The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) have spoken out at the apparent ease in which children on "struggling" council housing estates are able to come by alcohol.
Its a situation which the Canna Zine cannabis news portal has hi-lighted since the end of last summer when new "head boy" Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister, and promised to revisit the laws passed which allowed 24 hour drinking.
In the run up to Christmas 07 though, and with the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs due to convene to discuss the reclassification of cannabis, the alcohol issue was lost in the furore of smoke and mirrors which members from both sides of the house spun up, in a bid to deflect the full force of statistics they,
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and the big-spending alcohol lobby, really would prefer no-one got to hear about.
ACPO were so busy telling the Great British public how dangerous cannabis "might be", that even they failed to deem these "accessibility" facts comment-worthy.
Today however, without the pantomime which was the ACMD cannabis reclassification meeting to hide behind, ACPO has "deigned" to mention the fact the alcohol industry should be slammed for specifically targeting their multi-million pound advertising campaigns at young people.
According to ACPO President Ken Jones, "It is time to take a "hard look" at the issue of teenage binge drinking which has reached "epidemic" proportions."
A fact the cannabis community has been pointing out for 6 months. Thats half a year, and according to health spokesman for the Liberal Democrats Norman Lamb, who yesterday said the Lib-Dems have "obtained" figures regarding the numbers of children hospitalised by alcohol, in that 6 months some 4000 youngsters have been admitted to hospital for alcohol related causes? Not if. Not maybe. Not might be, and no clever 'political' play's on words.
Hospitalised, as in put in hospital as a direct result of drinking alcohol!
In 2006-7 there were 8,072 cases, up from 5,885 in 2000-1 and according to Mr Lamb, these rises in the numbers of children being harmed by alcohol are "shocking".
He added: "This is a dangerously escalating public health crisis with often tragic consequences."
Consequences which don't always directly effect the young person doing the drinking, as was the tragic case of Garry Newlove, the husband and father who was quite literally, "kicked to death" by three young scroats who were collectively fueled up on "fighting juice".
Adam Swellings, 19, Stephen Sorton, 17, and Jordan Cunliffe, 16, were convicted at Chester Crown Court and jailed for life for murdering Mr Newlove.
Mr Justice Andrew Smith described the actions of the three as "drunken aggression" that was "part of the night's entertainment".
According to Ken Jones from ACPO, "We need, all of us, to actually wake up in this country. We have got a real problem with the way alcohol is marketed, and the way it is consumed."
But there are plenty of people in the UK who have been awake all along, and certainly through the last 6 months the cannabis witch hunt has taken place. If the people who decide our laws in the UK had been looking at the right social issue, instead of trying to sway the ACMD members with their anti-cannabis rhetoric, none of which is very original lets face it, perhaps Garry Newlove might still be alive today?
On a personal note I've been involved with cannabis since around 1982. I don't yet know a single person who has been physically or mentally harmed by it. Nor could I with hand on heart, point to one single account where violence has erupted amongst people who choose to consume cannabis instead of alcohol.
Yet every single night our towns and cities are subjected to alcohol charged running battles which the police, the men and women who serve under the ACPO bosses, have to wade in to, putting themselves in grave danger, as they attempt to diffuse situation after situation, the blame for which can be placed firmly on the shoulders of alcohol, its low price, and its 24/7 availability.
How the police, or the government, can tell responsible 40 or 50 year old UK citizens how dangerous cannabis is, whilst sitting on these figures hoping no-one notices, is one of life's great mysteries.
But with a general election looming, and the figures for the amounts of UK citizens who have been harmed by current drug policy reaching stratospheric amounts, hopefully a politician with a pair of balls, will stand up and make the changes necessary to quash the risk alcohol exposes us as a society to, once and for all.
The Liberal-Democrats have promised to decriminalise a small amount of cannabis for personal use. Furthermore, they have said they will allow a person to grow a small amount of cannabis for their own consumption, or for "social supply" amongst friends and family, which will dismantle the "cannabis factory" boom current policy encourages (no matter how you look at it), and will also slow the amounts of alcohol people consume daily and with this in mind the choices on cannabis policy are one of two.
You either support the decriminalisation of a small amount of cannabis for responsible adults, or you support situations which Garry Newlove's family are still trying to come to terms with today, and thats the facts, no matter how distasteful they may appear. The Canna Zine is "growing daily" Information is power and its with this in mind we are seeking key partners who may be interested in running a "Canna Zine" news portal on their own continent.
Currently we operate the Canna Zine in the UK, based on, and operated within Greenwich Meantime (GMT). As such its sometimes difficult to pick up news from the US, Australia, New Zealand etc, in a timely manner.
So we are seeking key individuals who may be interested in running their own news organisation, under the "Canna Zine" banner, and utilising all the Canna Zine has at its disposal, including Google News syndication.
Interested in making a business out of cannabis/marijuana? This is the opportunity you've been waiting for. "Contact Us " for more information.
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