Home Affairs Committee Inquiry into Drugs. Evidence Doesn’t Work with Politicians, Will Common Sense?
I am unable to share my detailed response to the inquiry until it has formally accepted and published it. However, this introduction explains the basis of my submission.
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I am the president of CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform, the longest established and largest membership-based cannabis policy group in the UK, founded in 1999 with more than 600,000 followers. We represent people who support cannabis law reform, not all but most are also cannabis consumers. We are committed to a responsible, science and evidence-based approach.
I have participated in the cannabis law reform campaign for over 40 years. For over 30 years I have worked professionally in healthcare and medicine and for the past 10 years in the legal cannabis and cannabinoid industry.
The committee’s first inquiry into drugs was in 1983. I submitted evidence then at the tender age of 26 and to every inquiry since up to this year’s at the age of 64.
What stands out in all these inquiries is the overwhelming weight of evidence and opinion in favour of radical reform. Yet despite this, apart from the legalisation of access to prescribed medicinal cannabis in 2018, no progress has been made. On the contrary, politicians continue to prefer to posture as ‘tough on drugs’ rather than follow evidence or public opinion.
There is no doubt of the failure of current policy, yet both major parties continue to stick rigidly to prohibition. This despite the highest ever level of drug deaths, the de facto decriminalisation of cannabis by police and widespread contempt for our drug laws demonstrated by colossal consumption, particularly of cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy (MDMA) by people of all ages and social backgrounds.
There is also no doubt of the cost of this failed policy, estimated to be in the region of £20 billion per annum, and that it drives crime, violence, gangsterism and the breakdown of cohesion in society. One of the common misconceptions, which ministers dishonestly promote, is that it is drugs that drive these problems when in fact it is almost always policy that is the cause. Present policy directly supports and encourages organised crime.
What will it take for politicians to grasp this nettle?
Clearly, erudite submissions of evidence and logical argument do not work, however well qualified or experienced the source. Despite many politicians’ admissions of drug use, once in office they choose to continue with policies that, had they been caught with illegal drugs, would probably disqualify them from the jobs they now hold. Frequently, when they leave office they suddenly reverse their position and support reform. This brazen hypocrisy causes great damage to our society and contributes to widespread contempt for our political system.
So, in this submission, I address the issues concerned with common sense. For instance, specifically on cannabis, it is easily possible to find scientific evidence either maximising its dangers or minimising them. In the UK, mainly due to research at the Institute of Psychiatry, we have a particularly extreme point of view on its likelihood to cause mental illness but this is unique in the world. Most other countries take a far more balanced approach and the media is not as hysterical about these potential harms. It is possible to swap studies ad infinitum and nothing is achieved by this. Instead, I propose the common sense that since the 1960s the number of cannabis consumers has risen from about zero to about 3 million, yet there is no correlation at all with the rate of diagnosed mental illness which is steady or declining.
The fantastic statistical projections from the Institute of Psychiatry, using the most esoteric mathematical formulae, drive fear about cannabis but they simply do not match the real word experience of the millions of people who regularly consume the drug. It is this sort of mismatch that paralyses our ability to reach a consensus. This is why I believe that far more weight needs to be given to common sense.
Drug use is a normal part of life for most people. The distinction between drugs which are legally permitted, alcohol and tobacco, and drugs which are banned is, in itself, extremely harmful. Alcohol and tobacco are two of the most harmful drugs, much more harmful than many drugs that are banned. It is common sense that the law should guide people accurately, not mislead them as at present.
Putin’s War. He has to be Stopped Now. Delaying Will Make it More Difficult.
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Ukrainian soldiers trying to save the father of a family of four — the only one at that moment who still had a pulse — moments after being hit by a mortar while trying to flee Irpin, near Kyiv, on Sunday. Credit…Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
Assassination Is the Ethical Option.
I am for assassination of Putin and key Russian government and military officers.
This is the option that minimises casualties and puts most risk on professionals who have chosen their role. Special forces would welcome this task. They may bear heavy casualties before they succeed but they are volunteers and it is better than the death of civilians, particularly children. Multiple small teams infiltrating by helicopter, HALO parachute jump and every possible route equipped with our most sophisticated weaponry. Many will die but only one needs to succeed.
It’s what we should have done with Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Netanyahu and Assad. In any circumstances, if there is justification for action that may result in civilian casualties, there is better justification for assassination. It’s the ethical option.
Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelenskyy
The leader of a proud, free nation. A beacon of hope, strength, and freedom. A President willing to die for his people rather than cower to an autocrat. Centuries from now, statues of this man will stand across Ukraine remembering his leadership.
Regardless of any Police Inquiry, the Corrupt Nature of Parliament has at last been Exposed
It’s up to the Speaker to act. This arcane old boys club must be brought into the 21st Century and the dishonest, secretive nature of political parties and the whipping system abandoned for ever.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s biggest problem is that the status quo suits the Conservative and Labour Parties very well. Although they may seem to be opposed to each other, the reality is that they act in unison to shore up this system which keeps power ebbing and flowing between them and the last people they are concerned about are voters.
The UK’s democracy is unfit for purpose. It should be producing governments that are genuinely representative of the whole country. Even though one manifesto or set of proposals may win an election, a modern democracy cannot be ruled by tyranny of the majority. Governnment must act in the best interests of all.
It’s inevitable that any such reforms will also have to examine our first-past-the-post election system. Again, this has served the two main parties well and they will resist any change. Indeed they will in unison to sabotage any progress as they have in the past. That is why these decisions cannot be trusted to MPs. We need to find a democratic method that will achieve a fair result. The idea that comes to mind is a Citizens Assembly and/or a series of referenda held by a modern, digital system that will produce accurate results quickly.
At every stage the old guard will try to wrest back control, so there is no point making the assembly or referenda advisory. They must be decisive and no backroom deals between party grandees in Mayfair restaurants or gentlemans’ clubs must be able to intervene.
Switzerland manages to govern by referenda and there is simply no reason (whatever we will undoubtedly be told) why an efficient online system involving every registered voter cannot be developed.
I won’t be holding my breath. I’ll be surprised if such reforms can be completed within the 20 or 30 years that I have left but unless we start to move in this direction, then I predict much more conflict of the sort we had over Brexit. With the scrutiny that our politicians are now subject to, however much they try to resist it, there will likely be further police inquiries as grubby politicians try to succeed in 21st Century government using an 18th century system.
The Times Picks up the Reefer Madness Baton from the Daily Mail
Stigmatising cannabis consumers and patients with one-sided and biased reporting is irresponsible misinformation, not journalism
It’s that time of year, King’s College Institute of Psychiatry has started its fundraising round so it’s time for the annual cannabis and psychosis scare story.
Over the past 10 years, in January or February each year, a press release goes out with its lead researchers, Professor Sir Robin Murray and Dr Marta di Forti, pushing another set of extremely scary statistics about how cannabis is driving consumers insane.
This year, two things are different, Firstly, there’s no new study, just repetition of previous claims. Secondly, instead of being led by the Daily Mail, it’s The Times that has taken up the role of terrifying parents and this year there’s also a new story about over-55s who are ‘addicted’ to cannabis.
The Times’ reputation as the newspaper of record and the supreme example of English-language journalism has been faltering for some time. The decline started, inevitably, when Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper in 1981. It’s now tabloid-sized and, surprisingly often, tabloid in its style and disdain for the truth. In the main it is still a good source of news reporting and has an honourable record in covering the increasing acceptance of and value in the medical use of cannabis.
However, starting in September 2021 with a major feature in the Sunday magazine by Megan Agnew,‘Cannabis psychosis: how super-powered skunk blew our minds’, it has become an uncritical promoter and advocate for everything that comes out of King’s College about cannabis.
Ms Agnew interviewed me at length several months before her piece was published and I dare say she spoke to other people on the reform side of the debate as well. Certainly not one word of what I said made it into print. It might as well be a paid-for advertorial for Marta di Forti and Robin Murray’s work.
I’ve met Robin Murray several times. In fact, I once sat next to him for two days in a conference held in the House of Lords. In person he’s nowhere near the anti-cannabis zealot he’s portrayed as in the press and there are other people in his team who I have worked with on research projects who I think, although they wouldn’t say it, are actually on my side! Nevertheless, the message about their research that is portrayed in the media is clearly deliberate and it is wildly misleading.
This is best demonstrated by going to the Lancet website, where all the Murray/di Forti papers are published and reading the other scientists who debunk both the results and the methodology that Murray/di Forti use. Of course, this never gets mentioned in the press. The Times has completely excluded it from all its coverage. Go to https://www.thelancet.com/ and search for ‘High-potency cannabis and incident psychosis: correcting the causal assumption’. You’ll see a whole new perspective on King’s College and its scientists.
This obsession with demonising cannabis is centred on the UK, precisely because of the endlessly repetitive work carried out at King’s College and the appetite that British press has for sensationalising it. Australia also suffers from it to some degree but nowhere else in the world experiences the same systematic, ludicrous scaremongering. That’s not to say that the potential dangers of cannabis as a psychoactive substance are ignored, they’re simply given proportionate recognition. Clearly anything that affects the mind can, potentially, cause harm and needs consideration, just as we do with alcohol, coffee, energy drinks and many medicines. Sadly there will always be casualties but provided we do all we can to minimise them, they do not justify prohibition. The evidence is clear that always causes more harm than good and it is self-evident that harm is better controlled and casualties more effectively prevented in a legal environment, not in a market run by gangsters and organised crime.
A Very Large Majority of those Entering Cannabis ‘Treatment’ Are Coerced Into It By Authorities.
This is very difficult data to track down but it’s a fact that needs to be clearly understood as the hard right, authoritarian press ramps up its anti-cannabis scaremongering this week.
Coercive medical treatment is unethical and possibly, in some cases, illegal but it is the principal route by which people in the UK are forced into GP and community health ‘treatment’ for cannabis ‘addiction’ or ‘cannabis use disorder’ as it is now termed.
Most people are told to go into treatment by the courts in return for a lighter sentence or no sentence at all. Young people are also ordered into treatment by the courts or by their school or college as an alternative to being expelled.
Public Health England’s own data showed that 89% of under-18s in treatment were coerced into it, only in 11% of cases did the patient themselves or their families believe they needed it.
SOURCE: Unfortunately as with so much drugs related information, the government has ceased to collect the data and the archives have been removed. The organisation Public Health England has now been shut down but for the sake of accuracy this was the source of this information: Table 2.4.1 http://www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/young-peoples-statistics-from-the-ndtms-1-april-2015-to-31-march-2016.pdf
Keir Starmer: Flaccid, Vaciliating, Confused, as he Directly Contradicts Himself on Cannabis
On 18th February 2020, during the Channel 4 Labour leadership debate, all the candidates were asked whether they would decrimnalise cannabis. Keir Starmer replied “I wouldn’t immediately. I have supported schemes where cannabis possession, you’re not arrested, you’re not prosecuted for it. And I believe in that.”
Since then he’s hardened his stance, probably in order to appeal to the Daily Mail demographic, just as his predecessor Gordon Brown did in 2009 when he raised cannabis from class C to class B on the orders of Paul Dacre, then editor of the depraved rag.
But the denouement for Starmer, when he confirmed himself as a weak, spineless irrelevance was this week when Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced his plans for exactly the sort of depenalisation which in 2018 Starmer said he believed in. “I’ve said a number of times and I will say again: I’m not in favour of us changing the law or decriminalisation. I’m very clear about that.”
Yes, while Starmer’s as clear as mud, it’s very easy to be clear about him!
The tragedy for Britain, on drugs policy and everything else, is that Keir Starmer is the only alternative to the sleaze, corruption and incompetence of Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.
The Crazy Conspiracy Theories that Undermine the Cannabis Campaign
No, Theresa May’s husband does not own the largest cannabis farm in Europe. No, ‘the government’ is not growing cannabis, exporting it all over the world, making millions from it while denying it to British people. No, you do not have to be a Tory donor to get a licence to grow cannabis. No, MPs do not have investments in cannabis companies which is why prices are so high. No, the former drugs minister, Victoria Atkins MP, did not give her husband a licence to grow cannabis.
These and an almost limitless variety of permutations of the same ideas are endlessly repeated on social media and it’s reached the stage where one version or another is regarded as fact by many people.
These ideas do us no favours. They don’t prove some massive conspiracy about cannabis in the government, Parliament or amongst the wealthy elite because they are simply fake. They make fools of us all and play straight into the hands of prohibitionists who paint cannabis consumers as paranoid fantasists with wild obsessions about imaginary conspiracies and plots.
Sadly, on the last point, from what I’ve seen over the past year in particular, they’re right – at least to some degree about some people!
Of course, they arise because it genuinely is impossible to see any rhyme, reason or common sense about the way that cannabis is handled in the UK. With the exceptions of France, Ireland and Sweden, Britain has the most backwards, regressive and irrational position on cannabis and wider drugs policy of any country in Europe.
It’s inevitable that people will try to look for explanations and because there is dishonesty in drugs policy, because the Home Office has been lying to us about the harms of cannabis for at least 50 years, people develop extraordinary theories that are enhanced if you’ve just had a couple of big hits off your bong.
The trick though, which is what anyone who understands anything about psychology will tell you, is that in each of them, at the root is a tiny grain of truth which has been distorted, exaggerated and falsified until it becomes, apparently, a massive scandal. So much so, that even as I have done many times, you explain in great detail why some particular theory is fake, the response is often ‘no smoke without fire, ‘there must be some truth in it’.
But all these conspiracy theories do is dissipate our energy, divert our focus and attention, distract us from the real story and actually obscure what is more about cock-up, cowardice and stupidity than any grand plan. The reason this government, just like the last Labour government, maintains the prohibition of cannabis, is mainly about ignorance and fear. They don’t believe that it is something their core supporters want to see changed and although many senior politicians fully understand the arguments, the idea of explaining why reform is a good idea looks like far too much hard work and for what?
Don’t be fooled that it’s all about the ‘effing Tories’. Labour has a far worse record on drugs policy. It was Margaret Thatcher who first introduced clean needle exchange when HIV/AIDS first struck. She was a scientist by training and understood the value of evidence. Note that that there is a dearth of scientific training amongst current members of both Houses of Parliament. It was Gordon Brown, Labour PM, who reclassified cannabis upwards to class B in 2009, basically on the instructions of Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail. And it was Alan Johnson, Labour Home Secretary, who sacked Professor Nutt for stating the scientific facts that cannabis and MDMA are much less dangerous than alcohol, tobacco – and even horse riding. And finally, most surprising of all, it was Theresa May and Sajid Javid, Conservative PM and Home Secretary respectively, who legalised medicinal cannabis in 2018 Solely, of course, because of public outcry over incredibly emotive stories of small children with epilepsy.
Of course there are MPs, mostly Conservatives, who have investment portfolios and, within the confines of the law, may well have investments in cannabis companies. It’s perfectly legal for anyone to invest in cannabis companies both in the UK and abroad, although not to being any profits back to the UK if they’re from activities that would be illegal here – such as producing and selling recreational cannabis. Great store has been made of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s alleged investments in cannabis but although there are few more odious MPs, there really isn’t any substance worth bothering about in these allegations. In 2007, he was one of the founders of Somerset Capital Management but he now owns less than 15% of it and plays no active role. It has been involved in advising on investments in Canada’s cannabis industry so, by a convoluted route, it is possible that some of the profits from fees earned on this advice have made their way back into his pocket but there’s no evidence at all that he had any involvement.
The Theresa May’s husband’s story has been invented because he, Philip May, is a mid-ranking employee of Capital Group, another investment company which at one point was the largest shareholder in GW Pharmaceuticals, owning about $300 million in its shares. GW’s sub-contractor, British Sugar, does run the largest cannabis farm in Europe at its Wissington glasshouse in Norfolk. But there’s no evidence at all and nothing even to suggest that Philip May had anything to do with it. And you have to put it in context. Capital Group’s investments exceed $2 trillion and it has owned $20 billion of Amazon shares, $2 billion of Starbucks, $5 billion of McDonald’s and $1.5 billion in Ryanair. It’s GW investment was tiny, insignificant and now it doesn’t own any shares in it at all.
And yes, it’s true. British Sugar’s managing director, Paul Kenward, is marrid to Victoria Atkins MP, who was drugs minister for a short time but its licence to grow cannabis was issued before she was even an MP.
The biggest problem that all this nonsense creates is that it destroys the credibility of the cannabis campaign. If we want to see progress the people we have to persuade aren’t cannabis consumers and that is, of course, the majority. They already have various perceptions, mostly negative, of those of us that do enjoy cannabis. Most of these are thanks to the government-originated propaganda, gratefully published and exaggerated by the tabloid press and most of them revolve around the idea that cannabis causes mental health problems. These wild, evidence-free conspiracy theories appear to confirm this idea.
So please, stop it! Put your energy into something worthwhile and effective. Write to your MP. Arrange to meet them and explain in calm, respectful terms why cannabis matters to you and why you want to see the law reformed.
Our Immigration Policy Costs Lives with Exactly the Same Muddled Thinking As Our Drugs Policy
The parallels are exact. It’s all about supply and demand. Just as there is a huge demand for drugs, there is huge demand to come and live in the UK. Unless legitimate access is provided at reasonable cost and convenience then it is inevitable that criminals will move in to meet that demand.
People are dying because of the way our government enforces these brutal, badly-thought out policies. Preventing these deaths has to be our priority. Prejudice about drug consumers and xenophobia about refugees has to be put aside.
We have the same slow-witted, myopic politicians in charge of both policies and they are incapable of addressing these issues rationally. Don’t think it’s just the Conservatives though, the Labour Party is barely any different. In fact, to listen to the shadow home secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, it’s easy to see him being even more hardline on drugs and immigration than Priti Patel.
It’s a truism that all politicians are the same but certainly on these dog whistle issues in Britain, both parties seem to compete to see who can appease Daily Mail readers most effectively and win their support.
Politicians hold delusional and arrogant beliefs that the ‘messages they send’ actually make any difference to people and that when they make laws people are going to obey them without question. When people see that laws are irrational, unfair and work against their interests they don’t want to obey. And when we’re referring to issues of vital importance such as coping with addiction or being able to live decently and in peace with your family, politicians’ pathetic, badly-thought out rules are the last thing that anyone will follow.
You only have to watch these fools of ministers and MPs rolled out in front of the cameras to comment on the latest tragedy, be it the 27 people who drowned in the channel last week, the latest drug deaths figures or the number of young people whose prospects have been ruined because they were caught with a bit of weed, a gram of cocaine or a couple of ecstasy tablets.
“We have to crack down on these vile criminal gangs,” they say. Which is correct, of course, the only long-term solution is to remove the trade in drugs and immigration from the gangsters. But that really isn’t the point, is it? While people are still overloading tiny inflatable dinghies to cross the channel or selling sexual services to be able to inject heroin cut with cement dust into their veins, they are where the focus should be. There’s no purpose trying to divert attention to criminals who don’t care anyway. Government’s responsibility is to protect people, first and foremost.
Applying for refugee status is a right, not a privilege and government has to make this accessible, practical and reasonably convenient. It’s our stupid laws that are making people get into these boats because they can’t apply for asylum until they get here. We should permit people to apply for asylum at any British embassy anywhere in the world. If they can demonstrate to a reasonable standard of proof that they are fleeing war or persecution, we must give them asylum there and then. That is our legal and moral obligation.
Our irresponsible politicians are the cause of these criminal gangs, whether they are supplying the entry to Britain or the access to drugs that people want. If these demands were being satisfactorily met, with appropriate controls, the gangsters would be put out of business.
We need emergency solutions to cope with the disaster that our politicians have created. For refugees that means enabling asylum claims from outside our borders. For drugs it means overdose prevention centres and a return to the very succesful ‘British System’ of the 1960s where addicts were prescribed diamorphine (pharmaceutical grade heroin). Under this system we had about 3,000 registered addicts in the UK. Since we scrapped it in favour of hard line prohibition that figure has grown to 350,000.
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of both these problems is that our politicians have got them both wrong, very wrong and they are going to have to admit that in order to implement the solution. Can they? Are they ‘man enough’ to admit their mistakes. Because what is certain, without doubt, is that politicians are the problem.
Peter Reynolds 