02 April 2008

British Prime Minister Reclassifies Cannabis

From the Telegraph:
Gordon Brown today gave his backing for cannabis to be reclassified as a more serious drug later this month in a move that will reverse its downgrading by his predecessor....

At his monthly press conference, the Prime Minister revealed his strong support for reclassifying cannabis as a "class B" rather than "class C" drug....

People found in possession of Class B drugs can face a five-year jail term and an unlimited fine.
I don't know much about British prison systems, but if it's anything like America's putting people in jail for having possession of weed is resulting in overflowing prisons. Shouldn't taxes go toward keeping real criminals behind bars? Considering marijuana doesn't kill people (like alcohol poisoning and harder drugs can), more attention should be paid to actually dangerous activities. Plus, a lot of studies have shown that marijuana can be beneficial to many people. So why is it still illegal? Because our governments are making too much money from imprisoning pot heads.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Will we begin arresting and fining without limit with the likes of Sir Paul McCartney and people like Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin and The Guitarist for the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards, who have been published recently as being still into their marijuana smoking?

And what about those cabinet ministers, all of whom have admitted to smoking cannabis at university?

Did a Class B ranking deter them?

Did cannabis damage them?

If not, why not? And can the prime minister suggest how 5 years prison and an unlimited fine would have helped any of the above to achieve the great heights that they have?

If he cannot explain how these punishments would have helped any of these people achieve what they have achieved, why is he so willing to have all those who came after( his government) make such a trip through the criminal-judicial system?

And would he please not begin devolve into ranting the "skunk is new and dangerous" lies, which have been shown by the BBC to be exaggerated at best, and outrageous, obvious, calculated lies at worst, for the purpose of getting people to believe that this so-called "skunk," is a new and fundamentally different drug than anyone heretofore has had experience with.

Insomuch as people have always been able to smoke more of whatever was around, and that until recently much of the cannabis smoked in the UK was in the form of hashish, the distilled spirits of cannabis, almost always mixed with tobacco, the "stronger cannabis is bad," conjecture is just that... conjecture.

Reality is that cannabis users smoke until they reach their desired level of intoxication. It is unlike alcohol, where the more you drink, the more you want to and think you can drink.

This is likely the genesis of all of the bugaboo about cannabis: Alcohol users assume that their experience with booze, which they know to be terribly deleterious to their own lives, families, communities and country can be extended to every drug.

But since they imbibe and cannot imagine a life without gin, scotch, or ale, these alcohol users refuse to allow alcohol to even be discussed alongside these other "illegal," drugs.

In the end, then, this is about bigotry. People of Brown's age and the industry from which he comes have an unique hatred of cannabis users. Coming from Scotland doesn't help, either.

Fore Brown, cannabis is less the problem than its users, who are the devil's spawn, and he is just like Nixon in this irrational and bigoted hatred of cannabis users, with Nixon blaming, "the Jews," for what he considered to be a problem as big as socialism and communism for the USA.

I feel sorry for UK citizens, as this change back to B has come literally from the police, the crown prosecution service, and the media, who seem to have some real long pole shoved up there arses where cannabis is concerned.

Reclassification has nothing whatsoever to do with public health, as the -decline- in cannabis use since the 2004 downgrading to class c has gone very nearly unreported, and the Government, while acknowledging the decline in use, simply wishes it reclassified.

These are not actions of a government working within a Democracy.

And you Brits thought we had a problem with GW Bush. Fortunately he will be gone soon.

Will Brown be gone soon? Soon enough to prevent this reclassification?

Will labour be chosen to lead the government in upcoming elections?

Are any of the probable election winners and their probable prime ministerial choices who will set forth a 4th ACMD study on the correct classification of cannabis, or will this issue be closed for several decades?

Too bad for the UK, as the above clearly shows, its citizens are living in a police state tyranny, by definition.

Media terms such as "cannabis man," "skunk,", and "cannabis factory," as well as the weekly report of the umpteenth knifing of someone, for whom, despite years or decades of documented mental illness and/or meth-amphetamine abuse, it was still the cannabis -and only the (skunk) cannabis- which led to this brutal violence.

Why do you Brits stand for this? You fought WWII against this very sort of tyranny. Not a ban on cannabis per se, but laws being made incestuously and for clearly bigoted rationale, with the truth being obscured or omitted by those in the media who, almost universally support brutal prohibition