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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: High Society Matthew Engel Financial Times Saturday 11 Aug 2007 I said no. It is true that the war, in so far as it had any legitimate and coherent objectives, has achieved the reverse of all of them, while causing many thousand deaths. But in this list it seemed to me impossible to place it higher than No 4. In third place comes the decision by the Israelis to use their 1967 conquests not as the basis for possible peace but to create a settler-based empire. It is hard to overstate the consequences of this for Israel, the Middle East and the world. But already this is being eclipsed by the world’s response to the scientific consensus on global warming, consisting of a maximum of rhetorical flourish and a minimum of meaningful action. Yet so far none of these, I suspect, has caused as much death, destruction and misery as the laws that have barred legitimate business from the recreational drugs industry and handed a worldwide monopoly of distribution to the Mafia and its imitators. Researchers have estimated that half the crime in the US is committed by people selling drugs, on drugs or trying to steal money to buy drugs. Similar figures would apply elsewhere: there is a worldwide trail of mayhem and destruction. Governments ought to be doing something about this, of course. Unfortunately, having outsourced control of the drugs to the gangsters and warlords, they are effectively cut off from any response except inane gestures. The latest outbreak of reefer madness has occurred in Britain. Gordon Brown is considering reclassifying cannabis as a Class B rather than Class C drug. This would increase the maximum penalty for possession from two years to five. The prisons barely have enough space to contain the murderers, never mind an estimated five million dope-smokers, and the move is meaningless. However, it would reverse a decision taken by Tony Blair, and enhance the new prime minister’s pre-election standing with the rightwing tabloids. It coincides with three other developments. Firstly, various government ministers, including the new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (who is in charge of crime policy), have confessed to minor, youthful indiscretions with drugs, presumably to pre-empt newspaper revelations. Secondly, a much publicised new report, published in the medical journal, The Lancet, claimed a link between cannabis use and psychosis – although even the senior author said cannabis users may have other characteristics that would predispose them to psychosis. And thirdly, the same day’s papers also reported – without making any sensible connection – that yet another London teenager, at least the 10th in seven months, had been shot dead, apparently by a drug gang. Say what you like about the tobacco companies and the breweries, they don’t go round shooting kids. It is also being put about that the cannabis available now is much stronger than when Jacqui Smith was puffing, not policing. Your kids are not smoking the stuff that made you mellow; it’s wicked skunk, they say. If that were true (and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction says it is a gross over-simplification), it would just prove the point. Often, drug buyers score what they can get or are given, and are denied an informed choice by the illegality of the transaction. The drug prohibition worldwide is a total failure. Afghanistan’s poppy crop has had a record-breaking year (that’s the US ambassador’s view, not mine) and, in a rare example of progress, the country is now reportedly exporting processed heroin rather than raw opium. In South America, years of trying to eradicate coca fields have had minimal effect. Sales of cannabis from Morocco, the world’s leading exporter, are booming and believed to be funding al-Qaeda activities. Yet every now and again the head of the UN office on drugs and crime, Antonio Maria Costa, pops up with some cheery bit of nonsense. In 2003 he said his organisation was on target to deal with the problem by 2008. Now he says “the world drug situation has stabilised and been brought under control”. Does anyone believe this claptrap? It is clear that drugs policy would be infinitely better conducted if governments actually had some influence on the business. Legalisation would enable them to tax the drugs, ensure quality control, cut out the most dangerous strains, help genuine addicts, try to prevent the sale to minors, de-glamorise the habit and, above all, deny the gangs and the terrorists their financial lifeblood. But, as so often, politicians find it safer to go in for posturing than useful action.
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