Posts Tagged ‘organised crime’
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.
Politicians Who Want To Keep Cannabis Banned are on the Same Side as the Gangsters and Drug Lords.
This article was published in the Daily Express on 8th April 2021 as ‘Legalising cannabis will slash drug crime and levy taxes, it’s nuts not to’
Sadiq Khan has suggested, timidly, a ‘drugs commission’ to look specifically at the legalisation of cannabis. No.10 has hit back saying that a review is waste of time and it has no plans to change the law because “illicit drugs destroy lives and cannabis is a harmful substance”.
I agree. A review would be a waste of time. We already have all the evidence we need from around the world and it is clear that legalisation would reduce all harm, undermine the gangsters, cut street dealing and violence, protect children and families.
I also agree that “illicit drugs destroy lives” but it’s not the drugs that do that, it’s the fact that they’re illicit. The law against cannabis causes far more harm than cannabis itself.
Yes, cannabis can be harmful but we have wealth of evidence showing that it is much less harmful than alcohol, tobacco, energy drinks, traffic pollution and many things we consume regularly. Peanuts and shellfish cause far more health harms than cannabis.
But even if you believe the hysteria and exaggeration about the dangers of cannabis, does it make sense to allow gangsters to control the market? If it’s so dangerous, to protect children and the vulnerable, our government should take responsibility and take control of the market. Look what has happened in many other places, legal regulation of cannabis takes it off the streets and into licensed retailers who have to obey age limits, label their products so adults know what they are buying and pay taxes, which in the USA are raising millions of dollars which are spent on schools, healthcare, drugs education and other community projects.
In Britain we spend £6 billion every year on cannabis and on top of that hundreds of thousands of people grow their own. No one pays any taxes on it and all the profits are used by organised crime to fund other criminal activity.
It’s the criminal cannabis market that provides the funding for county lines. Young people are groomed into delivering hard drugs by being offered “a bit of weed’. The epidemic of knife crime is driven largely by the gangs and they are funded by their trade in cannabis. It funds prostitution, modern slavery, people trafficking, it’s where all the gangsters’ money comes from and the very last thing they want is for it to be legalised.
The alternative can be seen in reality in the USA, Canada, Uruguay and other places. In Canada, after just two years of legalisation, already more than half of all cannabis is bought through licensed retailers. In the USA, where cannabis is legalised, underage use has gone down.
The most important thing is that in these places there is now some real control over cannabis. Crime has been reduced. Gangsters don’t rule the streets anymore. There’s no problem with ‘Spice’ because why would anyone buy that dangerous synthetic when they can get the legal, top quality, much safer real thing?
In the USA there are now 350,000 new jobs in the legal cannabis industry. That’s equivalent to 50,000 new jobs in Britain and those are jobs that have been taken away from criminals. All those workers now pay taxes too. It’s a win-win solution
Today it seems that the main opposition to legalising cannabis comes from the organised crime gangsters and from our politicians. Why? All they ever do is come out with the same non-explanations as Boris Johnson has. They don’t seem to want to discuss the subject at all and most of them, including Boris, have said they have used cannabis themselves!
In fact, in a video that is widely available on social media, in the year 2000 Boris Johnson asks why his “respectable neighbours who roll up a spliff and quietly smoke it together” are “in breach of the law”? And he says “I think there is a danger that the government is becoming out-of-touch with what people are actually doing”.
The truth is that legalisation is inevitable. Every day that our politicians put it off they cause more harm. Another child is sold highly potent, so-called ‘skunk’ on the street. Another young girl is groomed into using hard drugs by being offered some new clothes and a ‘bit of weed’. Another young man is stabbed to death in some stupid dispute over territory, the sort of argument that is dealt with by normal business methods in places where cannabis is legally regulated.
So next time you hear a politician being ‘tough on drugs’, realise that its not drugs he’s being tough on, it’s the people in your community. Banning cannabis hasn’t worked, there is more of it consumed across the world than ever before. There is a choice, let the gangsters keep running it, terrorising our streets and communities or get tough on them!
Take away the cannabis trade from organised crime and take responsibility for it. Control it. Reduce its harms. Benefit from safer streets, increased tax revenue, more jobs, less crime. Ask your MP, whose side are you on? Are you on our side, looking after us properly, or are you on the same side as the gangsters?
CLEAR Statement Concerning Cannabis Legalisation Measures In US Election.
“This is marvellous news for liberty, health and human rights. The USA, unlike Britain, has a functioning democracy where the will of the people prevails rather than the bigotry and self-interest of politicians. It is wonderful to see that truth, justice and evidence is winning out over the lies and misinformation we have been fed about cannabis for almost 100 years.
In 1971, the British government abdicated all responsibility on cannabis and abandoned our communities and our children to criminal gangs. Since then all the harms have multiplied exponentially. The laws against cannabis fund organised crime, promote dangerous hidden farms which are fire risks, the destruction of rental property, selling to children, contaminated ‘moonshine’ cannabis, gang violence, lives ruined by criminal records and the cruel denial of safe, effective medicine that can relieve pain, suffering and disability.
Donald Trump has supported access to medicinal cannabis all along. Many British politicians who consider him to be an unreasonable person should now look to themselves and ask whether they are being reasonable by supporting prohibition, even for medical use.
It is time for Theresa May, Amber Rudd and the UK government to take responsibility for the £6 billion pa cannabis market. The tide of legalisation is now unstoppable and it would be deeply irresponsible for them to fail to act. They must grasp this nettle now!”
Peter Reynolds, president of CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform
The Weak And Ineffectual Response Of Most MPs To The Cannabis Debate.
CLEAR has been mobilising its members as never before to lobby their MPs in advance of the cannabis debate on 12th October.
There are honourable exceptions but most responses have been unhelpful, dismissive and have completely failed to deal with the arguments put forward. Most MPs are indoctrinated with the false reporting churned out by the press, scared stiff of the subject and not prepared to look any deeper.
It is a terrible indictment of these people, each of whom costs us about £250,000 per year in salary and expenses. Most simply do not do their job properly, certainly not in the interests of or representing their constituents, mainly they just pursue their own political ambitions and interests. They cannot be bothered to deal with the cannabis issue.
Usually, from both Tory and Labour MPs, the responses parrot the official Home Office line. Most are too lazy to inform themselves about cannabis and the facts and evidence around current policy which costs the UK around £10 billion per annum. This vast sum comprises a futile waste of law enforcement resources and the loss of a huge amount of tax revenue. It provides funding to organised crime, including human trafficking, and does nothing to prevent any health or social harms around cannabis. In fact, if anything it maximises these harms, endangering health, communities and the whole of our society by enforcing a policy which is based not on evidence but on prejudice. Source: http://clear-uk.org/media/uploads/2011/09/TaxUKCan.pdf
Paul Flynn MP
As Paul Flynn MP, said in the House on 14th September:
“There is [a debate] in a fortnight’s time, on a subject that terrifies MPs. We hide our heads under the pillow to avoid talking about it, but the public are very happy to talk about it in great numbers. That subject is the idea of legalising cannabis so that people here can enjoy the benefits enjoyed in many other countries that do not have a neurotic policy that is self-defeating and actually increases cannabis harm.”
Source: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2015-09-14a.185.0#g194.0
Below I reproduce a reply from one MP. This is the standard MP line on cannabis. The words may vary slightly but essentially this is the response that the Home Office enforces and, irrespective of party, these are the disingenuous statements that MPs hide behind.
“I believe cannabis is a harmful substance and use can lead to a wide range of physical and psychological conditions. I therefore do not support the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis at this time.
I welcome that there has been a significant fall in the numbers of young people using cannabis, and the number of drug-related deaths among under-30s has halved in a decade and I would not want to see this progress undermined.”
Stating cannabis is harmful is meaningless and and an evasion of the question. Anything can be harmful. Such an assertion only has any meaning when in comparison to other substances. In fact, cannabis is relatively benign, even when compared to many foods. It is much less harmful than energy drinks, junk food, all over-the-counter and prescription medicines and, of course, tobacco and alcohol. Compared to these two most popular legal drugs, cannabis is hundreds of times less harmful. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
If cannabis can lead to a wide range of physical and psychological conditions, what are they and how likely is cannabis to bring them on compared to other substances? In fact, the Royal College of Psychiatrists, whose publications are often presented as evidence of cannabis harms, states unequivocally
“There is no evidence that cannabis causes specific health hazards.”
Source: http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/healthadvice/problemsdisorders/cannabis.aspx
There is a reported fall in cannabis use from the British Crime Survey. However, the Association of Chief Police Officers reports ever increasing incidents of cannabis cultivation and there has been a massive surge in the use of ‘legal highs’ or novel psychoactive substances. Without exception, these are far more harmful than cannabis and their very existence is the product of government policy. In places such as Holland and the US states that have legalised, there is no problem at all with such substances.
As for “drug-related deaths”, this is classic disinformation. What does it have to do with cannabis? Are our MPs so badly informed that they cannot distinguish between different drugs? Sadly, in many cases the answer is yes. Even so, this is a false claim. The latest figures show an increase in the number of drug poisoning deaths to the highest level since records began in 1993. So much for the claimed “progress”. Source: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_414574.pdf
Just recently MPs have started to address the question of medicinal use, almost certainly because of the rising clamour from people in pain, suffering and disability. Also because the UK is now a very long way out of step with the rest of Europe, the USA, Canada, Israel, Australia and most ‘first world’ countries. Source: http://clear-uk.org/static/media/PDFs/medicinal_cannabis_the_evidence2.pdf
“I am aware that one of the issues raised is around enabling the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. I know that cannabis does not have marketing authorisation for medical use in the UK, and I understand that the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency can grant marketing authorisation to drug compositions recognised as having medicinal properties, such as in the case of Sativex.”
A marketing authorisation from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is a deliberate diversion from the issue. Medicines do not have to have an MHRA marketing authorisation. Doctors can prescribe any medicine, licensed or unlicensed, as they wish. However, since 1971, medical practitioners have been specifically prohibited from prescribing cannabis on the basis of no evidence at all except minsters’ personal opinions. Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/3997/made.
Applying for an MHRA marketing authorisation costs over £100,000 as an initial fee and clinical trials have to be conducted at a cost of at least the same again. Instead, minsters could simply move cannabis from schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations to schedule 2 alongside heroin and or, more logically, to schedule 4, alongside the cannabis oil medicine Sativex. This would place the whole question of the use of cannabis as medicine in the hands of doctors and not in the politically motivated hands of Westminster. Isn’t that where it should be?
This is the most important short term objective of the cannabis campaign – move cannabis out of schedule 1. Not only would this enable doctors to prescribe Bedrocan medicnal cannabis as regulated by the Dutch government but it would mean research could start in earnest. The restrictions presently in place on cannabis, because it is schedule 1, make research very expensive, complicated and are a real deterrent.
If you haven’t lobbied your MP on the cannabis debate yet, you still have time to. If you can, get along and see them in a constituency surgery. Full guidance is provided here but you must act now: http://clear-uk.org/guidance-on-how-to-lobby-your-mp-for-the-cannabis-debate/
Most MPs run surgeries on Fridays so that means you have just this coming Friday, 2nd October and the following 9th October.
Please at least ensure you write to your MP. This is our moment and we are having an impact. Make sure you do your bit.
The Disaster That Is UK Drugs Policy.
The more harmful, dangerous and addictive a drug is the more important that its availability should be legally regulated, otherwise, inevitably, a criminal market is created with massive consequential health and social harms.
In the UK, before the Misuse of Drugs Act was introduced in 1971, we had around 3,000 problematic drug users. We now have 350,000. Yet successive governments carry on in the same direction.
The vested interests of Big Booze have been supported and encouraged by weak politicians, leading to lighter and lighter regulation of the most dangerous drug of all. Meanwhile, relatively harmless and beneficial substances like cannabis have been abandoned to street dealers and organised crime, blighting communities and involving children in both dealing and use – just as happened with alcohol prohibition in the US.
All the evidence is before us and the most effective policies for reducing harm from drugs are very clear. What we need to do is sweep aside outdated, out of touch organisations like the Home Office and dinosaurs like the present Home Secretary, Theresa May. Yet since 1971, there have been a few intelligent and progressive ministers in the Home Office. Surely it is the irresponsible and obstinate influence of senior civil servants that has prevented governments from moving forward with reform?
Drugs policy must be based on evidence, not pressure from tabloid newspapers, the alcohol industry, scared and ignorant politicians and self-serving civil servants and quangos.
Parliament is now obligated to debate Caroline Lucas’ e-petition formally to evaluate the effectiveness of current policy. We must move rapidly and radically thereafter towards a solution that will work and put aside the idiocy of the last 43 years.
Gang Culture And Drugs At The Root Of It?
“They earn money from crime, particularly from drugs…”
So do something about it! Pull the rug from underneath the gangs and organised crime. Take away their lifeblood.
Tax and regulate cannabis. Take a safer, more responsible approach. Build a properly controlled supply chain. Create jobs. Protect children. Stop wasting police time and resources. Reap the multi-billion pound and immeasurable social benefits of a sensible policy on cannabis.
Barclays Pays £113 Million Tax, £2800 Million Bonuses
Seeker After Truth
Congratulations to Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who has exposed the truth about the organised crime syndicate known as Barclays Bank. See here for the full story.
Far from contributing to the British economy, in 2009 the bosses of this criminal gang paid themselves nearly 25 times as much as they paid in tax on their ill gotten gains.
Barclays Boss = Liar & Cheat
Nothing better illustrates the deception, fraud and misrepresentation that this den of thieves has perpertrated on the British people. It also highlights the weakness and compromise of Dr Vince Cable, once held up as the champion of the people, now revealed as weak, ineffectual and useless in the face of Barclays’ corrupting influence. As for Cameron, his poodle and all the other cowardly members of our once honourable House of Commons, they are all two-faced, impotent and in shameful, sycophantic awe of the vast piles of shekels that the banker robbers accumulate.
This Absurd Waste Of Police Time And Resources
The spectacle of police officers breaking down doors all over the country is ridiculous. It is the most disgraceful waste of police time and resources. Last year the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said the total number of “commercial cannabis factories” found in 2009/10 was 6,886 – more than double the 3,032 discovered two years ago, and more than eight times the annual average between 2004 and 2007.
What does this cost? What does it achieve?
The prohibition of cannabis is a major error in government policy. It is prohibition that has made cannabis-growing so attractive to organised crime and with that has come violence and human trafficking. It is the law that puts police officers in harm’s way, that creates violence on our streets. It is the same stupid law that sends the same police officers using the same tactics into the homes of responsible citizens. People who are growing a few plants for themselves, who have real medical need, are treated as if they are violent criminals.
Prohibition is the most inane, discredited, intellectually redundant idea there ever was! Yet our poodle politicians whimper along behind it without the courage to grasp the nettle and undertake the reform that is desperately needed.
This is no minor issue. It should be high in priority because, aside from the cost to human life and liberty, in Britain it means that £19 billion per annum is being recklessly and uselessly discarded every year. Police officers are put in danger. Innocent citizens are terrorised. Organised crime profits. Ministers won’t even discuss it.
I remember last year I heard the story of a police officer involved in a raid who had both arms nearly severed by falling glass. What ludicrous system is it that puts citizen against citizen like this, and endangers life on all sides?
And so the crooked circle turns, around and around. There is no excuse. All the intellectual, moral, health and science arguments have been won. The government’s policy is manifestly wrong, fundamentally immoral and a huge waste of money.
This is a scandal of neglect, cowardice, wasted lives and wasted money that shames our nation.
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.
Peter Reynolds 
