Posts Tagged ‘reform’
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.
Staffordshire Company, Dalgety, Licenced to Cultivate Cannabis for Medical Use. On the Board of Directors, Jacqui Smith, Ex-Labour Home Secretary.
It’s excellent news that following on from Celadon Pharmaceuticals last month, the MHRA and Home Office have now issued a second set of licences to produce cannabis-based products for medical use (CBPM). Dalgety says it will be producing bulk dried flower, ground and pelletised flower, pure crystallised extracts, blended oils, solids and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) as powders and extracts.
Reported on Staffordshire Live
But look who’s on the board. Former Staffordshire Chief Constable, Jane Sawyers, who was executive lead for drugs investigation and enforcement but most extraordinarily, Jacqui Smith the former Labour Home Secretary! It was she who was responsible for upgrading cannabis from a class C to a class B drug in 2007 and then famously in 2012 said it had been a mistake. After defying the ACMD’s advice she later reflected that “some people could use cannabis without harm and that education would have been a better option than criminalisation”. Source: Daily Telegraph
Some will cry hypocrisy and it is remarkable how many politicians completely reverse their position on drugs policy when they leave office. What this really shows is that the stupidity of current policy is well understood in government but our so-called leaders are too cowardly to face up to it.
But I welcome Ms Smith’s now wholehearted conversion to common sense. Perhaps it will influence others. I alss welcome this second set of licences. I firmly believe that domestic production is what will improve qualty and service for UK patients and eventually lead to more far reaching cannabis reform.
A Significant Day For Cannabis Law Reform In The UK.
This Thursday past, 25th May 2017, was the inaugural general meeting of the Cannabis Trades Association UK (CTAUK).
While this may not excite your average cannabis consumer too much, it represents a very important, even momentous occasion in our progress towards a regulated cannabis market. Anyone spotting our meeting room would have seen it as just another group of business people in a day long meeting with Powerpoint presentations, flipcharts and gallons of coffee and mineral water. GSK were just down the corridor, an insurance company was next door, it all looked very corporate and pretty boring.
This is exactly the point. We are bringing cannabis into the mainstream, overcoming the stigma, making it respectable. The idea that the Holiday Inn at Gatwick would have signs pointing to a ‘cannabis’ meeting would have been unthinkable until very recently.
Of course, CTAUK is concerned only with the legal cannabis trade so, in the main, that means CBD products but membership has started to expand rapidly. In the coming weeks we anticipate we will be joined by UK hemp growers and a very important new medical cannabis research consortium. Within the next few months we expect almost every significant player in all aspects of the UK cannabis market to be part of the association.
So, although at first glance, this boring business meeting may not excite CLEAR members and followers, it heralds the dawn of a new age. Cannabis is coming out of the shadows. Reform is just round the corner.
Twenty years ago similar meetings took place in California, fifteen years ago similar meetings were held in Canada, Israel, the Netherlands and other US states. Just three or four years ago they were happening in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, etc. The UK’s time has come. Not a joint was rolled, not a bong was lit, there wasn’t a vapouriser or a hash cookie to be seen. No longer are we playing at this, it’s now become serious.
Back To The Future Of The NHS
I have grave concerns about the government’s NHS reforms. I feel like it’s Groundhog Day.
I was deeply involved in the last major health service reforms back in the 1990s. I am hearing exactly the same ideas, phrases and promises as we heard then. Haven’t we done this all before?
When the “internal market” was introduced and the first NHS Trusts were “founded”, the idea of marketing was introduced to the NHS for the first time. I saw the opportunity, organised a conference at the QEII conference centre and built a nice business, thank you very much, for several years as an expert in the field. I was an advisor to several health authorities and a number of the new NHS trusts. I undertook marketing and communications audits, ran training courses and I made something of a specialty of designing, writing and producing annual reports. I learned a lot and I felt I contributed a lot. Why is it all being done again?
Marketing is a perfect description of the way the health service should work. It is the management process responsible for anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer needs efficiently. The 1990s NHS model was that “purchasers”, health authorities and GP fundholders, would buy services from “providers”, hospitals and community health services. “Purchasing” was later renamed “commissioning” to reflect how complex the task is. It’s about understanding what services are required and making complex choices as well as actually contracting for them.
Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) were always a redundant tier of bureaucracy in my view. District Health Authorities (DHAs) were to be the principal commissioners but the plan was that GP fundholders would eventually take over most of it with DHAs becoming centres of expertise rather than administration. Then there was a rather messy fudge between GPs and community health services and we ended up with Primary Care Trusts (PCTs).
There is a huge amount of expertise required in commissioning. The complexity of the tasks involved – understanding, assessing, testing, planning, choosing, contracting and much more, is enormous. GPs will have to buy in that expertise which will build a bureaucracy which we will call – what? We will have gone round in a circle.
One of the biggest mistakes made about the NHS is the endless stream of attacks on managers. Almost all the problems that the NHS has and that people complain about are management problems. NHS managers have a hugely demanding and thankless task for which they are regularly pilloried and censured. They are, actually, crucial to an effective NHS, just as much as the clinicians.
So now we are to have “Foundation Trusts” and GP commissioning. It is the same thing, yet again, under a slightly different name. The NHS is not broken. It is, in fact, greatly improved. It doesn’t need fixing.
We do not need more reform. We need some adjustments. There have been great achievements on waiting times. Now, we need to shift the emphasis towards outcomes. We need targets on quality rather than quantity. It’s a tweak rather than a revolution.
Reform. Regulate. Realise.
REFORM the law and end prohibition.
REGULATE production and supply based on facts and evidence.
REALISE the huge benefits as medicine and as a new source of £billions in tax revenue.
The Cannabis Campaign In 2011
I believe that we can make real progress this year towards ending the prohibition of cannabis.
What we have to do, each and every one of us, individually, is take responsibility.
We have to stop complaining and start campaigning.
However just our cause, however unjust our opposition, no one is going to give us the right to cannabis. We are going to have to take it. Take it back from those who took it away from us.
Many of us can point to years and years of fighting for the cause but it is never enough! We have to keep on. We have to welcome new campaigners and encourage them, not take the view that we’ve seen it all before, done it ourselves and why aren’t we getting the credit? We have to welcome our fellow citizens to the war against prohibition, support them, bolster their confidence, build them up, not knock them down.
If the millions of people in Britain who use cannabis were to join together and be counted, we could make change happen! I don’t know whether there are two million of us or ten million. That’s how widely the estimates vary. The Home Office used to say six millon use cannabis regularly. I don’t know. What I do know is that it is an outrage to democracy and justice that we are denied legal and properly regulated access to cannabis, whether we use it for medicine, relaxation or spiritual fulfilment.
We don’t all have to be campaigners but we do all have to be counted. If we want change, we have to be prepared, at least, to sign petitions, to write the occasional letter, to put our heads above the parapet. It’s so easy nowadays. It can all be done online in the blink of an eye but more of us need to do it and keep doing it until politicians understand that they can bully us into silence no longer.
One of the problems of the online world, of Facebook, the forums and blogs, is that we’re just preaching to the converted all the time. We may feel that we’re getting our message across but it’s to the same people over and over again. When you see the disgusting response that Bob Ainsworth had to his brave initiative just before Christmas, when you see James Brokenshire smugly trotting out his prohibitionist agenda, when you see Cameron and his poodle backtracking on all their enlightened and liberal ideas, then you realise that the forces of darkness are set against us. The war on drugs, which Brokenshire fights so enthusiastically, is another Vietnam. It can never be won because it is, in fact, a war on democracy but there will be many casualties along the way. Brokenshire counts the high level of adulteration of drugs on the street as a measure of success. This is the sort of thinking that we are up against. It is perverted. It is evil. It denies truth and science and justice.
It denies people in constant pain and suffering access to the medicine that they need. Even if a doctor has prescribed cannabis, ignorant, professional political oiks who have never done a day’s real work in in their lives, think they know best. Instead they force people towards expensive pharmaceutical products with horrendous side effects but huge profits for their co-conspirators in the corrupt world of Big Pharma and its self-important regulators. As was seen so clearly in America in the last century, prohibition is fundamentally immoral and self-defeating yet our cowardly politicians hide behind it, preferring inaction, oppression and lies to the truth.
So I have asked myself, what can we do to break this stranglehold that politicians have on the truth? How can we counter the crass and appalling propaganda that the Daily Mail puts out? Why does the media love the story of Debra Bell, the mother who blames cannabis for her delinquent and dishonest son? Why is the truth about cannabis so rarely told? Where is the voice of the millions who know the truth?
I return to the divisions there are within our cause. Just as in California, where the growers sabotaged Proposition 19, so we have our own subversive and destructive elements. We have a breakaway group here, an independent campaigner there. We have medicinal users who are eloquent and persuasive on their own account but will not work with others. We have hugely courageous individuals who have campaigned and put their freedom on the line but will not reconcile themselves to co-operation. We have to cut through this. We have to unite, to generate a momentum that means we cannot be ignored.
That is why, just before Christmas, I decided to join the Legalise Cannabis Alliance. I was a member of the original Legalise Cannabis Campaign and I saw how the LCA made strenuous efforts, particularly around the 2005 general election. I believe it was right and effective to put forward our views on the political stage. This is what we must do again.
The LCA is to re-register as a political party and, in due course, I hope to stand as a parliamentary candidate. Realistically, I don’t expect to be elected but I do expect to make our voice heard. I expect our opinions and our views to be respected and given proper consideration. When the Daily Mail or the BBC turns to Debra Bell for comment, I expect them to turn to us as well. When Mrs Bell is on the TV sofa, I want to be alongside her. I want the opportunity to speak the truth in the face of propaganda. If they want to put up eminent professors and doctors as well then I encourage it. Science and independent reason is on our side. The intellectual and scientific debate has been won many times over. Now we must win the political battle and the truth is our strongest weapon. All we have to do is shine the light on it so that the scare stories, the hysteria and the propaganda shrink back into the shadows.
We will be a single issue party with a commitment to de-register once we have achieved our aims. I urge you all to join the LCA. I’m going to do everything I can to make it easier to join. Possibly we need to make it cheaper. Certainly we need to do everything we can to encourage as many people as possible to stand up and be counted. We need to be able to accept card payments, operate direct debits. We need as many as possible to join whether or not they use cannabis. We need to reform the law, regulate supply and distribution and realise the huge benefits as a medicine, as a gentle pleasure and as a new source of billions in tax revenue. That’s the way forward. Reform, regulate and realise.
One of the most repulsive images I saw last year was the fat, conceited Simon Heffer chortling into his glass of wine and saying that we need to “get nasty” in the war on drugs. Well I’ve got news for the pompous, hypocritical boozer and for James Brokenshire and his cronies, nobody’s going to be getting nasty from this side. We’re just going to tell the truth. And we’re going to keep on telling the truth until it drowns out their lies. We’re going to tell the truth again and again and again until we get the right to our drug of choice, to the plant that creates peace not violence, to the plant that heals that doesn’t kill, to the plant that we have a right to use and enjoy as we please.
Home Office Backtracks On Cannabis
A fortnight ago Sir Ian Gilmore, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians, famously denounced drugs prohibition as a failed policy. He said “”Everyone who has looked at this in a serious and sustained way concludes that the present policy of prohibition is not a success.” He then went on to advocate decriminalisation and regulation.
The Home Office immediately issued a statement saying “‘Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis are extremely harmful and can cause misery to communities across the country.” This statement was reproduced on the Home Office website and has sat there for the last two weeks in direct contradiction to the governments own scientific advisers. Anyone who has even the smallest knowledge of the subject knows that the idea that cannabis is “extremely harmful” is absurd and a lie.
Within the last day or two the Home Office website has been quietly edited to remove the word cannabis from the statement. See here.
Charades, Fibs And Porkies
This correction is very welcome. However it calls into question the honesty, competence and intelligence of the Home Office and the government’s drugs policy. James Brokenshire, the Minister for Crime Prevention has been looking increasingly ridiculous in the last few weeks, contradicting his advisers, spouting pre-Reagan “war on drugs” propaganda and conflicting terribly with the wise words of both David Cameron and Nick Clegg, both of whom have called for drug policy reform consistently over the last 10 years. Young James has made himself very unpopular with the country’s six million regular cannabis users and embarrassed the government and the Tory party with his antics.
Whoever was responsible for this smart and very discreet editing, let’s hope they get to have a look at James’ Drugs Strategy consultation document too. It needs some intelligent correction and adjustment as well. See here for more information on what’s really a very silly game of charades, fibs and porkies.
“Outrageous Scaremongering” Over Cannabis
Last October, 36-year old Julie Ryan was found dead in bed by her three children, now aged 14, 13 and 8. At a coroner’s inquest in Oldham last week, pathologist Dr Sami Titi said “The direct cause of her death was cardiac arrest because of a history of smoking cannabis”.
Dr Sami Titi
Julie’s family claims that this is not true, that Julie’s cannabis use has been blamed because the Royal Oldham hospital failed to treat her properly. In Britain, there has only been one previous occasion when a death has been attributed to cannabis. In 2004, Lee Maisey, 36 of Pembrokeshire, who smoked half a dozen “joints” a day, was found dead on his living room floor after complaining of a headache.
At the inquest in Oldham, the coroner, Simon Nelson, was said to be surprised at the pathologist’s story and questioned him closely. Dr Titi insisted that “smoking of cannabis is well known to have a negative impact on the heart and can cause heart attacks in young people”. The coroner said that in 15 years he had never heard a pathologist so confident that cannabis could be fatal. He recorded a narrative verdict of “death from cardiovascular complications induced by cannabis smoking”.
Coroner Simon Nelson
Julie’s brother, Kevin Ryan, says that the pathologist’s remarks are “outrageous scaremongering”. Her mother, Linda, is bewildered by events. As planned, Julie’s children had stayed with her while the inquest was taking place. Now they have returned home to the furore of this extraordinary verdict and are extremely distressed.
Julie had visited the Royal Oldham hospital several times complaining of chest pains but been sent away with a diagnosis of heartburn. The post mortem examination revealed she had a severely enlarged heart and had suffered a previous heart attack which had not been diagnosed. Family sources said “It’s a cover up. Cannabis doesn’t kill. They made a big mistake.” Mary Burrows, Julie’s cousin, who was very close to her, said she preferred to smoke cannabis rather than have a drink and that “she was a wonderful mother and her kids miss her so much”.
Dr Mark Eckersley, a local Manchester doctor, said “More and more pressure is being piled on medical professionals to propagate this type of untruth by the powers that be.” He said doctors need to maintain credibility with the community and that “this type of nonsense makes my blood boil”.
A spokesman for the Royal Oldham hospital said “Miss Ryan died from a heart attack and cardiovascular problems. Our thoughts and sympathy go to her family.”
On 2nd November in California, Proposition 19 is expected to permit the personal use of cannabis for the state’s 28 million adults. As a result, new tax revenues of $1.4 billion are anticipated, up to 110,000 new jobs and a boost of up to $18 billion to the state’s economy from spin-offs such as coffee shops and tourism.
In America, any health concerns about the plant are far outweighed by health benefits. Medical cannabis is already regulated in 14 states with another 12 in the planning stage. In Britain, Sativex, a whole plant extract of cannabis, was recently authorised as a treatment for MS. It costs about eight times what medical cannabis costs in America, Holland, Spain, Israel and very shortly Germany, where there is a fully regulated supply chain. In Britain, despite a House Of Lords Scientific Committee recommendation, the government refuses to consider such a move. Many patients whose doctors have prescribed Sativex have been denied funding from their health authority. In some of these cases, criminal prosecutions have been brought against them for cultivating their own plants.
A spokesman for GW Pharmaceuticals, developers of Sativex, said “The therapeutic ratio for cannabis is so high that it is virtually impossible to ingest a fatal dose”.
Prof. David Nutt
Professor David Nutt was sacked as chairman of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs last year after claiming that cannabis was less harmful than alcohol and tobacco. His successor, Professor Les Iversen, also maintains that cannabis has been “incorrectly” called dangerous and says it is one of the “safer recreational drugs”.
On Friday, Professor Nutt said cannabis “seems to cause much less harm than alcohol and that banning the plant is “unjust and therefore undemocratic”. He added: “The previous government’s policy to deter cannabis use by forceful policing increased convictions for cannabis possession from 88,000 in 2004 to 160,000 in 2008. As well as ruining many lives through getting a criminal record, this added massive costs to taxpayers in extra policing and prison costs.”
Prof. Les Iversen
Dr Sami Titi, the pathologist, was unavailable for comment and did not respond to emails. It has not been possible to identify any scientific support for his conclusions.
Julie Ryan’s family is left bemused and uncertain by this verdict. Three children are without a mother and confused about contradictory messages. The 13 year old has been posting on websites about her concerns. Meanwhile, the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have criticised the government for basing drugs policy on opinion rather than evidence. James Brokenshire, the Home Office Minister, in direct contradiction to his own advisers, continues with the story that cannabis is “extremely harmful”.
James Brokenshire
Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg are on record over the last 10 years as consistently calling for reform in drug policy. The Your Freedom website has been overwhelmed with requests for evidence based regulation of drugs and the legalisation of cannabis but the government is riding roughshod over this public outcry. A consultation document on a new drugs strategy was issued just over a week ago but it seems meaningless and dishonest as all the big decisions have already been taken. Cannabis campaigners, working on behalf of six million regular users in the UK, are outraged at what they see as hypocrisy, misinformation and regressive government action.
Dr Mark Eckersley, exasperated and concerned at the pathologist’s evidence said “This is simply not true. Hearing this story is more likely to cause a heart attack than the ingestion of any cannabinoid”.
Peter Reynolds 