UK: Cannabis on the Political Agenda in 2012

After an exciting close to 2011 the British cannabis campaign has taken a lot of heart from happenings around Europe regarding cannabis legislation. First of all it was announced Switzerland will permit its residents to grow up to 4 cannabis plants each, in a bid to remove prospective customers from the drug dealers queue.

Then right at the end of the year the Basque Parliament in Spain announced it would move to regulate the supply and possession of cannabis, essentially legalizing the much maligned cannabis plant in all but name.  Which is all exciting stuff, but what about the United Kingdom? Right?

With upwards of 6 million regular cannabis users in the UK (depending on what newspaper you read) it would be fair to suggest at least some of those would want to know how our European neighbors are able to use cannabis without fear of reprisals whilst here in the UK, the Home Office is still deploying transit vans full of police officers who go around kicking peoples doors down in the hope of finding at least a gram or two of cannabis, which is all it takes to justify such a gross invasion of privacy.

It’s a policy which has to stop, but it won’t stop until the public makes it happen.  So I asked Peter Reynolds, the elected leader of the UK’s only real cannabis campaign of note, (CLEAR-UK), what they expected to happen regarding cannabis legislation in the UK for 2012?

He was in bullish mood, feeling very optimistic when he answered by saying; Probably quite a lot. I expect to see some significant progress both in the UK and abroad.  The campaign has at last moved away from the hopeless hippy image of the past.  CLEAR has been instrumental in achieving that in the UK and it means that we are now becoming mainstream.  Cannabis is an important issue for everyone, users or non-users,  parents, doctors, politicians and, of course, hippies, whether they wear a suit or a kaftan.   In the US, organizations like NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and Moms for Marijuana have already transformed the image of cannabis and cannabis users.   In Europe, I am confident that the temporary blip in Holland will soon pass while Copenhagen, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and former Eastern bloc countries like the Czech Republic are leading the way with intelligent and progressive policies.

Israel’s medicinal cannabis program is establishing a model that others will soon follow.  The Home Affairs select committee inquiry into drugs policy is a huge opportunity and I am immensely proud of the way that CLEAR members and supporters have responded.  No one knows what its outcome will be as far as cannabis is concerned but make no mistake, when reform does finally arrive; this is how it will happen.  The government, ministers and the Home Office have been knowingly telling lies about cannabis for years.  They need an excuse to let them off the hook and perform a U turn.  A select committee report is exactly the mechanism that will allow this to happen.

Why have our political leaders been so dishonest with us? Principally out of fear of the Daily Mail whose mendacious campaign against cannabis we are finally starting to bring under control.  Although the Press Complaints Commission (PCC)  is undoubtedly a corrupt and dishonest organisation (it works in the interests of the press, not the public), CLEAR’s determined and consistent flow of complaints is having a big impact.  That is why we will continue until the PCC finally bites the dust.  Its replacement will undoubtedly be a lot tougher and I look forward to drafting my first complaint to it.  The days of liars like Amanda Platell being able to get away with falsifying scientific evidence are over.  I should think the PCC’s replacement is probably about a year away yet. Another reason is to please their chums in Big Booze and to secure lucrative directorships for themselves once they retire from politics.

One source of much of the improper influence over government is the Portman Group, an incredibly wealthy, shadowy lobbying organization for the alcohol industry.  These people are the real drug pushers that no caricature can properly describe as evil as they actually are.  They really do push this most poisonous of all substances with no concern at all for the millions of lingering deaths that it causes across the world every year.  They deliberately promote it to and make it more palatable for children.  They manipulate and distort markets with impunity and deliberately to get people addicted to their product. I shall never forget when England won the Ashes a year ago and the BBC News headlines had Andrew Strauss chortling in delight and screaming that his celebrations were going to involve “loads of alcohol”.

This was prime time television, while the kids were watching and it is deeply, deeply shocking when you consider how poisonous, harmful and deadly that particular drug is.  I should make it clear that I am not anti-alcohol.  I enjoy strong lager, red wine and, particularly, Irish whiskey but all drugs should be appropriately regulated with accurate information and harm reduction advice.  I say it was as irresponsible for Strauss to say what he did and for the BBC to broadcast it as if he had been advocating heroin use. The final reason I advance is Big Pharma, specifically GW Pharmaceuticals.  I have changed my view on this over the past year.  I used to think that Big Pharma in general was preventing access to cannabis as medicine but I think I was wrong.  GW Pharma, Echo Pharma and now Kannalife prove that pharmaceutical companies are perfectly happy to market cannabis medicines.  The problem is that GW has a corrupt and fundamentally dishonest relationship with not just the British government but also, at least the Dutch and US governments and the DEA. Inexplicably, except in the context of international corruption, GW obtained a licence from the DEA to import its genetics from Hortapharm in Holland.

It conned the British government into believing that Sativex was somehow not cannabis and now the Home Office has become complicit in the deception that Sativex is an extract of just two cannabinoids and has no psychoactive effect.   Ministers and senior civil servants have got themselves locked into the lie that “cannabis has no medicinal value”.  This is one reason I do expect change in the availability of medicinal cannabis quite soon.

The ACMD has recommended that Sativex be re-scheduled ‘schedule four’ of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Ministers have been sitting on this now for nearly a year.  If it is re-scheduled as anything else but cannabis it will be a lie and I expect legal action against the government if it tries to get away with it.  That will certainly be CLEAR’s plan if we can raise the necessary funds. However, the optimistic view would be that a helpful select committee report will enable them to come clean and accept the fact that cannabis does have medicinal value.  The pressure CLEAR is already applying to the Home Office directly and through the High Court will also help with this.  Litigation from sick people who want access to their medicine as prescribed by a doctor is, I believe, going to prove to be an irresistible force.  As for recreational use or the sort of regulated system that CLEAR has proposed, I believe that depends on the US.  Now more than 50% of Americans think marijuana should be legalized.  77% believe that medical marijuana should be available, so it is only a matter of time.

2012 will undoubtedly bring more medical marijuana states and it is possible even full legalization in one or more states.  There is a mass of litigation in the US about the crackdown on medical marijuana and I believe that some it will succeed.   More importantly, I think it is quite likely that Obama will return to his more positive position as the election approaches.  He needs young voters in which the proportion in favors is even higher.  Some have suggested that he might try to ride in like a white knight to “rescue” the medical marijuana industry and that is the sort of political trick I could see him conjuring up.

I’m afraid I don’t see much hope from the legalize cannabis e-petition.  I doubt that it will even make the necessary 100,000 signatures.  That level has been set ludicrously high when you consider that the equivalent in the US only needs 5,000 signatures in a country with four or five times the population.  CLEAR will continue to support the petition but even if we were to get a parliamentary debate, after it would need to come something like a select committee inquiry so we’re already there.

The petition has already been overtaken and superseded.  One very exciting possibility arises in just a couple of weeks.  Week commencing 23rd January, the Sentencing Council will publish its new drug offences guidelines.  I am pretty confident that it will formally recommend medicinal use as substantial mitigation for any cannabis offence.

Even more exciting, I think there is a very good chance that the recommended sentence for growing two or three plants will be either a discharge or a minimum community order.  That will effectively amount to decriminalization because neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service will be interested in pursuing such offences.

Although the guidelines are out this month, I believe they will not come into force until three or six months later. As a minimum they should produce some consistency in sentencing so that anyone growing will know how to avoid a severe sentence.  So 2012 holds a great deal of promise.  I think the greatest enemy of reform is tribalism.  Both CLEAR and I have been attacked by some cannabis users and growers as the enemy because of our tax and regulate proposals and particularly the idea of licensing for home cultivation.

This attitude is so short sighted and exactly what has stopped us form making progress up to now.   Of course, I would like to see cannabis treated as carrots or tomatoes but it isn’t going to happen.  Sticking to this obstinate, tribal position is delusional and self-defeating.

We need to grow up!  We need these sort of constructive proposals to move the issue along.  There is not going to be a revolution and however unfair it may be, if you have to pay a hundred quid or so for a license to grow your own, it’s going to be a lot better than the present situation! If the cannabis campaign is still seen as the bunch of hopeless hippies that it has been for so long then we will get nowhere.  Making our message mainstream is key. That is why CLEAR needs and deserves your support.

So there is a campaign which hopes to bring an end to the government’s irrational stance on cannabis, but without the much needed public support it deserves, the likelihood of anything actually coming of this campaign is low.

Regardless of whether your interest is in medical cannabis, recreational use, growing the stuff or selling the seeds to grow it, your help is needed.  Only with a huge move in public opinion will politicians be prepared to pick up what remains the hottest of political hot potatoes.  So please visit CLEAR-UK and find out how you can do your part in changing this obscene and corrupt law. CLEAR-UK.org

-Cannazine Cannabis News

Posted by Cannabis Now Team on Jan 16 2012. Filed under Breaking News, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry