'REAL
RISKS FROM CANNABIS NEED TO BE RECOGNISED': Published letter
Source: Hull Daily Mail, UK
Pub date: Monday March 10, 2003
Pub LTE: 'Real risks from illegal cannabis
use need to be recognised' - Clarity needed to find drug answer
Author: Carl Wagner
Contact: letters@hulldailymail.co.uk
'REAL RISKS FROM CANNABIS NEED TO BE
RECOGNISED' - CLARITY NEEDED TO FIND DRUG ANSWER
After reporting the tragic story of
Valerie Parker, who has lost two children in eight years because of the
unregulated drug market, the Mail quite rightly said that conventional methods
of preventing drug abuse are not working (Feb 7).
The question is what do we do about it?
The drug problem is now distorting the
whole of the law enforcement and legal system of this country.
We have a duty to look at the laws we
already have, look at the effect they are having on society, look at the social
circumstances surrounding drug use and drug abuse, and tailor our laws
accordingly, because society can no longer afford to pay the price that the
current policy of prohibition is costing.
For policy makers to blame drugs for the
crime problem is dysfunctional denial.
Prohibition causes crime. Not only does it
increase the sheer volume of offences by making crimes of things that are not
criminal, it increases the frequency and violence of crime. It also creates
opportunities for police brutality, corruption and bribery.
Being against drug taking in principle is
a valid position to take, but the 'holistic' approach - pretending all drugs
are equally dangerous and addictive - has resulted in immense social harm: the
criminalisation of large numbers of young people, deaths as a result of lack of
information and support, and alienation of many young people from authority.
Cannabis use is common and socially
tolerated among many young people and any drugs or crime policy in our society
that ignores cannabis is ill conceived, incomplete and irresponsible.
We often hear the phrase "harm
reduction" in relation to cocaine and heroin users and addicts, but we
seldom hear anything about harm reduction for cannabis use. Are we to assume
that the Hull and East Riding Drug Action Team, despite its claims that
cannabis is a dangerous substance, does not consider it important to advise
cannabis users on safer use?
The real risks from illegal cannabis use
need to be recognised and tackled.
Full legalisation would enable the laws on
quality, weights etc, that already exist to be applied to cannabis, enable
taxation on profits, would divorce supplies from hard drugs, allow home
cultivation, allow public consumption premises (maybe coffee shops). It would
protect the consumer from the type of dealer who sells dubious substances.
There has never been a "drug
free" society; it defies reason, and it is arrogant and totalitarian for a
small, shrill special-interest group to try to impose its own version of
morality on the rest of society, especially considering that prohibition itself
is the cause of most drug-related harms.
Carl Wagner
Legalise Cannabis Alliance
Victoria Square
Ella Street
Hull