Posts Tagged ‘legalise’
Lord Monson and CLEAR to Campaign for a Regulated Cannabis Market.
Lord Nicholas Monson, Peter Reynolds
Lord Nicholas Monson, whose son Rupert committed suicide after he had become psychotic from ‘skunk’, has teamed up with CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform to campaign for a safer, regulated cannabis market.
‘Skunk’ is a form of cannabis with zero or very little CBD that can be harmful to young people and the vulnerable. The criminal market has driven the production of ‘skunk’ with high levels of THC, the psychoactive compound and low levels of CBD, the protective, anti-psychotic compound. The absence of regulation and control has also led to sales of highly dangerous products such as ‘Spice’ which contain an extremely potent, synthetic form of THC without any balancing CBD.
Lord Monson says:
“It is urgent that the government takes the historic step of legalising and regulating more traditional forms of cannabis and puts severe penalties in place for those dealing in skunk.”
CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform is the UK’s largest and longest established drugs policy reform group. It campaigns for medicinal cannabis on prescription by doctors and a regulated market for adults.
Peter Reynolds, president of CLEAR, says:
“We are honoured to work alongside Lord Monson towards a safer cannabis market that will reduce harm instead of the present policy that maximises all harms. Just like the policy that President Trudeau is introducing in Canada and already exists across much of the USA, we must rigorously restrict access by children and those with developing brains and ensure that safe, properly regulated cannabis with a good proportion of CBD is available for adults.”
Nigel Farage On Cannabis.
I stood as a candidate for CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform in the 2012 Corby by-election. At the count I had the pleasure of speaking to Nigel on a number of occasions. He was nipping out to the car park for a cigarette and I was letting my dogs out of my car for a wee.
We got on very well and I found him truly charming and genuine. We talked about many things but of course I asked him about his views on cannabis. He agreed that present policy is “Barmy!” and that “Of course we should!” adopt a legalise, tax and regulate policy.
The really extraordinary thing about Nigel expressing these views is that they are unpopular with most UKIP supporters. That marks him out as a very rare thing in UK politics – a man of true integrity.
The Daily Telegraph, 4th April 2014. Read the article here.
Obama And The Poodle Share A Problem
Top Rated Questions For The President
I believe there was a “Your Freedom” type online initiative by Obama, even before he took office. The highest rating idea was that inconvenient question of legalising marijuana. So many people in America seem to be concerned about it, however hard the righteous and religious try to persuade them otherwise. Why won’t America think as it is told to?
Then back in the heady summer of 2010, when coalition seemed hip and LibDem was cool, Dave’s poodle came unstuck with the same problem. He said he’d “repeal unjust and illiberal laws” but he didn’t mean cannabis. That was the top suggestion on his website too. No, no, no – such nonsense won’t be considered. Let’s hush it up, forget it happened. What? Your freedom? Whose freedom?
Now Obama is there again. His online town hall meeting on YouTube tomorrow night is dominated by calls to legalise the weed. It happens every time. YouTube cooperates of course and last time deemed such ideas “inappropriate”. By the time you read this you will probably know the latest excuse.
See here for the latest update on the top questions for the President.
Obama and the poodle. Two of the same. Both once claimed more liberal attitudes. Indeed, both have inhaled. What useless, insincere, inadequate, weak and pathetic politicians we end up with.
Both of them are out of time.
Proposition 19. Just Say Now!
It looks as if, on 2nd November 2010, a small but very significant part of the world will at last come to its senses and legalise cannabis.
On that date, California voters look likely to approve Proposition 19 on the state-wide ballot that legalizes various marijuana-related activities, allows local governments to regulate these activities, permits local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorizes various criminal and civil penalties. Currently the polls show that about two-thirds of voters are in favour.
Over the age of 21 it will be legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana and to cultivate an area of up to 25 sq ft on private property. The state estimates it will collect about £1.4 billion pa in new tax revenue. save $200 million pa in law enforcement costs and generate an additional $12 – $18 billion pa for California’s economy, with 60,000 to 110,000 new jobs. As the Americans say, with one of their most unpleasant expressions, “It’s a no brainer”.
In America they finally seem to have got past listening to the stupid scare stories and propaganda about the cannabis plant. The misinformation has ranged from the idea that marijuana makes white women promiscuous with black men to the suggestion that it causes psychosis in adolescents. Both of these ideas are as impossible to prove as each other. America also recognises the huge medicinal benefits of cannabis with medical marijuana legal in 14 states and planned in 15 more. As a recreational drug, cannabis use is almost never associated with the sort of anti-social behaviour that alcohol causes. It produces an essentially peaceful, happy and soporific effect.
Instead of insulting and ignoring their scientific experts as we do in the UK, Americans are now more interested in the facts and a pragmatic approach to drugs policy. The “war on drugs” is now universally recognised as having been an abject failure. We should, of course, have learned from the experience of alcohol prohibition in the early 20th century. That created the whole idea of gangsters and organised crime. We managed to repeat the same mistakes all over again with drugs.
In ironic appreciation of Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say Nc” campaign, those in favour of Proposition 19 have adopted the slogan “Just Say Now”. In addition to the direct financial benefits, the state expects to be able to focus police priorities on violent crime, cut off funding to violent drug cartels and better protect children, road users, workers and patients from illegal, unregulated use.
The UK will eventually follow down this inevitable path. The only questions are how many lives will we ruin and how much time and money will we waste before we finally get there?
See here for the latest updates and news on Proposition 19.
“No More Obvious Waste” Than UK’s £19 Billion War On Drugs
A Wise Lady
In the House of Lords on 15th June 2010, Baroness Meacher announced a “radical shift of policy” from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. The UN’s “war on drugs” has been an abject failure creating an illegal trade worth £320 billion and financing civil war in South America for the last 25 years. British soldiers die almost every day in Afghanistan fighting an enemy financed by the illegal opium trade.
The UK spends £19 billion annually on the costs of drug law enforcement.
According to Baroness Meacher there is “no more obvious waste” of public money. When will our leaders have the courage to grasp this nettle, to liberalise our pointless, self-defeating laws and free up billions of pounds of our money for more sensible purposes?
In addition, expert research indicates that a legalise, regulate and tax regime could contribute at least £6 billion annually in additional tax revenue. How can we afford to ignore these huge sums of money which we could make available to the country at little more than the stroke of a pen and with only a beneficial effect on the health of the nation?
Dying For A Stupid Law
Five years ago, while campaigning for the Tory party leadership, David Cameron called for “fresh thinking and a new approach” towards drugs policy and said that it would be “disappointing if radical options on the law on cannabis were not looked at”. Nick Clegg has promised to repeal “illiberal, intrusive and unnecessary” laws and to stop “making ordinary people criminals”. There can be no better example of this than the laws against personal use and cultivation of cannabis, particularly for medicinal reasons.
The coalition government’s new Your Freedom website launched only this morning is already inundated with proposals to legalise cannabis and to end the futile war on drugs. The site is crashing under the strain of a massive outcry from British people for the state to back off and give us back our freedoms.
We don’t just want our freedom back. We want our money back too.
It’s Not Drugs, It’s Drug Laws That Killed the Bradford Girls
Forced Here By The Law
If heroin was legally available on prescription the three Bradford prostitutes would be alive today. It is our discredited, ludicrous policy of prohibition that has led these women to their terrible deaths. Cowardly, self-serving politicians who will not address the real issues about drugs policy have blood on their hands.
Today we also learned that the sensationalist, exploitative treatment of the death of two young men in Humberside “linked with mephedrone” was nothing but hysteria. See the story here. Humberside Police shares responsiblity with the media for leaping on a bandwagon, seeking kudos or some unknown advantage through lies, propaganda and misinformation. Trying to look tough.
It’s not a good idea to use heroin or mephedrone but criminalising users and creating a lucrative black market for criminals to exploit is an absurd idea. It’s exactly what America did with alcohol in the prohibition era when, in fact, it created organised crime.
Created By The Law
For those who become addicted to illegal drugs there is very little help available. Almost all street crime is related to feeding a drug habit. If, instead of the unwinnable “war on drugs” we put our money into a regulated supply and treatment facilities we would massively reduce the harm that current laws cause.
The girls in Bradford, the poor people of Jamaica, our young heroes who are dying in Afghanistan, the young man who is selling his body right this minute in Manchester, Baltimore, Hamburg or Singapore, the downtrodden people of Columbia. They are all victims of our absurd, self-defeating drug laws. When will our politicians and leaders stop chasing cheap political points (and expensive bribes) and face the facts?
Fighting For The Law
Legalise, regulate, tax – you pull the rug from under organised crime, you eliminate the need for most street crime, you have the resources to address the issue as a public health problem.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation has the answer.
Eenie, Meanie, Minie, Mo – Drugs Policy? That’ll Be Lib Dem!
Only now is the depth and breadth of David Cameron’s coup becoming clear. He has swept aside all the old politics and we voted for exactly what he has given us. Hail to the Chief!
It’s true that now he can dump those old Tory policies that no one really wanted and we can take the good ones from the Lib Dems –
God's Herb
none more so than their drugs policy.
The Lib Dems are very, very close to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation which, however it describes itself, promotes a radical right wing solution to the drugs problem – legalise, regulate, tax.
This might seem a second tier, lower priority issue until you consider that most organised crime and virtually all street crime is caused, promoted and maintained by the illegality of drugs.
Legalise all drugs, regulate and tax their supply. You pull the rug from under organised crime and you take away the need for nearly all street crime. You massively reduce the harm caused by drugs. You take perhaps £10 billion out of the black economy. You save several billion more on law enforcement costs.
It’s a no brainer for anyone who has the courage and common sense to think about it. I hope Theresa May is listening – and thinking.
I Agree With Nick But I’m Voting For Dave
In the last general election I wrote “no suitable candidate” across my ballot paper. In the European elections I voted UKIP.
Fundamentally I’m a Tory but if I became prime minister tomorrow, I’d implement the following policies on Friday:
- Withdraw our troops from Afghanistan
- Nationalise electricity, gas, water, telephone and broadband provision
- Introduce the Lib Dem’s £10,000 tax policy
- Introduce the Lib Dem’s policy on the separation of retail and investment banks
- Start a phased withdrawal from the EU retaining a free trade policy.
- Legalise all drugs. Introduce strict regulation and taxation
- Break off diplomatic relations with Israel until it ends the Gaza blockade and stops new settlements.
It is sad but true that a Lib Dem vote is a wasted vote. Not only that but it is extremely dangerous. It could result in the very worst possible outcome to this election if there is no overall majority but Labour has the most seats and Gordon Brown remains prime minister. This would be an unmitigated disaster of horrendous proportions. If this happens then I predict at least as much chaos as is happening in Greece. In fact we could well be in for riots in the streets whoever wins.
The only hope for the future, far from perfect that it will be, is a Conservative government.
After The War On Drugs
This is well worth 10 minutes of anybody’s time.
The extraordinary impact that “The War on Drugs” has on our world should not be underestimated. The ludicrous and failed idea of prohibition means that 95% of all street crime and 75% of all organised crime is as a result of illegal drugs.
Legalise all drugs. Regulate, control and tax the supply chain. Pull the rug from under organised crime. Remove the necessity for drug victims to rob and steal. Save billions of pounds/dollars and millions of lives. Transform our society.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation is an extraordinary organisation whose time has come.
Peter Reynolds 