Posts Tagged ‘regulation’
The London Drugs Commission. Off Target and Misleading.
If anyone thinks it will achieve anything to publish a report on cannabis policy that runs to over 300 pages with 42 recommendations, you can spend an hour or so reading it here.
Of course, the recommendation for decriminalisation is correct. Criminalising people for personal possession of any drug, or for growing a few cannabis plants, achieves nothing. We know from multiple studies across the world, including from the Home Office, that the level of enforcement and the severity of penalties makes no difference at all to levels of use or harm, except the harm caused by giving someone a criminal record. Enforcing these laws also takes huge amounts of police time and resource. Their disproportionate enforcement among ethnic minorities also damages community relations. It’s a ridiculous policy. Yet another example of how detached from reality and public opinion are our political leaders.
But the report fails to address the real issue. By far the most harm around cannabis and all drugs is from the markets through which they are produced and sold. Both the Home Office and the National Crime Agency acknowledge that most crime and violence is caused by criminal drugs markets. These markets exist to meet the unstoppable demand for drugs. Our political leaders like to pretend that they can reduce this demand but the evidence over more than 50 years proves them wrong. The cannabis market is by far the biggest and it is organised crime’s single largest source of daily cashflow. It provides the funding for every other sort of criminal activity imaginable. There is no other solution to stopping this catastrophic harm except to offer a legal alternative where consumers can purchase cannabis from licensed retailers that has been produced to quality standards by licensed producers.
All sort of other benefits would flow from this sensible change of policy. Thousands of new jobs would be created. Taxing the products would deliver vast amounts of cash for the health service, housing, social care, other public services and this is after paying for the costs of running the regulatory system. Huge amounts of police time would be freed up to start focusing on real crime that causes people harm. We know that this can work from the experience in other places. In Canada, six years after legalisation, 80% of all cannabis purchases are now made through legal channels. More than $2 billion is collected each year in local and federal taxes after deduction of expenses. This in a country with half the population of UK.
The report makes weak excuses for failing to recommend legal regulation of the cannabis market, excuses which are not supported by evidence and in many instances are directly contradicted. It says that legalisation has not been a “panacea”, “risks remain”, “it by no means abolishes the illicit cannabis market” and there are “too many unknowns, particularly those relating to public health”.
These excuses are disingenuous at best, deceitful at worst. They take no account of the very large body of evidence over more than 10 years from the USA and Canada, of the benefits of the coffeshop system in the Netherlands over 50 years and more recent experience in several European countries. It is wilful ignorance or, I suggest, political cowardice. I attended the Commission on two occasions to give evidence and after several hours in discussions, I am convinced that Lord Falconer and his colleagues fully understand that imperative for legal regulation and the evidence that supports it. The conclusion I draw is that they felt recommending legalisation would be politically unacceptable and would likely lead to the report being rejected. In truth the report was always going to be rejected, as it has been, so there was no benefit in holding back from the obvious recommendations it should have made.
Reading between the lines, my judgement is that this is all down to the near-hysteria about cannabis and its ‘links to mental illness’ which is pretty much unique to UK and Ireland. Nowhere else in the world comes close to the wildly unbalanced narrative that predominates here. It’s based on decades of systematic misinformation from the Home Office and ruthless exploitation by the tabloid media. The ‘one puff and you’re psychotic’ mythology has sold millions of newspapers and in recent years generated billions of clicks. It’s false. The facts are that the risk of a psychotic episode associated with cannabis use is 1 in 20,000, with alcohol use 1 in 2,000, with a life threatening reaction to peanuts 1 in 100 or shellfish 1 in 25. Hysteria perhaps doesn’t put it strongly enough!
Reform will come eventually to the UK but it’s hard to predict when. The legalisation of medical access came suddenly and unexpectedly and only because the government was shamed in the media by its appalling treatment of two epileptic boys who were forced overseas for life saving cannabis medicine. Media embarrassment seems to be the only thing that makes British politicians act and I think the powers that be think the move on medical access has gone quite far enough to keep the plebs in order.
The sheer stupidity, stubborness and inertia of the political establishment on drugs policy is extraordinary. We have no option but to keep fighting the good fight in the knowledge that eventually we will prevail.
Glass Pharms’ UK Cannabis Facility – Space, Technological Innovation and Quality.
In mid-May 2025 this was my second visit to one of the very few licensed cannabis cultivation facilities in the UK. The first was a month earlier to Dalgety in Staffordshire. It is extraordinary to see two such totally different approaches to growing the same plant.
There is hardly a more beautiful location than where Glass Pharms is based, in deepest Wiltshire, in the middle of glorious English farmland with swooping and squabbling red kites as sentinels. First you pass the anaerobic food waste digestion plant which provides heat for power as well as carbon dioxide to boost plant growth. Then, almost surrounded by a massive solar panel installation, is an unmarked, anonymous but imposing building. From ground level you wouldn’t even know it was a glasshouse.
Security precautions are strict, just like Dalgety. Once through a succession of turnstiles and doors that familar, comforting smell becomes obvious. I was welcomed by managing director Richard Lewis who explained to me that his background and that of most of the staff onsite was in fresh produce. I learned that he regards cucumbers as the vegetable crop most similar to growing cannabis.
The main area of the facility is a large section, perhaps 70 or 80 metres square, where staff attend to plants in different stages of growth, groups of perhaps 30 plants on large trays, just over a metre wide and four metres long. This is where I learned one of the most important principles of this facility – the plants come to the people, the people never go to the plants. Using a robotic conveyor system, which can move in all directions, these trays take batches of plants to where they need to be, either for different lighting and nutrient regimes to simulate the seasons or for human intervention such as de-leafing or harvest.
I also met with James Duckenfield, chief executive and founder, who is a tremendously impressive character. A chemist by training, he very quickly lost me in an explanation of terpenes, other compounds and the reasons that they are currently growing 21 different cultivars to achieve a range of flower products to meet different medical needs. This is a depth of technical, scientific expertise, unlike any I have seen elsewhere, that supports skilled growers and horticulturalists. Glass Pharms did employ a head grower from the Canadian cannabis industry for a while but it didn’t work out. This is not the conventional approach to growing cannabis. It is continuous cultivation where every day new clones are planted and mature plants are harvested.
Alongside the main area is a long corridor that runs the entire width of the glasshouse. In fact this is the only place where you realise that you’re in a glasshouse as the roof is visible. There are surprisingly few lighting fixtures and they are of an entirely different type to those more commonly in use elsewhere. None seemed to be operating while I was there. It was a very bright, sunny day but this doesn’t explain why in different areas of the glasshouse there seemed to be different colours and temperatures of lighting, presumably seeking to replicate the different seasons.
Richard explained that 40% of the lighting requirement is provided by the sun. This is a huge saving on what is the most signifiant cost in cannabis cultivation. There are further huge savings on power as it all comes at greatly reduced cost from the anaerobic digestion plant next door. Finally, in what was the most surprising revelation of all, there is not a single HVAC unit in the whole facility. All heating and cooling is provided by an ingenious heat exchanger system working off the waste heat from next door.
Back in the main room, an area to the side is partitioned off. Harvested flowers are packed quite tightly into small trays and this is where they begin the drying and curing process. Again, this is not the conventional approach. I would be concerned straightaway by how tightly packed the buds are. How could they dry properly without going mouldy? Then I learn that this is the start of a secret drying and curing process which they aim to patent – and I was told no more.
As ever, the proof is in the final product and I was given the opportunity to examine four products presented in finished form in Glass Pharms’ unique sealed aluminium tins. These are an innovation in themselves, far better than plastic tubs or mylar bags. I was able to open each container, pick out the buds, feel them, break them apart, examine them in detail. A grinder was provided so I could see how the flower looked and smelled once broken down into vapable form. As I said to James, the only thing missing was a Volcano vaporiser at the end of the table for the ultimate test. I doubt that will ever be possible under UK medical regulations!
I cannot fault what I saw. The perfect consistency of the buds, evenly dried, even density throughout, trichomes visible in the heart of the buds as you break them apart. Just gorgeous. Mouthwatering even!
It’s very, very difficult and challenging to develop a cannabis cultivation facility in Britain. I know this only too well. We are three and a half years into the process in Belfast, where Growth Industries, who I have been advising from the beginning, are still probably two years away from first harvest. But what I have seen at Dalgety and Glass Pharms is tremendously impressive, even with two entirely different approaches. This bodes very well for the future of Britain’s cannabis industry. We can be world leaders in this. If only we had a government and regulators who were focused on helping the industry, rather than looking for ways to restrict it.
Dalgety’s UK Cannabis Facility – Excellence, Professionalism and Leadership.
I could not have been more impressed by my recent visit to Dalgety’s cannabis facility, just north of Birmingham. It is the first UK business now permitted to cultivate and prepare a cannabis flower product in its finished form as a medicine that may be prescribed.
The team has shown great professionalism in meeting the conditions required for licensing by the the MHRA and the Home Office. There is also a huge amount of skill, knowledge, determination and financial investment.
It’s my considered opinion that Dalgety now demonstrates leadership in the UK prescription cannabis industry beyond any other business. They have brought into reality what is by far the most difficult objective to achieve. The hurdles put in place by the regulators are quite disproportionate for a plant-based medicine, which is why it has taken so long for any business to reach this stage.
Arriving at the main entrance, the security precautions are extraordinary. You enter through a series of gates, armoured turnstiles and fences. They are tall, strong, impregnable and that’s before you show ID, sign in and then continue through yet more gates. I cannot imagine that even military bases, intelligence services or nuclear installations could require anything more.
While I commend this, I cannot help thinking that 10 minutes down the road at the Dog & Duck, where eighths and quarters of weed are freely available, there are no security measures at all (despite the very dangerous drugs on sale at the bar). This is no criticism of Dalgety but it is condemnation of the absurd policy on cannabis of successive governments. There has been very little logic, rationale or common sense on drugs policy from any British government for at least 100 years – except for this small concession, nearly seven years ago, of allowing cannabis to be prescribed. .
The complex appears huge from the outside but once inside it is just like any other office where we are offered coffee and listen to a short presentation on the long and arduous process involved in development and licensing. Then we head for the grow rooms.
I am very fortunate to have already visited several licensed cannabis facilities both in Colorado and California. I’ve also seen many, shall we say, unlicensed facilities, ranging from one or two to perhaps 50 plants. I’ve never seen any of the huge illegal enterprises growing thousands of plants that supply the illicit UK market with its daily – yes, daily consumption of more than 3,000 kilos. To put that in context, at its present stage, Dalgety will produce 480 kilos per year although it will shortly expand to over 2,000 kilos per year.
The one common factor in all the facilities I have seen is attention to detail but at Dalgety this is taken to exceptional lengths. Each plant is given individual attention to ensure it reaches its maximum potential. All are propagated by cloning from mother plants but even so it is remarkable to see the consistency, almost identical growth heights, branch and flowering structure. This is common to all professional operations but Dalgety achieves a level beyond anything I have seen before.
I have also met many passionate growers. Indeed, I count one of them, Paul Shrive, amongst my closest colleagues and friends but it is impossible not to be very impressed by Brady Green, imported by Dalgety, with family and dogs, from Canada. He has the huge advantage of three years practical experience working to get the facility up and running but his knowledge and expertise is unparalleled. If ever there was a case for ‘key man insurance’, I expect Dalgtey are paying a big premium and keeping him very safe!
I am intimately acquainted with the demands of MHRA licensing, of GMP certification and a compliant pharmaceutical quality system, so I am not surprised by the cleanliness and precision of the grow rooms. They are another stage up from what I have seen in the USA. They are also much less crowded with far fewer plants and much more room around them. I was particularly impressed with the space given between branches hanging to dry. All this adds time and cost. There are no short cuts at all.
I am intrigued by Brady’s decision to dry trim and that all trimming is done by hand. This means that at harvest, fan leaves are removed and branches with flowers are detached from the main stem. These are then hung for a couple of weeks to dry with the smaller leaves still attached. This makes trimming much more difficult, particularly by hand which is completed with a team of about half a dozen people. While hand trimming can achieve a better result, it needs great skill and time. With the quantities involved I expect that eventually they will introduce machine trimming. It also has advantages of greater consistency and hygiene.
The trimming room was the closest we came to seeing the finished product. In California and Colorado such tours always end with a generous box of samples to take away, inspect and consume. No such luck under UK laws and regulations!
So I cannot judge the final product as I would wish to, at least not until I can get some Dalgety flower prescribed. Even without consuming any, I would have liked to be able to feel, squeeze, pull apart, smell and closely inspect some individual buds but the rules are far too strict for that.
I can say from what I saw in the trimming room that it looks excellent. The one big issue that I have with the regime that we have in the UK is that it places compliance over quality. The best quality flower I have ever seen in my life was in a California adult-use cultivation facility. It was far better than anything I have seen for the medical market in the UK. Without hands-on inspection, the Dalgety flower looked like may well be as good but is the the massive additional cost justified?
This is the fundamental question about growing cannabis legally in Britain. The first answer must be yes because the rules and regulations are in place and complying with them is the only way that we will develop our own cannabis industry. But the rules are manifesty absurd. Cannabis is treated as dangerous drug when in reality it is far safer even than over-the-counter painkillers. The security precautions enforced by the Home Office are about the same as for weapons grade nuclear material, despite the contrast with the free and easy availability of cannabis at the Dog & Duck and virtually any other pub even in the smallest, most remote village. Cannabis is ubiquitous, yet governments keep up this preposterous pretence that it is a ‘controlled drug’ – and in doing so they create, fuel and support organised crime. It is a ridiculous situation continued by ridiculous and weak politicians.
Is the massive cost of producing cannabis under MHRA regulations worth it in comparison to the superb quality available in the USA under much more relaxed conditions? It’s true that there is a very small proportion of potential patients with weak immune systems who may be vulnerable to contaminants but this is no real justification.
I do not resile from my admiration for what Dalgety has achieved. Indeed, I am pursuing the same path with my role in Growth Industries and this is the route that we must take. After decades of campaigning for law reform, after the change of law in 2018 I reached the conclusion that building the legal industry is the best way to achieve progress. In due course this is what will overcome the stigma, the fear and the nonsense we have been fed by governments and the media. I still hope for adult-use legalisation, perhaps in the next five to 10 years but it will probably be another 50 years, long after I am gone, before cannabis will be accurately and proportionately regarded for its immense benefits and minimal dangers.
Once I can get my hands on some Dalgety flower, I will report back with a final verdict. In the meantime, many congratulations for what the team has achieved. The issue is that UK regulators enforce a system in which compliance trumps quality. I choose that term deliberately because it accurately describes how silly it is!
The Idea of ‘Not for Profit’ Cannabis Reform is Bound to Fail
The whole premise of ‘not for profit’ cannabis reform is misguided. For decades, governments have gifted the huge profit opportunity in cannabis to organised crime. Now they want to deny legitimate business the opportunity.
We live in a market economy. Profit is not a dirty word in any other market. In fact profit creates jobs and puts food on families’ tables. The only people who object to profit are ideological socialists and naïve academics who don’t live in the real world.
But closet prohibitionists claim that a market in cannabis, regulated like any other consumer product, will result in aggressive marketing and greed-driven peddling of drugs to vulnerable people. Even some involved in cannabis reform share this fear. The jargon of ‘corporate capture’ and similar hyperbolic criticism supports an anti-business agenda which misses the key purpose of reform – that cannabis and its consumption must be reintegrated into society as ‘normal’. It is the demonisation of cannabis and its prohibition that has caused so much harm. Not just by the persecution of consumers but the consequential effects of creating a multi-billion-pound criminal market.
It is essential that reform enables cannabis to be produced and sold just like any other product, with appropriate regulations, just as we apply to tobacco, alcohol and OTC medicines. If we don’t let legitimate business trade in it, we invite organised crime and irresponsible actors to continue to dominate supply with all the harm that causes.
The EU is one of the main protagonists in trying to keep business out of cannabis. Just look at the problems Malta is experiencing. Already it has had three people in charge of its regulation authority, the first two with a history of opposing reform and they had so much difficulty appointing a replacement that the latest is the prime minister’s brother-in-law! Its preferred solution of cannabis social clubs is in chaos. After three years there are only 2,000 people registered as members and the bureaucracy is overwhelming, threatening the clubs’ viability.
Germany wanted to move forward with a legally regulated commercial supply chain but the EU knocked it back, insisting on the cannabis social club model. It too is experiencing great problems with administering this vastly complicated approach.
Malta, Luxembourg and Germany also provide for limited personal cultivation and this is a very good thing. Germany intends to move forward with pilot schemes for commercial supply but these are yet to get off the ground. The Czech Republic is next in line for reform and it is certainly trying to stand up to the EU but it may yet be knocked back into the social club model as well.
Cannabis social clubs were invented as a way of circumventing prohibition in jurisdictions where individuals growing plants for personal use was not banned. The idea was simply that group of individuals were clubbing together. I don’t have any objection if that is what people want to do but the idea that these clubs are the solution to organised crime production is nonsense. In fact, they are the perfect cover for organised crime.
While growing two or three cannabis plants is not difficult, once you move up to a dozen or more it becomes much more complex and demanding. Without the profit opportunity, weighed down with onerous regulation, the risk of losing a large harvest is too much. I cannot see that social clubs will ever be a solution. They can only be a minor component of a system of regulation that must include commercial supply.
The solution is easy to see on the other side of the Atlantic in Canada and in most of the legal, adult-use US states. California is an outlier where greedy politicians have made a terrible mess with levels of taxation that have continued to promote and support criminal production. Mind you, problematic as it is, no one in California is talking about going backwards!
Canada is a roaring, delightful success. Latest government data show that 82% of all purchases are now made through legal channels. After just six years this is a complete vindication of legalisation, of the sensible, logical approach that permits grow-your-own, prescription by doctors (it’s called ‘authorisation’ in Canada) and a legally regulated supply chain with licensed producers and retailers.
The pious, timid belief that cannabis must be provided on a not for profit basis is grounded in prohibition and that is where it should remain: repealed, abandoned, a relic of prejudice and historical failure.
Reasons to be Hopeful on Drugs Policy
You can be forgiven for a sense of despair if you live under the rule of the Conservative and Labour Party in Britain or the Fine Gael/Fianna Fail/Green Party coalition in Ireland. Our politicians are obsessed with pushing a ‘tough on drugs’ narrative. It’s an easy, cheap, go-to headline-grabber rather than addressing the real issues on drugs policy.
There are a few hopeful signs. But not in Britain. The dullard consensus between Conservative and Labour is depressing and another manifestation of the sickness that pervades all our political discourse. In Ireland, politicians are paying lip service to reform but the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use has forced the issue along, despite best efforts to rig the outcome.
The hope comes from the west, that re-scheduling of cannabis in the USA is about to be confirmed and from the east, that Germany seems to have finally resolved its cannabis reform bill and decriminalisation should take effect within a few months.
So Britain and Ireland are getting squeezed. Both countries face elections later this year. Drugs policy will not be an election issue in either country but crime, violence and anti-social behaviour will be. There’s a complete failure, a refusal, to see the link between bad drugs policy and these problems. In fact, it’s one of the principal causes of societal breakdown but not something that politicians will face up to.
Neither rational argument, nor evidence-based campaigning have any immediate effect on drugs policy. Over many years they do have some impact as understanding across society is improved and eventually wiser politicians come into office. While we’re stuck with those brought up with the ‘War on Drugs’; logic, evidence and common sense make no difference. They continue to ‘Just Say No’.
Nothing seems to move politicians except media embarrassment. It was only the tabloid coverage of Alfie Dingley and Billy Caldwell that shamed Theresa May into legalising prescription cannabis. More recently, the UK Post Office scandal has shown that government and civil service are perfectly capable of acting quickly when it suits them but they prefer a life of indolence and procrastination. There’s an almost endless list of scandals that the Conservatives have preferred to ignore: contaminated blood, sodium valproate birth defects, Grenfell, Windrush, etc, etc. Labour will do exactly the same when they get into power.
In Ireland, despite the recommendations on cannabis by the Oireachtas Justice Committee and the Citizens’ Assembly, unbelievably the government has decided they need another committee but they’re going to put it off for nine months by which time the election will be imminent. It really is farcical. ‘Yes Minister’ and the Office of Circumlocution from ‘Little Dorrit’ aren’t fiction, they are factual narratives.
So while we must keep on with our efforts in campaigning and education for the long-term, politicians aren’t really interested in us or in reasoned argument. We’re wasting our time expecting it. We have to find the lever that will cause them embarrassment, show them an immediate personal gain or rely on broader international pressures before they will do the right thing.
Voting at the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use was Rigged
Just a few hands raised to support the voting process
With discontent growing in the room, the chair Paul Reid called for a vote to confirm that the process had been clearly explained. About five hands were raised in agreement. A majority of about 94% were against. Reid did nothing about this. He moved on and continued to force through an increasingly complicated series of votes. Some were by a simple majority. Some were by a single transferable vote. Few people understood what was going on.
To begin with the voting had started with a simple majority vote where over 95% had voted against maintaining the status quo in drugs policy. By the end of the voting, Reid had effectively reversed that vote and the end result is a recommendation barely any different from the health diversion policy that is already supposed to have been in place for five years but which the government has failed to legislate for.
Contrary to widespread misreporting in the media, the recommendations which Reid has manipulated through do not decriminalise anything. Even personal possession of small amounts of drugs would remain a criminal offence.
The confusion started when Reid presented a series of options to vote on which had never been seen before. They were certainly not prepared by or with the support of the Assembly. They were ambiguous, contradictory, confusing and clearly designed to split the vote on measures for decriminalisation or legalisation.
Throughout the Assembly’s meetings, there has been dreadful bias in the selection of presentations and evidence. Apart from government departments and government-funded organisations, not a single expert on drugs policy was allowed to give evidence. Despite the strong interest in regulation from the members, out of 200 hours of evidence, just seven minutes was allowed for a presentation on regulation of cannabis. Nothing was permitted on regulation of any other drug.
Neither have any of the 800 submissions to the Assembly been published. A statistical summary of their content was published, showing well over 90% argued for substantial reform. They were supposed to have been published as part of the Assembly process but they have been kept secret and the meetings are now over.
Discontent and protest continued to grow in the room but Reid would have none of it. There were suspicions from the very beginning as to why an establishment figure, closely associated with the drugs policy failures of the past, had been appointed as chair. These appear to be confirmed. It seems that Reid has done as instructed and manipulated a conclusion that maintains the status quo.
Ireland’s Best Chance Ever for Effective Drugs Policy Reform
As the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use meets for the fourth time (2nd, 3rd September), it is at a crucial point which will determine its usefulness. Either it will move on to examine the broad range of drugs use and wider policy or it will continue to ignore and exclude 90% of its subject from consideration, focusing only on problematic use and treatment services.
Whatever recommendations the the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use makes, it is up to the government to decide on them. Same-sex marriage and abortion rights achieved legislative reform through this route but response to the recent Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss has been very different. The government and our political leaders have failed to implement any its 150 recommendations to protect nature. It was almost certainly a mistake to make so many recommendations and this has given politicians the excuse they need to turn away and fail to act. It could well be the same on the difficult and controversial issue of drugs.
Yet nothing demands more immediate and urgent action. All the violence, disorder and anti social behaviour about which there is so much concern is driven by criminal drugs markets. Demand for drugs comes from within our communities. It is our families, our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers that are the customers of these criminal gangs. While in 90% of cases their drug use causes no harm to themselves or others, they enrich and empower the gangsters and government has done nothing to regulate these markets to reduce all the harm they cause.
While politicians refuses to acknowledge and provide sensible and safe legal access for drugs, particularly cannabis, all they do is turn the forces of law enforcement against the communities they are supposed to protect and add to the power and wealth of the drugs gangs.
It is the criminal markets that cause so much harm and only a small proportion of drugs users that suffer health harms. Street dealing, violence, child exploitation, debt intimidation, human trafficking, modern slavery, all these evils stem from the criminal markets which bad drugs policy has allowed to proliferate. And the health harms of drugs are maximised when criminals control their production and distribution, when there is no regulation, quality control, age limits or harm reduction infomation and education provided.
This is Ireland’s best chance ever for effective drugs policy reform and huge responsibility now rests on the shoulders of Paul Reid, chair of the Citizens’ Assembly. In the remaining three meetings, will he encompass the broad agenda which the issue demands or will we continue only to hear about one, narrow aspect?
Clearly, problematic drug use has a terrible impact on those involved and their families but we already know that the answer is properly funded treatment services. Also, problematic drug use drives violent and acquisitive crime as users have no option but to access drugs from criminals at high cost. The answer here is also properly funded treatment services but also regulation of markets, so that legal access is possible but in controlled and safe circumstances.
We need properly funded treatment services, safe consumption rooms, decriminalisation of the user, legally regulated access for adults at least to cannabis, MDMA and possibly cocaine, drug testing services, education and harm reduction services.
Such intelligent, evidence-based and progressive drugs policy will drive the gangsters off our streets. It will stop the violence, the mugging, the anti social behaviour of feral youth, It will reduce health harms, overdoses deaths and all sorts of crime. But it requires courage. It needs politicians to take decisions that will attract the fury of the older, reactionary, authoritarian wing of society but unless we takes these steps then Ireland’s drugs problem is only going to get worse. The demand isn’t going away and unless we find a sensible way of meeting it in safe, regulated fashion then the violent gangsters and everything that flows from their activity will continue.
18 Truths on Drugs Policy
Source: @JamesGierach Retired Chicago-area attorney, former Cook County prosecutor, drug policy reformer, author, Gierach Blogs at http://jamesgierach.tumblr.com
IRELAND. Minister for Justice, Simon Harris TD, Sets Out to Sabotage the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Before it’s Even Started
Only the day after the government formally annouces the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs, Simon Harris TD, the Minister for Justice, pulls that old prohibitionist trope again and blames drugs consumers for the harms caused by prohibition drugs policy.
He’s says he’s “concerned about the growing social acceptance of drug taking in this country…the increasing prevalance and often visibility of drug taking as part of a night out in Ireland.”
He says “there is a direct link between snorting a line, taking a pill and murder, assault, criminality and misery.”
Exactly as there would be if the market in Guinness and Jameson wasn’t properly regulated.
Consumers are not responsible for the harms caused by government’s failure to regulate drugs markets. In every other market, including the drugs market for alcohol, government acts to minimise harm and tackle rogue operators. In other drugs markets, unbelievably if you think about it, government policy maximises all harms and supports the gangsters’ business model.
It is government which has created the gangsterism around drugs. In Ireland the government and the Kinahans are on the same side. They both want drugs to remain banned and the harder government drives the gardai to ‘crack down’ on drugs, the higher the prices rise and the more profit the Kinahans and other gangsters make.
Harris isn’t the first politician to blunder into this trap and he won’t be the last,. It’s a way of diverting attention from the horrendous damage to our society which their dreadful drugs policy has caused. Harris and politicians throughout the world have their hands dripping in blood from the wars, murder, torture, death and degradation their laws have caused.
Vancouver’s Experiment with Decriminalisation of all Drugs
Decriminalisation is an extremely dangerous halfway measure that frees up the market while leaving it under control of gangsters. All the dangers of contaminated product, unknown strength, violence and exploitation continue and will probably get worse.
The only effective drugs policy is legal regulation of all substances where access to clean, known-strength product from regulated sources is available but restricted in accordance with their potential for harm. This would mean that alcohol would be more tightly restricted than cannabis. Heroin or meth would only be available under medical supervision.
This won’t eliminate all harm but it will minimise it, instead of prohibition which maximises all harm.
Prohibition never works because demand comes from the communities that law enforcement is duty-bound to protect. So if the authorities try to try to ‘crack down’, as idiotic British governments have for over 50 years, it makes everything worse
Far more intelligent drugs policy is required and while decriminalisation is part of that because criminalising people for drug use achieves nothing and only causes harm, it is not the solution. Governments need to take responsibility rather than abandoning it to gangsters. That means legal regulation.
Peter Reynolds 