Posts Tagged ‘Parliament’
Guidance On How To Lobby Your MP For The Cannabis Debate.
In the UK the only democratic power you have is through your MP.
The arcane nature of our Parliament and the unaccountability of MPs makes that sad and depressing but it is reality.
The only alternative routes to power are to spend millions on advertising and PR or to chance on gaining the fickle and unreliable support of the popular media.
So, it is to your MP you must turn if you want to exercise influence in the cannabis debate. However poorly informed, bigoted or slave to the media your MP is, your role is to do what you can to inform and persuade. It is your responsibility to make your MP do their job and represent your views.
Your Last Chance To Meet Your MP Is Friday, 9th October.
The debate takes place on Monday 12th October in Westminster Hall. That means you must write, telephone and write and telephone again. Your MP works for you. You have a right to ask for their support and get a proper answer, not some standard, doublespeak brush off, drafted by the Home Office. Don’t accept such a response.
You can find out who your MP is by entering your postcode on this website
You can find out your MP’s email address by looking their name up here
You can also Google your MP’s name which will lead you to their personal website and more contact details.
You can write by letter to your MP at: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Most important is that you must include your full postal address and postcode to show that you are a constituent. Without this your email or letter will be ignored.
Either an email or a letter is fine but you might want to consider doing both!
Write in your own words. MPs are now wise to what they call ‘campaign emails’. The large number of campaigns by groups such as 38 Degrees have really swamped MPs with repetitive correspondence. It doesn’t work to send what is clearly a template or automatically generated email. You will just be ignored. Many MPs actually warn against this now on their website.
So, in your own words, make these points:
1. Legal regulation of cannabis will be much safer for everyone than the present criminal market.
2. £6 billion every year is spent on cannabis and it all goes to criminals.
3. I want to see cannabis available to adults only through licensed outlets with proper labelling and quality control.
4. I want to see cannabis taxed so that, as in Colorado, we can invest millions more in schools and hospitals.
5. Many people need access to medicinal cannabis for which there is now strong scientific evidence.
6. Please will you support and vote for legal regulation of cannabis?
You can link to these four pieces of evidence in your email or letter
Cannabis is 114 times safer than alcohol:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
No link between adolescent cannabis use and later health problems:
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/adb-adb0000103.pdf
‘Medicinal Cannabis:The Evidence’:
http://clear-uk.org/static/media/PDFs/medicinal_cannabis_the_evidence2.pdf
Taxation of cannabis market net annual gain to the UK economy up to £9.5 billion:
http://clear-uk.org/media/uploads/2011/09/TaxUKCan.pdf
Now The Cannabis Petition Has Passed 200,000, What Can You Do Next?
At 15:45, 20th August 2015
It’s a great achievement that together we have doubled the the number of signatures required for a debate on cannabis legalisation to be ‘considered’. But it’s not over yet.
The government and many MPs will fight tooth and nail to stop any debate. You can be sure that the alcohol industry is already lobbying ministers furiously. It is terrified that there could be a much safer, healthier and legal alternative to its poisonous products.
So we can’t even be certain there will be a debate. Many, perhaps most MPs are incapable of dealing with this issue on a rational basis. They are transfixed by fear of what the media will say if they support reform. Most have no understanding about cannabis at all and base their views on the rubbish published in the Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail. Even worse, they may rely on what the Home Office says. Be in no doubt, in the great history of Britain, never has there been more dishonesty from government than from the Home Office on cannabis. It deceives, misinforms and lies as a matter of course. It is Home Office policy to mislead the public about cannabis.
The next step is to contact your MP and do your bit to educate him or her on the truth. It is vital that you do this. For the first time, enough people have signed a petition to make it mean something. We must build on this effort. Do not let yourself or the rest of the country down. The responsibility rests on your shoulder as much as it does on everyone else’s.
You can find out who your MP is by entering your postcode on this website.
You can find out your MP’s email address by looking their name up here.
You can also Google your MP’s name which will lead you to their personal website and more contact details.
You can write by letter to your MP at: House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA
Please make the effort to take these steps in contacting your MP. Ideally, make initial contact by email or letter, then a week or so later make an appointment and go and see your MP.
Write To Your MP
Most important is that you must include your full postal address and postcode to show that you are a constituent. Without this your email or letter will be ignored.
Either an email or a letter is fine but you might want to consider doing both!
Write in your own words. MPs are now wise to what they call ‘campaign emails’. The large number of campaigns by groups such as 38 Degrees have really swamped MPs with repetitive correspondence. It doesn’t work to send what is clearly a template or automatically generated email. You will just be ignored. Many MPs actually warn against this now on their website.
So, in your own words, make these points:
1. I support the petition for a debate to be held on legalising cannabis.
2. More than twice as many people as required have signed the petition, so please will you do what you can to ensure that a debate will take place?
3. Legal regulation of cannabis will be much safer for everyone than the present criminal market.
4. £6 billion every year is spent on cannabis and it all goes to criminals.
5. I want to see cannabis available to adults only through licensed outlets with proper labelling and quality control.
6. I want to see cannabis taxed so that, as in Colorado, we can invest millions more in schools and hospitals.
7. Many people need access to medicinal cannabis for which there is now strong scientific evidence.
8. Please will you support and vote for legal regulation of cannabis?
You can link to these four pieces of evidence in your email or letter
Cannabis is 114 times safer than alcohol: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
No link between adolescent cannabis use and later health problems: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/adb-adb0000103.pdf
‘Medicinal Cannabis:The Evidence’: http://clear-uk.org/static/media/PDFs/medicinal_cannabis_the_evidence2.pdf
Taxation of cannabis market net annual gain to the UK economy up to £9.5 billion: http://clear-uk.org/media/uploads/2011/09/TaxUKCan.pdf
Meet Your MP
The best way to arrange this is to telephone or email your MP’s constituency office. You will find the email address or phone number on your MP’s website.
Don’t get into a discussion with your MP’s staff about cannabis. Of course, explain why you want a meeting but concentrate on making the appointment. Don’t be brushed off. It is your right to meet your MP. Explain that you want an appointment as soon as possible, certainly within the next month or it will be too late.
When you go to the meeting, be on time, dress as if you were going to a job interview and be polite and respectful at all times. Ideally, print out the evidence above and take it with you. Ask your MP to promise to read it. Tell a personal story about how cannabis has helped you or how you or someone you know has suffered because of the law against it. Remember, your MP works for you so don’t allow yourself to be bullied or dismissed without proper attention.
What Will Happen Next?
If even one-tenth of the people who have signed the petition take the steps set out above we could well have a revolution!
Seriously, If every MP is contacted by at least half a dozen constituents who want a meeting on the subject it is going to make a very big impact.
This is our chance. Do not miss it. Do your bit. Don’t give up. Don’t be cynical.
Even if we don’t win this time we can make tremendous progress. We can weaken the evil forces of prohibition and start to drive it out of our lives and our country.
This is a call to action, as never before. Take this chance! Write to your MP! Meet your MP! Play your part in overturning this wicked, monstrous law!
The Cannabis Petition. A Wake Up Call For MPs Who Have Ignored Both Electorate And Evidence.
5.45 pm, 31st July 2015
Nearly 200,000 people have signed a petition to legalise cannabis. It’s not just a simple click of a mouse button, it requires email verification. It is an enormous event. It is only the tip of the iceberg of the millions in the UK that want to see our archaic and harmful laws on cannabis changed.
A lot of MPs are going to be very unhappy about this. They have successfully prevented any real debate on the issue since the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 was introduced. This despite the fact that UK drugs policy must be one of our most failed and disastrous polices of all time. One indicator – in 1971, we had around 3,000 problematic drug users. We now have 350,000. Another – in 1971 virtually all the cannabis available was well balanced with both THC and CBD content, now it’s all low-CBD ‘moonshine’ weed.
The government and MPs who support prohibition will fight tooth and nail to brush this aside. They will do anything they can to stop it. They will say that it has ‘only’ been achieved because of campaigning – guess what they’re right, it’s called democracy, something we have very little of in the UK these days. Undoubtedly the claim will be made that the vote has been rigged.
Baying Donkey Tory Backbencher
I’m just waiting for some bumptious, baying donkey on the Tory backbenches to make the accusation. But it would be untrue. This is the will of the people and it must prevail.
Philip Davies MP
MPs of all parties are so far out of touch that they don’t even begin to realise what is going on. Conservative MP Philip Davies, who is on the Justice Select Committee, said that Ron Hogg, the Durham PCC is “abusing his position” by saying that cannabis is a low priority. This is typical hypocrisy and bluster from a pompous fool who doesn’t really believe in democracy. That was the idea of PCCs wasn’t it, to bring policing in line with what local people want?
Andrew Percy MP
Fellow Tory ignoramus, MP Andrew Percy said: “We’ve got to start debunking the liberal elite view that cannabis is some sort of benign drug”. Which, of course, is exactly what it is.
It’s not just Tory MPs, it’s on all sides. They are ignorant, poorly informed, more driven by prejudice than evidence. Take the baby-faced Blairite John Woodcock. About a year ago he came out with the fantasy theory that the cannabis policy in Holland led to more hard drug use. In fact, exactly the opposite is the case. In Holland, where adults may purchase up to five grams of cannabis without fear of prosecution, rates of heroin use and addiction are very much lower than the UK.
John Woodcock MP
The EMCDDA reports problem opioid use (rate/1000)as follows:
UK: 7.9 – 8.3
Netherlands: 0.8 – 1.0
So, in fact problematic opioid use in Holland is about one-sixth of what it is in the UK. This is just typical of how useless the majority of our MPs are. They have no idea. They get their so-called ‘facts’ from the Daily Mail or the Daily Telegraph, both of which have descended to become nothing but dishonest propaganda and crass scaremongering.
Hospital Patient Using Vapouriser
If you showed the average MP the reality of legal cannabis in Colorado, Washington, Oregon or Alsaka they would think they were dreaming. It’s a roaring success: crime is down, traffic accidents are down, painkiller overdoses are down, millions in cannabis tax revenue is being pumped into schools and hospitals.
I’ve explained to several ministers that in Israel and Canada cannabis vapourisers are provided on trollies in hospital wards. I don’t think they believed me. They couldn’t take it in.
The UK Parliament exists in a state of denial and delusion about cannabis. Only in the House of Lords do we see any lawmakers with a grip on reality but even they are mostly victims of the ‘killer skunk’ myth, asserting that this moderately potent strain is somehow different and ‘dangerous’.
It’s unlikely that the petition and the debate which surely must follow will succeed in changing the law. But MPs, however arrogant they are, cannot ignore the will of the people for ever. Too many are ignorant about the scientific and medical evidence on cannabis. Most are too cowardly to address the issue even if they are beginning to realise the truth. However, this is a battle of attrition and we are quite clearly winning.
Watch The Maiden Speech Of The SNP’s Mhairi Black, The UK’s Youngest MP.
What a magnificent example of modern Britain is this young woman. This is what Parliament is supposed to be about and Ms Black sets an example to the baying toads on the Tory benches and the spineless hypocrites of Labour.
I probably disagree with her on 95% of issues as I did with her idol Tony Benn but both of these lefties deserve great respect.
CLEAR Medicinal Users Panel. Fourth Delegation To Parliament.
There is real momentum building in Parliament on the issue of medicinal cannabis. The first thing George Freeman said this week when he welcomed us to the Department of Health was: “There is a lot of discussion going on in government about this subject”.
This is extraordinary progress, unimaginable as recently as 2012. Undoubtedly, developments in the US have raised cannabis up the political agenda. Through 2014, CLEAR has been well received by the Home Affairs Select Committee, the Home Office, the Department of Health, the Health Select Committee and just before Christmas I met with Baroness Meacher and Lord Howarth in the House of Lords. They are chair and treasurer, respectively, of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform. They are determined to push reform through to make medicinal cannabis available and have briefed one of the UK’s leading psychopharmacologists to prepare a review of existing evidence on the subject. Armed with this they have a plan to meet with key individuals in both Houses of Parliament and I have no doubt that they will succeed in changing minds.
Also this week, I met with advisors to Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, in the very heart of government at the Cabinet Office. The Liberal Democrats are planning towards another coalition after the General Election and determined to see drugs policy form part of a new coalition agreement. Right at the front of their priorities is medicinal cannabis for which there is strong support from existing ministers, Lynne Featherstone at the Home Office and Norman Lamb at the Department of Health. Expect announcements in the run up to the election.
George Freeman is the Life Sciences Minister, responsible for medicines, NHS innovation, research, development, the MHRA and NICE. His role is as important as any other minister in achieving the reform we seek. He is another ally and has asked me to submit a paper setting out our proposals. Of particular importance is how medicinal cannabis could be regulated, either with a full Marketing Authorisation from the MHRA or possibly registration as a Tradional Herbal Medicine. The very fact that we are now discussing such detail is a measure of how far we have come.
So there is great cause for optimism at the start of 2015. We are closer than we have ever been before and this has been achieved by moving away from the old ‘protests’ and outdated campaigning ideas. I am confident that early in the new parliament we will see substantial progress.
The Silence Of UK MPs On Gaza Is Shameful.
Where are they?
I see a few have signed petitions or letters or statements. Two ‘leading Tory MPs’ (is this what we call leadership?) have written to David Cameron.
That the right of self-defence is with Palestine and its elected leadership is self-evident.
It’s sickening. My MP, Richard Drax, Lord of South Dorset, has simply ignored my last two emails about Israel’s war crimes. Cameron is cowering in his bunker. Clegg is redeeming all the accusations of cowardice. Miliband is no more irrelevant than usual.
There is a ringing, hollow, horrifying, echoing, cacophony of silence from these small, small people.
They have no right to call themselves our leaders. They are disgraced by their inaction, by their cowardice. They are useless.
This is the Auschwitz, Belsen and Dachau of our day. Yet Parliament stands idly by. The West fiddles while children burn.
#StopIsrael NATO Must Launch Airstrikes On Israeli Air Force Bases, Navy And Ground Forces.
Netanyahu’s Victims
The IDF is now a legitimate target. Every Israeli soldier must be targeted in defence of Palestine. Israeli air force bases should be destroyed. Let’s get a Type 45 destroyer off the coast of Gaza and provide a guided missile umbrella defence. We have submarines in the Mediterranean and they should be sinking all Israeli warships in the region.
Israel is a pariah state. That is a fact, irrespective of all the slimy, corrupt, Israel supporters in Washington and Parliament. It is in breach of more than 60 UN resolutions. Its conduct in Gaza is illegal. Its leaders and members of its armed forces are war criminals and must be arrested on sight anywhere in the world. Apologists for this outlaw regime, particularly if they sit in Parliament, Congress or the Senate should understand that they are complicit in war crimes if they seek to assist Israel. They too should be subject to arrest. If Cameron offers any further succour to Israel, he too becomes a legitimate target.
Stop the Nazionist Israeli regime now before one more child is murdered.
Snooper’s Charter. This Is Why Americans Keep Their Guns.
“You can have my guns when you take them from my cold, dead hands.”
Nick Clegg has caved in again. Norman Baker sat next to the most monstrous woman in British politics as she sneaked her snide subversion of our freedom through parliament. These people are ‘Liberal Democrats’?
It is all decided. There is nothing we can do. Parliament adjourns in less than a fortnight. There’s little your MP could do for you anyway, even if he or she had the balls to stand up against this railroading of fundamental changes to our rights. The leadership of the main parties have conspired to pervert our democracy to their own ends. In America they would be put on trial for treason. This is why Americans keep their guns. It is some protection against an overbearing state.
Meanwhile, in London, Boris Johnson’s water cannons have arrived. Julian Assange is still holed up in the Ecuador embassy. Edward Snowden, the great American hero is running for his life in Russia.
Bring the Guillotines To Parliament Square!
At least America has a constitution. British democracy is a sick joke. We have no control over our government. Elections are meaningless. Politicians are a self-serving, incestuous elite, part of the tripartite oligarchy with the Fleet Street Mafia and the bankers. We are the servants of the state. We can’t even determine the issues that the media and parliament consider. Their agenda and priorities are imposed on us. We can’t enact local medicinal cannabis laws as 23 states have in the US, where the people have instructed the government what to do. We can’t define the debate on education, the health service or foreign policy. We must just do what we’re told.
We let these people take our guns away from us – and we were foolish to do so. After the water cannons, what comes next?
Medicinal Cannabis Users – Parliamentary Delegation
CLEAR has arranged for a delegation of 12 medicinal cannabis users to visit parliament to meet with senior figures in the field of health and home affairs.
In order to protect patient confidentiality and against the sort of sabotage which is so often seen in the cannabis campaign, we are not releasing details of who we are meeting or when. Suffice to say that this breakthrough has been achieved by many months of behind the scenes work, meetings with MPs, doctors and the courageous efforts of several CLEAR members.
The focus is to permit medicinal users access to the products of Bedrocan, the Dutch government’s official producer of medicinal cannabis. We now have written confirmation from both the Department of Health and the Home Office that doctors are fully entitled to write prescriptions for Bedrocan products, just as they are for any other unlicensed medicine.
The next stage is to obtain an import licence from the Home Office, either a personal import licence for each individual or a licence for a pharmacist to import and dispense. The recent re-scheduling of Sativex makes our case for obtaining these licences much stronger.
We are not there yet but we are now closer than we have ever been to enabling legal access to medicinal cannabis. The delegation will be meeting face to face with people who can make this happen.
We also have a BBC documentary producer with whom we have been working for a few months concerning a programme to be broadcast in the autumn. This visit to parliament could form an important part of the programme.
If you are interested in being considered as a member of the delegation, please email me with a concise description of yourself, your condition and your history of medicinal cannabis use: peterreynolds@clear-uk.org
PM MP
Originally Published In Homegrown Outlaw's Blog
By Jason Reed
To all that support change in current policy, I invite you to take part in: PM MP.
What is PM MP? Well, I am hosting a letter that I am encouraging as many people as possible to post one copy to the Prime Minister, and one copy to your MP. It is through weight and numbers that points are grasped and policy changed.
It is also worth sending to the Home Secretary – Theresa May, and James Brokenshire – Minister for Crime Prevention at the Home Office.
If you would like to add your name and address so as to receive a reply, all the better. If you wish to remain anonymous, then that’s also fine, but please do take the time to send just two letters to the Prime Minister and your MP at this address:
Prime Minister,
10 Downing Street,
London, SW1A 2AA
Your MP can be found here:
And your MP’s address will be:
MP’s NAME, or James Brokenshire, or The Home Secretary Theresa May
House of Commons,
London SW1A OAA
Below you can find the template letter that has been created to address the current law & policy that surrounds cannabis in Britain. It is with a great deal of thanks to the Drug Equality Alliance for directing the wording to address this issue correctly.
Please do support this; please send the letters. Fellow bloggers, please also host the letter and send forth.
Either copy & paste the below text into a letter, or I have provided downloadable links at the end of this blog post. Thank you all. Jason.
Dear
I am writing to state my view that continuing prohibition of all private interests in cannabis is not in the best interest of society or the individual. Current policy is in many regards counter-productive and a drain on the country’s resources. The administration of Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is mandated to be under constant review & evidence based; it’s concern is solely to reduce social harm caused by drug misuse. I submit that there can be no justification in law for the blanket ban on accessing a substance that many persons use responsibly, and many use to experience the amelioration of symptoms caused by various medical disorders.
The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 seeks to regulate human action re any harmful drug, it does not provide a mandate for prohibition, indeed when one examines the obligations of the ACMD one can see that the law seeks to make arrangements for the supply of controlled drugs. The legislative aim is to control responsible human action and property interests through the regulation of the production, distribution and possession of any harmful drug; this being proportionate and targeted to address the mischief of social harm occasioned by misuse. I note that the law does not prohibit the use of cannabis at all, and this often ignored fact was Parliament’s way of opening the door to facilitate a suitable and rational regulatory structure. I place it on record that I wish the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 to be used properly, and neutrally; specifically; (under Section 1) – “(2) (a) for restricting the availability of such drugs or supervising the arrangements for their supply.”
The prohibition of all private interests in cannabis & the denial of the possibility of responsible use has failed:
- The estimated expenditure of £19 billion on the judicial ‘controls’ over UK drug policy is a large sum that cannot be justified in the current fiscal climate. I do not believe it can be proven to be a valid policy even if the nation could easily afford it; it has a high price on liberty, and a paradoxical effect upon the health of all drug users – it has proved futile in almost every way, save for the government’s blind adherence to the international treaties it chooses to fetter it’s discretion to.
- There is an estimated street value of £5 billion profit going directly to gangs and cartels, and this in turn funds organised crime, human trafficking, and all manner of hard-line criminality.
- Children have easy & ready access to cannabis. Children are dealing cannabis and using cannabis with relative ease.
- There is an estimated 165 million responsible and non-problematic cannabis users worldwide. There is anything from 2 – 10 million adult users in the UK. There is no societal benefit to criminalising such a large portion of society, these are generally law-abiding persons who wish to use a substance that is comparatively safer than many drugs that government choose to exclude users of from the operation of the MoDA 1971 (despite the Act being neutral as to what drug misusers are controlled, the most harmful drugs such as alcohol and tobacco are excluded by policy, but this is not reflected in the Act itself).
- Under prohibition, as in 1920’s America, quality control has suffered giving way to hastily harvested cannabis which acts as the modern day equivalent of the infamous Moonshine & Hooch. The UK media terms this bad product simply as “Skunk”. Cannabis is now being cut with harmful drugs, glass, metal fillings, and chemicals to give false potency, and to add weight for profit motivations.
- To criminalise personal actions that do not harm others within the confines of privately owned property is at best draconian, and at worst futile & irresponsible.
I wish to encourage the adoption of a regulatory system that provides:
- An age-check system to prevent the young and vulnerable from obtaining cannabis with the ease they currently have.
- The partial saving from the £19 billion drug enforcement budget, alongside the estimated street worth of £5 billion potentially collected from cannabis. This would be a considerable sum in aiding the country in fiscal crisis.
- Quality control that can be accorded to cannabis production and sale, thus ensuring that there are no dangerous impurities and that the correct balance of cannabinoids are present (according to the needs of the user) to minimise potential harms.
- Potency & harm reduction information can be provided to adults, ensuring education is the forefront of the regulatory model.
- A restriction on marketing and the creation of designated discreet outlets. As seen in many countries, given a place of legitimacy, the cache of cannabis is lessened in favour of responsibility.
- The freedoms and rights for non-problematic users to be respected.
I do hope that you will give this matter the urgent attention it warrants.
Yours
Peter Reynolds 