Gordon Brown, Jacqui Smith and Vernon Coaker are hoping the hullaballoo which tory rag The Daily Mail will whip up in the run up to the reclassification of cannabis will be enough to turn the tide of public opinion back in their favour.

A forceful rip-tide it is too, which has seen Gordon Brown announced as the most unpopular Prime Minister in British history,

Politicians are lying to you and in doing so they intend to send 10,000 more people a year, many of whom are young, just starting out in life, to prison for doing no more than the majority of the serving Cabinet did themselves as students. FACT!

But there's a new movement rallying to first put a stop to the reclassification of cannabis, and then to open dialogue with the government, over the creation of just, education and science based national drug policies.

Please log into the Canna Zine cannabis forums and pledge your support.

but over-hauled with what looks like consumate ease, leading to the Labour government falling as far as 40 points behind the Conservatives in opinion polls and its fair to say when Cameron comes to power it won't be as a result of any hard-core "politician-ing" carried out by the tories, but as a result of Gordon Brown surrounding himself with a weak Cabinet, a necessity he hoped would play down his own shortfalls as a Prime Minister.

But this is a choice which will ultimately work against him as the legacy of Blair's reign becomes diluted with every new sleaze-claim.

Support
Its fair to say the Brown premiership only really has one 'nailed to the wall' supporter as things stand, and thats John Major. The grey man of Conservative politics who Mr Brown has knocked off the perch which carries the title "Britains most unpopular".

One of the biggest mistakes Gordon Brown has made in his short tenure at number 10 (amongst many, it has to be said), was to instigate the reclassification of cannabis, which many saw as Gordon Brown's attempts to show the world that he, and his Labour Cabinet cohorts were tough on drugs.

When in fact nothing could be further from the truth.

Summer of 2007 saw Gordon Brown eventually get his way by becoming Prime Minister. An unelected posting which has been unpopular with the majority of the British public ever since the announcement was made.

Browns Labour government, who are as close to being a Conservative administration as any Labour government in history, have abondoned its "working class" roots and this perhaps, is the very ethos of the Brown governments problems.

"Tony"
The preceding Blair years had seen GB PLC rise to power and stardom as the Bush & Blair coalition took on all comers with a military and political alliance which historically, stretch's back to World War II, and at this stage its worth mentioning the part Gordon Brown played in this period of success as a Chanceller of the Exchequer who fully believed, "if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves".

Under Blair's leadership, aided by Browns unquestionable accountancy skills, we became a truly rich super-power.

Earnings were up. We had a national minimum wage. House buyers were publicly courted by all the big lenders and the future looked bright.

But as John Major found out to his cost at the height of the "boom & bust" period in the early nineties, following a super successful Prime Minister is a poison chalice which brings with it little or no hope of success and ever since the turn of the new millenium there has been a sea-change in how the British public views politics and perhaps more importantly, the politicians who use politics to their own ends.

Global
With the advent of the Internet and the global communications opportunities it presents, the British public are more connected with politics and politicians than ever before, and these days, disgruntled voters are far more likely to turn up one day, once a policy decision proves to be a bad one, and say "Why did you choose to do this?"

"We want answers and we want them now"!

As if to illustrate this point, in the news today are stories which go on to prove the under-handed tactics which are used when there are vast sums of money at stake. Tactics which come right from the top of the pile, (in this instance, "Sleaze-Free" Tony Blair's office).

In fact this issue would be the first which would see the Great British public baying for Tony Blairs resignation. Or thats what history would have us believe when in fact it was just the Conservative party PR machine doing what they do.

Health Policies
Public health is a political potatoe which never loses its 'hot' and at the forefront of this particular debate is the ban on tobacco advertising in sport.

It was 1996-1997 and a ban on advertising tobacco products in sport had recently been implemented by Tessa Jowell's Department of Health, but it appears Tony Blair intervened after a meeting with "Mr Formula 1" himself Bernie Ecclestone, who stood to lose literally millions of pounds in lost advertising revenue's as a result of the ban.

As a show of goodwill Mr Ecclestone wrote a cheque to the tune of £1 million pounds as a donation to the Labour party, in return for the nations Prime Minister bending the rules to suit Bernie Ecclestones business empire.

To recap, this is no longer simple political conspiracy. This actually happened!

The Government has always insisted the meeting with Labour donor Mr Ecclestone did not swing the move to offer the exemption.

But previously secret papers show that the day after he met the multi-millionaire racing boss, Downing Street wrote to Tessa Jowell at the Department of Health.

The document said: "The Prime Minister would like your ministers to look for ways of finding a permanent derogation for sport, in particular F1."

In short, they wanted the rules changed to suit Ecclestone, and when the "Prime Minister" asks, he or she usually "gets".

History shows the Ecclestone affair was New Labour's first major scandal and a test of Mr Blair's leadership and sleaze-free claims.

Mr Blair faced calls to resign with the revelation that Mr Ecclestone gave Blairs New-Labour £1 million just months before the ad U-turn.

Money speaks louder than science
So it would appear that money talks in the corridors of power, and the all-powerful tobacco and alcohol lobbies seem to be given carte-blance when it comes to selling their wares, and regardless of the amounts of deaths this truly lethal combination of recreational drugs brings with it as a by-product.

There's absolutely no doubt that in the future, white papers, communications, e-mails and ministerial memo's will come to light showing how the tobacco and alcohol industries have played no small part in the witch-hunt which surrounds cannabis currently.

Whilst no sensible adult would disagree with the importance of bringing the public's attention to the health risks which come as a result of using cannabis, sending people to prison just for sitting in their own homes and consuming what is (whether you agree with it or not), an inherently safe recreational drug, and certainly a lot safer, as science has since proven, than cigarettes or alcohol, is both inhumane, and a gross breach of our human rights.

The Ecclestone affair has come to light as the papers surrounding the whole sordid saga are released under Freedom of Information rules and I think its fair to say this will happen again in the future regarding cannabis.

And when this happens the British cannabis community will come looking for Gordon Brown, for Jacqui Smith and for Vernon Coaker and bring them collectively to task, for sending tens of thousands of people to court, and to prison, for doing no more than is perfectly legal and acceptable for citizens of our European partner countries such as Holland, Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.

And not for any great public health concerns either.

But for money.

By Red Dragon

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