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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Clarke clings to the grand illusion of prohibition
Danny Kushlick The Guardian
Tuesday 24 Jan 2006 The debate on reclassifying cannabis has served the government well in diverting attention from the miserable failure of its entire drug policy. Like an accomplished conjuror, Charles Clarke has created an illusion of concern over young people's mental health while presiding over a policy that is creating mayhem from Bogotá to Brixton - drug prohibition. Far from engaging in a debate on the efficacy of continuing a policy that costs the UK UKP16bn a year in drug-related crime, he has become trapped in a meaningless furore over the relative naughtiness of producing, supplying and possessing dope. Article continues In the week that Mr Clarke decided to make no new decision about cannabis classification, what should have been a significant opportunity for intelligent people to discuss the efficacy, or not, of attempted prohibition, sometimes became a parade of misinformation. In an otherwise cogent piece articulating the idiocy of cannabis reclassification, Marcel Berlins espoused some long-standing drugs propaganda, and dismissed the legalisation discourse with disappointing flippancy (Charles Clarke shouldn't fret about the legal chaos over cannabis. It's not even on his boss's respect agenda, January 18). Berlins was absolutely right to point out that cannabis is not demonised in the same way that other drugs are, but then went on to repeat the myths that demonise other so-called "hard" drugs. Indeed, if you look at the drug classification system as a whole, it becomes very clear that the drugs with the highest classifications are not the ones that cause the most harm, such as alcohol and tobacco, but those with the highest demonisation quotient. Not since Paul Betts' Sorted campaign have we been told that ecstasy is "quite often fatal". In fact, even in the unregulated illegal market ecstasy is relatively safe, with a tiny number of deaths each year compared to the number of doses taken. And no, "pot" isn't stronger than it was in the 60s. There have always been both strong and weak versions of cannabis, as recent European research tells us. What has happened is that prohibition has created a skunk monoculture where growers produce the variety with the highest yield, potency and profit margin - thus denying consumers the opportunity to buy weaker versions. As for legalisation, of course it would "make the product less subject to criminal influence". It is prohibition that gifts the entire market to criminals and unregulated dealers. And mark my words, legalisation will happen. Global drug prohibition will be history within 15 years - its counterproductivity makes it untenable in the long term. Twenty billion pounds a year for another 10 years...you do the maths. - Danny Kushlick is the director of Transform Drug Policy Foundation and a former drug counsellor in the criminal justice system tdpf.org.uk
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