Source: York Evening Post, UK

Date: Wednesday, 3 September 2003

Pub LTE: Cannabis use is endemic.  Legalising it would not create a surge in use

Author: Steve Clements Legalise Cannabis Alliance

 

CANNABIS USE IS ENDEMIC. LEGALISING IT WOULD NOT CREATE A SURGE IN USE

In the week when the Dutch government announced that its doctors will be able to prescribe cannabis to patients, STEVE CLEMENTS, right, argues that it is time to legalise the drug in Britain

I READ with great interest the Evening Press article "Patients may get cannabis" (August 20). At last tests are being carried out to confirm what medical users of cannabis have been saying for years.

It's good to hear that this amazing plant may at last be returned to its medicinal use, recognised for thousands of years. Cannabis causes far less harm than the horrendous man-made pain killers such as aspirin and paracetamol which are available in every corner shop, and which harm or kill thousands of people every year.

However, testing cannabis for medical use is not enough. Cannabis needs to be legalised without delay.

Thousands of law-abiding people are criminalised every year for using cannabis, and some of them are very sick. This is a victimless crime, costs the taxpayer a ridiculous amount of money and in many cases contravenes people's human rights of privacy and choice.

In the meantime society's love of alcohol continues unchecked, as we now see clothes shops seeking licenses to sell it, bringing further outlets into the public arena to fuel the drink-frenzied economy. That will create more misery and more violence, not to mention more expense to the taxpayer, as the police try to control the streets and the NHS struggles to cope with the alcoholic aftermath.

Alcohol costs us millions of pounds and leads to tens of thousands of deaths every year. I wonder about the sense of it all as I walk to work on Sunday morning through the blood and vomit-stained streets of York, as our socially accepted use of one of the most dangerous drugs available continues unabated.

If the council grants licenses to clothes shops to sell alcohol, will they also grant me a license to open a cannabis café in York? I can guarantee that the behaviour of customers at such an establishment would be far more acceptable than what we now see on our streets everyday outside our pubs and clubs.

The people of this country have had enough of spin and lies from politicians and prohibitionists whose "war on drugs" has created the worst drug problem this country has faced. The present policies are an abject failure and are letting down our young people, because the confusion surrounding re-classification of cannabis has led to another Government fudge.

It's time for change, and time for a proper constructive debate on these issues. Cannabis use is endemic in our society. Legalising it would not create a surge in use, if anything its use would fall, as happened in Holland.

Everyone who wants to use cannabis is already doing so, and due to the black market, impure, toxic cannabis resin is readily available to children throughout the country.

I am so irritated by the failure of the authorities to address these issues properly that I have signed up as an endorsee of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, a registered political party.

I also intend to put myself up for election in York, potentially at both the next local and Parliamentary elections.

I believe any laws based on lies and misinformation, and which lead to continued arrests of the sick and innocent, are fundamentally flawed and have no place in a modern democratic society.

What are the authorities so afraid of with this plant? It's only in the past 70 years or so that it has become so demonised, mainly due to racism and the need for corporate profit.

Did we learn nothing from the prohibition of alcohol in America during the 1920s? A ban does not work, and as we have seen with the drug market, has introduced modern day gangsters into our society, and how they have thrived.

Now is the time for change, now is the time to look at these problems with common sense and realism and to implement workable policies which will reduce hard drug use. The starting point has to be to take cannabis out of the criminal market to regulate its quality and supply, thus reducing harm and making the illegal market a thing of the past.

Steve Clements is the prospective York candidate for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance