Hang Tough
According to a respected former member of the ACMD, its all to do with showing how "tough" Brown's administration is.
In fact, according to the Reverend Martin Blakeborough who runs the Kaleidescope drugs charity, "There is no way that the ACMD would support any reclassification of cannabis, unless there were some political shenanigans going on."
No Evidence
He continued by saying, "There is no significantly new evidence to suggest that cannabis is any more harmful than in the last review we did 18 months ago. The only reason that the ACMD is being forced to discuss this matter is because every new Home Secretary seems to want to show how tough they are", which fits in with the present administration attempting to kill Tony Blair's spectre once and for all, but is that reason enough to lock up otherwise law-abiding UK citizens for consuming a substance which in other parts of the world, is looked upon as a perfectly acceptable?
Certainly not, and if the government has decided not to take heed of the advice given by the ACMD, why ask them for it in the first place?
The answer is simple. Any mention of cannabis in the news, is normally followed up by a blizzard of press reports from "experts" (we use the term loosely) and from senior Police officers, which normally go on to explain how bad cannabis is as a substance, what a huge social issue its causing, how dangerous it is to our youth etc etc.
There normally follows a second-wave of "news" from zealot groups such as those involved with an organisation called "Talking About Cannabis", who spend their time sending each other e-mail copies of news reports written and published by so-called respected news titles. Stories like "Month of cannabis terrified me", or "Home Office U-turn on cannabis as link to mental illness deepens", as if thats meant to actually prove the veracity of the stories, which no doubt help sell newspapers, but which add nothing to the greater debate.
Its an absolute tragedy if someone suffers mental health issues as a result of cannabis, just as much as it is if they suffer liver failure through alcohol abuse, but are we saying the mental health is the worse scenario of the two, and as liver failure has taxes paid on it, that's wholly more acceptable?
Somebody somewhere is saying just that. Nuts..
The sad fact is, certain people react badly to certain substances and to illustrate this point, in 2007, in the county of Leicestershire, UK, within a 30 day period 5 individual cases of anaphalactic shock were recorded, as a direct result of contact with peanuts. Thats a large percentage of the counties population statistically, but did peanuts get banned as a result?
No. You probably never even saw or heard the news report, but if that were 5 potentially life-threatening situations caused as a result of exposure to marijuana, you can guarantee everyone would have heard about it, on the 6 o'clock news, the 10 o'clock news, and the front page of the Daily Mail.
Why should that be the case?
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom death toll from alcohol related causes carries on almost unreported, while the government uses drug stories in a cleverly orchestrated and expertly choreographed "smoke and mirrors" spin routine, to detract from the real issues which are taking place on the streets of the United Kingdom. For instance, with the immigration issue ringing loud in Premier Browns ears yesterday and today, a "high profile" story was needed to shift the force of the storm away from news reports which showed the government was in fact, wrong on immigration, which is currently costing the tax-payer millions every year. Ever since the Prime Minister came into power, the cannabis issue has been used by the Labour spin doctors, anytime the party were hitting the newspapers for the wrong reasons.
The Police pay dispute, the lost MoD laptop, the driver data-base discs "misplacement", NHS cuts in South Wales, the Prison Officers walkout, in fact, its been a catalogue of disasters since Mr Brown became PM, and the cannabis issue has faithfully borne the brunt of the government and all its ails.
Yet bubbling beneath the surface, taking up precious few column inch's, is alcohol, and the fact that 10,000 UK citizens are dying. Stone-cold dead every year, as a direct result of alcohol. And a lot of those get 'a bit feisty' as they drink & fight their way to an early demise.
But don't take my word for it. You only need to tune in to the new breed of late night TV shows which prevail on cable/satellite television to get an idea of whats happening.
TV documentary crews have taken to tailing police forces from across the nation as they attempt to deal with a country which is awash with cheap, widely available booze, and the consequences are there to be seen by all. Every night of the week its the same story, as police officers, ambulance crews, and hospital staff are forced to deal with a more and more beligerent public, who are tanked up on fighting juice, and a good number of the hard working "blue-light" services are forced to endure levels of personal abuse and injury, that no person should have to face, simply to earn an honest wage.
But the cost to the emergency services is only half of the story. The cost in terms of real personal harm caused by alcohol runs much deeper.
British Liver Trust
Alison Rogers, director of the Ringwood-based British Liver Trust, said the charity wanted alcohol to be made more expensive and more emphasis placed on education, although as the recent budget proved, simply taxing something harder is no deterrent. The Supermarkets simply bore the extra tax on behalf of their customers, so price rises were in fact, negligible, and Chancellor Alistair Darling's big idea fell flat onits face as a deterent to binge-drinking .
Mrs Rogers continues, "Liver disease is the fifth largest cause of death and the only one on the increase," she said. "In the UK, young people have the expectation that they will go out and get bladdered. They don't have the sense that it's not a nice thing to do. That's bolstered by the fact that you have magazines laughing about celebrities getting drunk." So clearly the alcohol issue is a picture the government would rather no-one got to hear about, so they continue with a high-level campaign against people who would prefer to sit in their homes and use cannabis instead of alcohol. A situation which the Dutch have allowed for over 30 years, and which has constantly seen the Netherlands placed bottom of the "European league" for cannabis using countries.
No Smoking, except..
Mr Ab Clink is the Dutch Health Minister. A high ranking politician who has recently announced that the forthcoming Dutch national smoking ban, set to come into force on July 1st 2008, doesn't include cannabis. In a statement to parliamentary colleagues, Mr Clink said people would be still allowed to consume cannabis in Hollands world famous coffee-shops as long as no tobacco was mixed with it, which sent a loud message to the rest of Europe and beyond.
Still in Holland, and on the 1st of January 2008, a law was passed in Amsterdam which meant local Police were no longer allowed to consume cannabis whilst off-duty, as it was, according to Frank Gittay, the city's police council chairman, "Important to set a good example". Mr Gittay said, "Until now police were only banned from showing up for work stoned or drunk. But now we are telling officers they should also behave like the police at all times? "That means not taking drugs and not getting excessively drunk whether on or off duty."
But Dutch police union chairman Hans van Duijn said: "Many of our members (who are currently serving police officers) are opposed to this."
The United States
In America, 12 states have so far legalised cannabis for medicinal use, and in todays litigious society it would be fair to assume the USA would soon be bankrupt if it continued to allow the use of marijuana, in spite of all the medical reports we hear tell of here in the UK, especially so as the United States actually grows cannabis for the medical marijuana community at an educational facility in Michigan, and then sends it, either pre-rolled, or "raw" to them through the (federal) mail?
So what does that tell us about how dangerous cannabis is to the general populus? Niave
We would not be so naive as to broadcast stories which portray cannabis as an inert, harmless substance, but the fact is, the horror stories which the press relay to the UK population are just that. Horror stories, designed to whip up a furore of anti-cannabis sentiment, and whilst there can be no denying the success it achieves in doing this, thats not to say its true!
Whats Up Doc?
Dr Phillip Leveque, who is a toxicologist, pharmacologist and practising physician from Oregon US, summed it up well when he said of the marijuana debate, "Simply repeating something which isn't true, ad nauseum, doesn't then make it true, and Dr Leveque isn't alone when it comes to giving a controversial opinion to the cannabis debate, as the 124,000 American College of Physicians proved in February, when they released a statement informing the world "Mainstream Medicine Endorses Medical Marijuana."
Surely they wouldn't do that if it was as dangerous as we are led to believe, would they?
Of course not, and if the second largest group of doctors in the US believe it to be relatively safe, why can't we look toward a new, different way of regulating cannabis here in the UK? UKCIA
The UKCIA is an organisation based in the UK, which promotes a more pragmatic approach to cannabis legislation.
They dont think cannabis is a harmless substance, nor do they canvass for the outright legalisation of cannabis. Far from it in fact.
The UKCIA believes that as long as people wish to use cannabis, there will always be someone who will be prepared to supply it and no matter what status cannabis has in the eyes of the law. With this in mind, criminalising cannabis users, fining people for smoking or possession of the drug, is simply not going to have any effect in the grand scheme of things.
Long Range Forecast
In actual fact it would be easy enough to make a forecast here and now as to the amounts of people who will be punished for cannabis related offences in the next 12 months, and in a years time we probably wouldn't be far off the facts, and that, regardless of whether cannabis is scheduled as a class B or a class C substance. We have 80 years of history to use a guide. So simply toughening up the law isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. We already know that as the last 8+ decades of prohibition have proven.
The only working "blue-print" we have to use as a benchmark were cannabis to be decriminalised, is the Dutch experience, which has been entirely more positive than that experienced in the UK.
From a politicians perspective, surely the only thing that matters is the bottom line? IE. What percentage of the population is harmed by cannabis? And has been proven time and again, the Dutch system of decriminalising the growing or possession of cannabis for personal use and social supply, works in keeping cannabis user-numbers down!
Not only that but it keeps organised criminals at bay as people are allowed to provide their own supply. Almost overnight the illicit trade in cannabis would be dismantled, and no longer can the UK government ignore the facts as they've been proven time and again.
Agenda
Which leads us to the conclusion that the debate on cannabis carry's on as a result of a different agenda, which is in no way related to public health, right? Effective Communications is Key
But before any wholesale change can happen a key area which needs to be improved, is communications.
Even as I write this, I noticed TAC's leader Debra Bell has had an article published in the Daily Telegraph, in which she gives a wholly one-sided view of her take, on the reclassification saga, called, "Ignore the experts and reclassify cannabis".
Enough said?
I'm not knocking Ms Bell in any way. She has an opinion based on her own personal experiences, to which she is entitled, but thats all it is. An opinion, in the same vein as many hundreds of thousands of Internet users have had their own positive experiences with cannabis, which in turn shape their own opinions. It goes without saying.
Yet if the cannabis community were to write to any of the popular press, they (the press) simply refuse to acknowledge your existence, exept as a "Readers Letter" perhaps, and until this situation changes, and the public are shown the positive side of cannabis, a side that 4 million UK citizens know exists, then nothing is about to change anytime soon. Canna Zine
Back in February 07 the Canna Zine was created with the intent of becoming the first news website in the world to offer an unbiased view of cannabis. If it works for someone we don't mind telling people about it. If it doesn't work, or people experience problems with cannabis, we'll tell the world about that too. Either way we intend to give people the information they need, to help them make an educated decision as to whether cannabis will work for them or not. We already know, its not for everyone right? But then again neither is milk!
After relaying the countries cannabis related news for almost 14 months, its now time to ask for a little bit of help from the community at large.
The Canna Zine editorial staff took some time out recently, to tour the Internet communities of world-wide-web land, in a bid to unearth some new writing talent. If you surf any of the well-known cannabis forums, there are a multitude of cannabis users, all of whom are having positive experiences using it, or growing it, and are carrying out highly detailed diaries as they undertake the daily duties involved within their hobby/culture/way of life.
There are people who grow for medical reasons, people who grow because someone else isn't physically able to grow, as well as connoisseurs, who would put many a wine afficianado to shame as they explain the finer points of Cinderella 99 vintage 2005, over Super Skunk, (contrary to popular belief, Super Skunk is simply a brand name used by a seed breeder, and NOT, as the press would have you believe, some super-strong strain of cannabis), and we really need some of these people to speak out and tell their stories.
Whilst communicating with a number of forum admins it became apparent that the UK cannabis community is currently "whipped and beaten", by a ceaseless barrage of anti-cannabis propaganda.
The government know this, and they find it easy to come up with story after story, just to keep cannabis users in a state of submission. Unprepared to speak out for fear of persecution. Hardly what you would call " a level playing field". Whilst trying to drum up support for government petitions the general consensus of opinion was, over the course of a year, "whats the point"? "Nothing ever happens no-matter how many people sign them", and to a degree I can see their point. The government pay little if any attention to petitions which are cannabis related, as do the press.
Googe News = Global News
But on the 27th December 2007 the Canna Zine news portal was accepted as a bona-fide news source, providing a more balanced take on the UK cannabis scene, which is then syndicated globally by Google News.
Its a small start, but it ensures every single news organisation gets to see our material if they are looking for cannabis/marijuana news, and in the history of British cannabis prohibition, thats unprecedented!
Now all we need is for the greater cannabis community to mobilise and speak with us. Let us tell your stories to the world. En Masse
With a concerted and organised effort, over a given period of time, if enough of us speak as a mass, people have to listen, and maybe then, just maybe, cannabis will get more of a fair hearing. After-all, thats all any of us ask, right? Science, medicine and a large portion of worldly experience will sort the rest out, providing evidence which no government can ignore and if personal security is an issue, speak with us and let us tell your story for you. You can remain totally anonymous, safe and secure behind the protective buffer of the Canna Zine news portal.
Partners
Given the evidence to present on behalf of the community, we will, with a number of partners which includes the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA - http://www.lca-uk.org ) and the UK Cannabis Internet Activists (UKCIA - www.ukcia.org) in the UK, and the Marijuana Policy Project, (MPP - http://www.mpp.org ), NORML, (http://www. norml.org ) and DRCNet, (http://www. stopthedrugwar.org ) in the US, take it to the highest office, as well as presenting it for the worlds press to digest, showing once and for all that the term "cannabis grower", isn't in fact techno-babble meaning "vietnamese immigrant", and a grow room is far more likely to be in a small cupboard under the stairs, providing medical relief for an MS or arthiritis sufferer, than it is to be the entire ground floor of a privately rented house in suburbia, growing cannabis for an organised drug ring. Presently the public is fed a constant supply of whatever material the anti-cannabis brigade choose to publish, and its time that was changed once and for all.
Join with us, and help force change.
If you use the social networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Digg, Technorati etc, please post this article far and wide.
If you use a forum or message board, please make sure the admins and members get to see it.
500 individuals is an easy amount of petition signatories to ignore. But if a million people speak with the same voice, it takes a brave politician to ignore their message.
Over to you! http://cannazine.co.uk |
