It would appear that on the run up to the 2007 non-election Premier Brown never called, non of the major parties in the UK had published new manifesto's so it was clear they knew about the cancelled general election long before we did.

Labour
It goes without saying the Labour Government have made their minds up regarding cannabis reclassification. After a raft of public figures actually attached to the decision making process spoke out in disgust against the Home Secretary's arrogance in how she went about leaking the announcement to the press we can only assume its a done deal, meaning we will spend the next 5 years under the Labour party, looking over our shoulders.

Conservative
Over on the other side of the house it looks like we'll fair no better, with the Conservative manifesto from 2005 reading like any other tory manifesto. It goes on to say, "We will break the link between drugs and crime by massively expanding treatment programmes, including 25,000 residential rehab places (compared with fewer than 2,500 places today), and by giving all young users of hard drugs a straight choice – effective treatment or appearing in court.

Only the Conservative party could make harm reduction sound like a threat.

They continue, "We will stop sending mixed messages on drugs by reversing Labour’s reclassification of cannabis as a less serious drug, changing it from class ‘C’ back to class ‘B’."

"Loud & Clear" Mr Cameron, although a bit rich wouldn't you say? When a good few of your shadow government have been known to toke it up too?

Whilst this is in fact a manifesto which was published back in 2005, there isn't anything more current to compare it against but a recent outburst by Ian Duncan Smith sets the record straight once and for all, when he said, ""We recommended regrading it to Class B and I'm very pleased that the Government is thinking of taking on our policies."

"But reclassifying cannabis is not enough by itself, as it is about getting treatment and counselling for everybody convicted for a drugs offence, like in Sweden and Holland.

"There, everyone convicted of a drugs offence is sent to therapy to try to get them off drugs. That's why Holland has a third of the drug addicts we do."

Rubbish!
The reason Holland has a third of the addicts we do, is as a result of a more tolerant drug policy. A drug policy which understands there are in fact, more than just the Conservative or Labour party's idea on what constitutes a lifestyle.

There are some alternatives which, whilst they may not be agreeable to all members of society, surely we need to understand what other's want as well. Compromise a little? It's called an empathetic approach.

Leaving the glaringly obvious play on words from the last sentence well alone, its worth looking at exactly how the United Nations, the people who shape our future drug policies, have attempted to manipulate the figures with regard to the Dutch and their liberal drug policies;

United Nations not so United
For many years Holland has led the field in understanding and dealing with drugs and drug culture, and according to Prof. Tim Boekhout van Solinge who is a criminologist at the University of Utrecht, "‘It is no coincidence the UN wants to and has attempted to, propagate the idea that things are getting out of hand here in Holland but in truth, this idea is wrong."

Drug user figures in Holland compare favourably with the rest of Europe and in many cases Holland leads the way, proving a liberal attitude to drug use, as well as to the drug users themselves, can bring positive results in the grand scheme of things.

But regardless of the success enjoyed by the Dutch administration, the United Nations has "spun" the facts to show Holland has the highest "per capita" drug addict head count in Europe, when in reality, the Dutch have the lowest.

How?
By changing the way data was collected from Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, the United Nations essentially created a single country, called Benelux, and added the totals from all three countries together.

Adding the country with the highest drug addict count, (Luxembourg), to the figures of the country with the lowest amount of drug addicts, which is Holland.

"These numbers were not properly linked to total population estimates. But instead, averages were calculated," and that’s how the Benelux, including Holland, ended on top of the list of drug addicted countries, continued Prof. Boekhout van Solinge.

"The message for the public was clear: Dutch drug policy is not working."

When in fact nothing could further from the truth, so it appears a liberal attitude toward drug policy can, and does work. Even IDS agrees.

And speaking of Liberal attitutdes..

The Liberal Democrats, like the Conservatives, were clearly not expecting a general election to happen either. The Lib-Dem manifesto is also vintage 2005 so at this time all we have to go on is some old guide lines, but in their defense the Lib-Dems have always been pretty straightforward so its fair to assume there won't be too much deviation from centre.

The Lib-Dem manifesto on drugs really makes quite interesting reading and if you would like to check it out for yourself here's the link. CLICK

To cherry pick the best bits, the document starts by saying;

Honesty, Realism, Responsibility from the Liberal Democrats
The prohibitionist approach to drugs over the last 30 years has not worked. According the 2003 British Crime Survey, 12% of adults took an illegal drug in the previous year and 3% took a Class A drug.

This means there are four million drug users and a million hard drug users in the UK.

The number of heroin addicts in the UK is estimated to be over a quarter of a million.

Aside from the health and social problems drug abuse creates for the users themselves, hard drugs are a big factor in causing other crime. It has been estimated drug related property crime accounts for stolen goods of over £2 billion in value.

Liberal Democrats believe the current emphasis on criminal sanctions for users actually makes the problem worse: it exacerbates the adverse consequences of drug use; it brings many young people, who would otherwise be law-abiding, into contact with both the criminal world and the criminal justice system; it undermines more promising strategies for minimising harmful drug use; and it diverts large public resources which could be better employed.

Liberal Democrats believe the time has come to reform the approach to drugs policy, so that there is an intelligent range of responses, with the emphasis on education, treatment for addiction and harm reduction strategies rather than blanket prohibition, but retaining criminal sanctions where justified.

There then follows a list of things which, whilst they don't apply to me personally, if drugs are playing a part in your life it may be worth your while reading it in detail so follow the link given earlier.

Whilst scanning the document further I came across this;

Cannabis
Liberal Democrats would break the link between cannabis use and organised crime by maintaining the classification of cannabis as a Class C drug in the short term, but issuing policy guidance that it is not in the public interest to prosecute individuals for possession of cannabis for their own use, cultivation of small numbers of cannabis plants for their own use, or social supply of cannabis.

So let me just get this right. Whilst cannabis would remain essentially, an illegal, class C substance just as it is today, a policy guideline would be issued stating its not in the public interest to, (and I quote), "prosecute individuals for possession of cannabis for their own use, cultivation of small numbers of cannabis plants for their own use, or social supply of cannabis?"

Now thats quite a radical guideline don't you think? So radical in fact, how can we be sure the nation won't be turned overnight, into a country full of salivating, brain damaged cabbages?

Well, we can be quite sure, because barring the odd comma and full stop here and there, thats how the Dutch system works.

Illegal
Contrary to popular belief possession of cannabis is illegal in Holland. Oh yeah!

Its a condition of being a member of the United Nations so even if Gordon Brown wanted to change the law on cannabis, he can't. His hands are tied by membership of the UN.

"But hang on a minute" I hear you shout. "How come Holland gets away with it if we can't?"

Holland "gets away with it" by enforcing its own drug policy at government level.

Holland
So cannabis remains illegal in fitting with the UN's brief on drugs, but like our good friends in the Lib-Dems have just mentioned, government can of course issue policy guidelines, and in Holland, those guidelines state, you are allowed to grow between 3 and 5 plants for your own consumption, as long as no high power lights, or hydroponic life support systems are used, as they are looked upon as criminal activity believe it or not.

And that, with the horticultural tradition's Holland has? But in this instance the words 'gift horse', 'look' and 'never' spring to mind so I'll move swiftly on.

It works like this. You are allowed to grow your plants in the privacy of a balcony, or in your back garden and you can use only pots, compost and natural light. Which is a really clever way of controlling the growing season as the sun only shines for half the year so its either get motivated, or miss the boat.

Its a workable solution which I could see working really well in the UK.

I'll admit my last two votes went for Tony's new Labour but with all the hoo-haw which has surrounded the cannabis issue, allied to the amount of raving great cock ups the government have made recently I personally will not be voting for a government who would like to be able to censor me and my website when I've told no lies, displayed no child porn nor planned any terror campaigns.

From the cannabis community's perspective, both the Labour party and The Conservatives, are none starters, which leaves the Liberal Democrats, who from the information they've published in their online policy briefing, have the most appeal, certainly from where I'm sitting.