosted at a university or other respected institution. I can guarantee publishing it on YouTube, possibly even we might get it broadcast on TV.
Is there a politician with the guts to do it? I doubt it. They all runaway like frightened rabbits from any serious discussion about drugs policy. They’re terrified of what the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail will say, even though most of them know that what we’ve done for 50 years has caused more harm than good.
This is an open invitation. Contact me on Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn or by email at peter@peter-reynolds.co.uk
My Speech at Cannabis Europa, 25th June 2024
Thank you chair, Mr Ellson, and thank you Mr Hitchens for coming to this debate. My respects to you for entering what must seem like the lion’s den.
I am here to explain why the current law against cannabis causes far more harm than it ever has or ever could. We have suffered under bad drugs policy in Britain since the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1928. The prohibition of drugs, including cannabis, has created criminal markets which have caused extraordinary harm to our society. I suggest that it is the worst failure of social policy since the war. Nothing else has impacted communities, divided the people from the police, like prohibition. This may be elevating drugs policy to higher importance than you have heard before but I consider that bad drugs policy, prohibition, is driving the breakdown of our society like nothing else. The problem is not cannabis, nor any drug. It is prohibition.
Now, I offered Mr Hitchens the opportunity to phrase the motion for this debate. I was ready to speak either for or against, however he wished it to be set.
So, ‘This house calls for the repeal of the laws against marijuana’ and I speak for the motion. It is the last time that you will hear me speak the ‘M’ word. I prefer the correct scientific and botanical term, cannabis.
But the ‘M’ word, or rather the use of it, is a very good place to start. It’s an Hispanic nickname for cannabis which was deliberately selected and promoted by the architects of cannabis prohibition in the USA, William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper magnate and Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, later to become the DEA.
They chose the ‘M’ word in order to associate cannabis with Mexicans and the perceived threat across America’s borders. How little has changed! They went so far as to even enshrine the word in US legislation. Transforming racially charged slang into statute. An extraordinary exercise in state propaganda..
So it was a racist meme from the beginning. Hearst’s newspapers published stories about Mexicans going insane, committing horrendous violence, sexually ravaging white American women and all of it was put down to cannabis. Again, it’s remarkable how little has changed. In Britain, the Mail newspapers continue this campaign of disinformation today.
I understand, of course, that language changes, develops but the choices we make are important and this history illustrates how the laws that currently exist are based on prejudice, misinformation and have nothing to do with science, health records or evidence of any sort. When that was tested by rigorous scientific method by David Nutt and his team, the Labour government had him sacked for it. That’s how deep this falsehood runs
So, as the motion states, I would repeal the laws against cannabis and I would replace them with laws that seek to control and regulate it.
Some argue that cannabis should be treated like carrots or cabbages. If we could go back to beginning of the 20th Century, I would agree. There are many plants in our gardens far more harmful than cannabis but 100 years of bad drugs policy, of prohibition, have created and supported a gangster-driven criminal market which we cannot walk away from. For the safety of our society, the cannabis market has to be regulated – not to protect us from cannabis but from the violent criminal trade in it.
I do not suggest that cannabis is harmless. No one with any sense claims that it is. But it has many benefits. Not just as medicine but as something that can bring great pleasure, insight and joy. It can enhance life experiences such as music, food, all forms of culture, spirituality and relationships. It is unique in this regard. I like to think of it as a condiment for life. It enhances and develops all the flavours of life and although those of us who consume it understand this, these benefits are largely obscured by the hysteria and falsehood around it.
Clearly, excessive or irresponsible use can cause health harms, as with any substance. The most vulnerable are children and that’s why the principle role of the law must be to protect them. As for adults, they should in my view be able to consume anything they wish without restriction under law – unless of course they cause harm to someone else. And we already have all the laws we need to protect others without banning personal possession or use of any drug.
The main harms to children are around brain health but in mature adults, science shows exactly the opposite, that cannabis is neuroprotective, promotes neurogenesis and is a prophylactic for brain injury either through trauma, stroke or neurodegenerative disease. Professor Gary Wenk of Ohio State University says that regular, moderate use of cannabis in middle age will delay the onset of dementia so effectively that most people will never experience it
So it is with protecting children that the law should be concerned. Yet what we have seen, beyond doubt, is that the effect of the law has been exactly the opposite. The laws against cannabis are the principle cause of its harm to children. Because it is prohibited, it is easier for children to get hold of it than the drugs that we regulate, alcohol and tobacco.
The criminal market in cannabis drives street dealing, sales to children, the exploitation of children as runners and it inveigles them into gang culture and county lines. I suggest that cannabis prohibition is the root cause of most knife crime. It and the prohibition of other more dangerous drugs is the cause of most crime and violence in Britain. There is no dispute about this. Over 70% of people in prison are there for drug-related crime. Police spend most of their time on drug-related matters. We have created this huge edifice of drug crime which now overwhelms everything else. Globally we have created the biggest ever criminal market worth, 10 years ago, in 2014, $652 billion. We have done this deliberately. It is stupidity beyond belief.
It is because of this huge, overwhelming weight of drug-related crime that our police have no time for real wrongdoing, for burglary, rape or fraud. And this is a choice we have made. There is no inherent wrong in cannabis. It’s just a plant. We have obsessed over ‘malum prohibitum’, that is a wrong that we have invented, at the expense of ‘malum per se’, that is something that is inherently wrong, in itself, such as theft or assault.
The demand for cannabis is huge. According to the largest ever study on the subject, we consume more than 2800 kilos of it every single day in Britain. It’s utterly naïve and absurd to think this demand can be turned off or suppressed – and indeed, why should it be for consenting adults? It’s the futile attempt to suppress it that causes so much harm.
And let’s be clear, even though the cannabis laws are barely enforced at a personal level now – thank heavens the police recognise what a waste of their resources it is – prohibition still supports and promotes the criminal market and all the harm it causes and the other crime it finances. As I set out in my book, ‘100 year of Bad Drugs Policy’, to be published next year, the cannabis market is the most reliable source of regular cashflow for criminal gangs. It incorporates human trafficking, modern slavery, child exploitation and
funds the smaller but much more profitable trade in heroin and crack. It provides the working capital for every other type of crime you can imagine. And all because politicians, enjoying their taxpayer-subsidised drug consumption rooms in Parliament, have decided, on the basis of no evidence at all, that you should be stopped from enjoying a joint or a brownie or easing your aches and pains without the bother or expense of a prescription.
So how do we regulate cannabis? I have already published a great deal on this, so has Transform, so have Conservative think tanks, so have Labour think tanks, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and others. And now we have the real-world experience of dozens of US states, Canada, the Netherlands, Malta, Luxembourg and Germany. We have a huge quantity of evidence.
Of course, there have been mistakes. California’s greedy politicians tried to impose taxation at a ludicrous rate which only supported the illicit market. They’re now fixing ii but as in all of this it’s unrealistic to expect immediate results. Undoing the harm of 100 years of prohibition takes time. But in Colorado, 12 years since legalisation, teenage use is now down 30%. 30%! In Canada, after just six years, 82% of all purchases are now made through legal channels. These are amazing achievements, which fully vindicate legalisation – and we, in Britain, have the opportunity to do even better!
So we have to repeal these laws against cannabis. They cause so much harm and our fears of dire consequences are illusory and now proven to be so by actual experience.
All we are currently doing is wasting time, our own time, police time, the time of the courts, the probation service and the time of all the people who are being hurt by the consequences of prohibition. And the money we are wasting, the lives we are wrecking, the terrible waste that this ludicrous policy causes every day is a tragedy.
These are my arguments for why we should repeal the laws against cannabis. I have more to add but now it is time for us to hear from Mr Hitchens.
IRELAND Dithers Aimlessly on Drugs Policy. Politicians Procrastinate. Media Misinforms.
This week the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Drugs Use held its first meeting.
In private. This speaks volumes about the way politics is conducted in Ireland.
It’s presented as “standard practice to attend to housekeeping and procedural matters”. But it’s all done at our expense. There is no good reason that these discussions should be secret. They are our business, not the ‘private’ business of those whose wages we pay.
There is every cause for concern. Everything that this government and the Oireachtas as a whole does on drugs policy warrants the closest scrutiny.
I do not know anyone who has any faith at all that this process will be handled honestly and we see from the beginning that it will not be open and transparent.
The recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly have already been brushed aside. Varadkar kicked the can as far down the road as possible and now we have a Taoiseach who is authoritarian, regressive and very fond of the mindless ‘tough on drugs’ sloganeering that has failed for 50 years.
And let’s remember, the Citizens’ Assembly was hobbled, rigged and sabotaged from the beginning. The agenda was manipulated so it was never about ‘drugs use’, it was about drugs treatment, so focusing only on the 10% of drugs users who are problematic, ignoring the 90% of users who, as Prof. Jo-Hanna Ivers explained right at the beginning, cause no harm to themselves or others and actually gain benefit from their drug use.
So it was set up to fail from the beginning. The equivalent of planning alcohol policy on the experience and need of alcoholics.
There was just 15 minutes given to one presentation on cannabis regulation while the gardai were given three bites at the cherry, hours each time, to preach falsehood, moralising and an utterly outdated approach which is proven to fail. Ireland now has a reputation for drugs gangsterism that spans the world and it’s deluded to think the gardai have anything of value to offer. Aside from a few academics and Dr Nuno Capaz from Portugal, not a single, working, practical expert on drugs policy was given a platform.
Then the voting system was rigged! Clearly this was organised to defeat what was obvious – that, even in the face of all the manipulation, the assembly intended to recommend decriminalisation of all drugs and a regulated cannabis market. So we had the absurd conclusion that drugs would be “decriminalised but remain illegal”. You really couldn’t make it up!
Of course, before the committee reaches any conclusions we will almost certainly have an election. This process has been twisted, corrupted, manipulated and sabotaged all the way through. I’ve only touched on the most egregious examples. Many other tricks were pulled which should never have been allowed.
Meanwhile the handwringing and alarm from government and media about the consequences of bad drugs policy continues. The HSE is engaged in drug war propaganda while simultaneously ensuring the failure of both the MCAP and ministerial licence schemes for accessing prescription cannabis.
The media systematically misrepresents the issue. In particular, RTE’s coverage is as far from balanced as it possible to conceive, yet its Journalism Guidelines are peppered with words such as ‘balance, fairness, objectivity and impartiality’. Certainly on drugs and drugs policy it falls far short of these standards. It is obsessed with the partial and opinionated views of Bobby Smyth, Ray Walley and other members of the Cannabis Risk Alliance, the extremist anti-cannabis lobby group. The nonsense and misrepresentation they are allowed to get away with about research and data is a scandal.
The press is allowed to be partial and there is no better example than this week’s article in the Independent ‘Almost 5,000 hospitalised with mental disorders after taking cannabis products‘. The awful journalism, confusing cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids is unforgivable, so dreadful you would think it is deliberate. And here again, the only named commentary is from Bobby Smyth and Ray Walley.
Is Irish media so blinkered that it thinks only clinicians or gardai have any role in drugs policy? The subject requires expertise from many disciplines. Why are experts in drugs policy itself never interviewed?
The Irish Times is similarly biased. Occasionally we get more balanced and intelligent coverage from the Examiner and the Journal.
It is difficult to be optimistic about any improvement in drugs policy in Ireland. Fine Gael is a hopeless case. Fianna Fail has a few bright lights, notably Paul McAuliffe and James Lawless. Labour has Aodhán Ó Ríordáin. The Greens have Neasa Hourigan. There is Gino Kenny of People Before Profit, Violet-Anne Wynne, the independent TD and Lynn Ruane, the independent senator . But there are very few more who seem to be properly informed. Most prefer the knuckledragging ‘tough on drugs’ approach of Simon Harris.
Germany Legalises Cannabis. The Most Important News in Drugs Policy in Our Lifetimes – So Far!
I’ve been waiting for this moment for 53 years. Since I first experienced the joy, insight and delight of cannabis as a 13-year old back in 1971, there has been no more important development. A nation state of 83 million people has at last made the move that will roll back prohibition, undermine organised crime, reduce harm and restore some degree of precious liberty to its people.
Since 1983, when I first gave evidence to the UK Parliament on cannabis, I have fought, campaigned and struggled to enlighten British politicians about the enormous harm cannabis prohibition causes and the immense opportunities that it prevents. Ironically, Germany’s very welcome move comes as politics in Britain reaches its very nadir. Only this week, the House of Commons embarrassed the whole nation by its disgusting, self-serving bickering on a debate about the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza. Of the many politicians I have met over the past 40 years, only a handful have earned my respect. The majority are concerned only with their own and their party’s short-term interest. My work on drugs policy has brought this home to me and the shameful approach of our politicians to the rabid slaughter of innocents confirms this.
My interest in cannabis reform was entirely selfish to begin with. I was outraged at an interference with my personal liberty that had no basis in science, nor in common sense policy. Quickly though I was consumed with the pressing need of so many who could benefit from cannabis as medicine. It was this that lit a fire within me and has driven my work.
There have been important milestones. California legalised medical access in 1996. The US states of Colorado and Washington legalised adult-use in 2012 and the following year Uruguay become the first nation state to see the light. Canada, with a population of 35 million, became the largest nation to legalise in 2018 and out-of-the-blue, in November of that year, the UK legalised medical access. Not through any rational or evidence-based policymaking but solely because the government suffered severe media embarrassment over the plight of two very young, epileptic children, Billy Caldwell and Alfie Dingley. Although very welcome, since then the UK has only gone backward on drugs policy. Currently we have a nasty, vindictive approach to people who use illicit drugs, yet the police operate de facto decriminalisation of personal possession. Meanwhile, powerful drugs gangs have taken over our streets and our negligent approach to drugs policy drives most crime, violence, exploitation of the vulnerable and societal breakdown.
In Germany, from April, it will legal for adults to possess up to 50 grams at home, up to 25 grams in public and each household may cultivate three plants. Cannabis social clubs of up to 500 members will be able to grow cannabis collectively and distribute it amongst their members. There’s a great deal of room for improvement in these arrangements. The clubs are a misguided response to fear of establishing a commercial market but in fact they are an ideal opportunity for cover of criminal gangs. I have no doubt that eventually a sensible, legally regulated, commercial market will be introduced but today is not the day to complain. Today is a cause for great celebration!
It is certain that Germany’s move will influence the rest of the world, particularly Europe, the EU and my adopted homeland, Ireland. I am hopeful for at least decriminalisation in the near future. But in Britain, I am not optimistic. The crass stupidity of both Conservative and Labour politicians knows no bounds. With very few exceptions, their desire to posture as ‘tough on drugs’ trumps any evidence, science or common sense. Reform will come eventually in the UK, probably, just like medical access, it will arrive suddenly and not through any rational process but because of grubby politicking. Such is the reality of living under the small minds and self-interests of British MPs.
Reasons to be Hopeful on Drugs Policy
You can be forgiven for a sense of despair if you live under the rule of the Conservative and Labour Party in Britain or the Fine Gael/Fianna Fail/Green Party coalition in Ireland. Our politicians are obsessed with pushing a ‘tough on drugs’ narrative. It’s an easy, cheap, go-to headline-grabber rather than addressing the real issues on drugs policy.
There are a few hopeful signs. But not in Britain. The dullard consensus between Conservative and Labour is depressing and another manifestation of the sickness that pervades all our political discourse. In Ireland, politicians are paying lip service to reform but the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use has forced the issue along, despite best efforts to rig the outcome.
The hope comes from the west, that re-scheduling of cannabis in the USA is about to be confirmed and from the east, that Germany seems to have finally resolved its cannabis reform bill and decriminalisation should take effect within a few months.
So Britain and Ireland are getting squeezed. Both countries face elections later this year. Drugs policy will not be an election issue in either country but crime, violence and anti-social behaviour will be. There’s a complete failure, a refusal, to see the link between bad drugs policy and these problems. In fact, it’s one of the principal causes of societal breakdown but not something that politicians will face up to.
Neither rational argument, nor evidence-based campaigning have any immediate effect on drugs policy. Over many years they do have some impact as understanding across society is improved and eventually wiser politicians come into office. While we’re stuck with those brought up with the ‘War on Drugs’; logic, evidence and common sense make no difference. They continue to ‘Just Say No’.
Nothing seems to move politicians except media embarrassment. It was only the tabloid coverage of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell that shamed Theresa May into legalising prescription cannabis. More recently, the UK Post Office scandal has shown that government and civil service are perfectly capable of acting quickly when it suits them but they prefer a life of indolence and procrastination. There’s an almost endless list of scandals that the Conservatives have preferred to ignore: contaminated blood, sodium valproate birth defects, Grenfell, Windrush, etc, etc. Labour will do exactly the same when they get into power.
In Ireland, despite the recommendations on cannabis by the Oireachtas Justice Committee and the Citizens’ Assembly, unbelievably the government has decided they need another committee but they’re going to put it off for nine months by which time the election will be imminent. It really is farcical. ‘Yes Minister’ and the Office of Circumlocution from ‘Little Dorrit’ aren’t fiction, they are factual narratives.
So while we must keep on with our efforts in campaigning and education for the long-term, politicians aren’t really interested in us or in reasoned argument. We’re wasting our time expecting it. We have to find the lever that will cause them embarrassment, show them an immediate personal gain or rely on broader international pressures before they will do the right thing.
A Hate Preacher at the Top of UK Government
The disgrace and shame that Suella Braverman has brought on Britain is without parallel. Some have compared her words to Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech but she is far, far worse. Powell was talking about his rather hysterical fears for the future. Braverman directly incited hatred and violence on our streets. Yesterday her wishes were fulfilled by gangs of hard right thugs desperate to create violence as more than half a million people in London marched for peace in Gaza.
The Metropolitan Police deserve great credit for their management of yesterday’s events. The person they now need to arrest is she who is inciting hatred and violence. The most disgraced and disgusting politician Britain has seen in a hundred years.
Remembrance and Peace in Gaza are the Same Cause
The despicable criticism of the Palestine peace marches exposes the true character of our politicians.
Suella Braverman’s description of them as ‘hate marches’ is to be expected from her. It is she who is expressing hate. Rishi Sunak’s failure to sack her for such disgusting words demonstrates his weakness, compounded by his own attack on the marches as “provocative and disrespectful”.
In fact, there is no more appropriate day to protest for peace than on Remembrance Day.
The Israeli Psychosis. Its Biggest Threat is Itself.
Both Israelis and Palestinians are suffering extraordinary pain and trauma right now, yet one people’s suffering does not erase the suffering of another. Express horror at the Hamas atrocity and one is accused of defending Israel, a state that is undoubtedly engaged in war crimes. Or express horror at the Israeli massacre of more than 400 children every day in Gaza and one is accused of defending Hamas, a terrorist death cult.
Both Israeli and Palestinian civilians are equal and deserve justice. Similarly, both the Israeli state and Hamas are engaged in mass murder and both deserve the strongest condemnation. Both must be stopped.
But there can be no doubt that the Israeli response is disproportionate. It seems crass to keep score but it cannot be avoided. 1400 Israeli deaths fom the Hamas atrocity. 8,000 Palestinian deaths from the Israeli response. Prior to these events, since 2008, 251 Israeli deaths from the conflict, 5,590 Palestinian deaths. These disproportionate outcomes cannot be ignored.
But ignoring or denying them is a common response from people defending Israel’s position, probably because it is indefensible. But it goes further than that because it’s not just this time, it was the same in 2014 and 2009 and every time the Israeli state goes on a murderous rampage. It extends into every aspect of Israeli politics and is seriously delusional. For instance, a complete failure to accept that the activities of the ‘settlers’ in the West Bank are terrorism, exactly the same as Hamas.
I do wonder whether this is now a condition, a type of psychosis, that needs to be codified. I know there are many Israelis and Jewish people that do not suffer from it but there’s a hard core that is seriously affected and they are driven by the behaviour of Netanyahu and other zealots in the Knesset.
This continuing behaviour is incompatible with Israel continuing to be recognised as a functioning state. It has failed.
Israel was created by the Western powers after World War II as a homeland for the Jewish people after the Holocaust, the greatest ever crime against humanity. But the land for the new state was cleared in 1948 by the violent expulsion of at least 700,000 Palestinians who already lived there. There is no easy way to say this but that the British and Americans who were principally responsible, placed less value on the lives of Arabs than Jews. It is this racist crime that continues to echo strongly after 75 years and is why the UK and the USA keep compounding it by unconditional support for Israel. It’s like a murderer who thought they got away with the crime but new witnesses keep on turning up who also have to be murdered.
Israel’s ‘right to exist’ is the mantra that has dominated its conduct since 1948 and understandably because many Arab states are sworn to destroy it. But its greatest threat is itself and it is precious close to forfeiting its right to exist because it cannot comply with international law and reasonable standards of civilised behaviour, even in war.
Everything depends on how long Israel can sustain the support of the USA and even that must have its limits. I can see it withdrawing its supply of weapons and the time for that is now.
There have to be some standards in civilisation. We know that death cults such as Hamas and theocracies such as Iran have no respect for such ideas but if Israel want to continue to be part of the family of nations then it has to rein in its murderous revenge and abuse of power. It must stop the reckless killing of civilians.
Voting at the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use was Rigged
Just a few hands raised to support the voting process
With discontent growing in the room, the chair Paul Reid called for a vote to confirm that the process had been clearly explained. About five hands were raised in agreement. A majority of about 94% were against. Reid did nothing about this. He moved on and continued to force through an increasingly complicated series of votes. Some were by a simple majority. Some were by a single transferable vote. Few people understood what was going on.
To begin with the voting had started with a simple majority vote where over 95% had voted against maintaining the status quo in drugs policy. By the end of the voting, Reid had effectively reversed that vote and the end result is a recommendation barely any different from the health diversion policy that is already supposed to have been in place for five years but which the government has failed to legislate for.
Contrary to widespread misreporting in the media, the recommendations which Reid has manipulated through do not decriminalise anything. Even personal possession of small amounts of drugs would remain a criminal offence.
The confusion started when Reid presented a series of options to vote on which had never been seen before. They were certainly not prepared by or with the support of the Assembly. They were ambiguous, contradictory, confusing and clearly designed to split the vote on measures for decriminalisation or legalisation.
Throughout the Assembly’s meetings, there has been dreadful bias in the selection of presentations and evidence. Apart from government departments and government-funded organisations, not a single expert on drugs policy was allowed to give evidence. Despite the strong interest in regulation from the members, out of 200 hours of evidence, just seven minutes was allowed for a presentation on regulation of cannabis. Nothing was permitted on regulation of any other drug.
Neither have any of the 800 submissions to the Assembly been published. A statistical summary of their content was published, showing well over 90% argued for substantial reform. They were supposed to have been published as part of the Assembly process but they have been kept secret and the meetings are now over.
Discontent and protest continued to grow in the room but Reid would have none of it. There were suspicions from the very beginning as to why an establishment figure, closely associated with the drugs policy failures of the past, had been appointed as chair. These appear to be confirmed. It seems that Reid has done as instructed and manipulated a conclusion that maintains the status quo.
Peter Reynolds 