No Victim No Crime

by Mark Gibson

Source: The Herald, UK

Pub Date: Sat, 26th May 2001

No Victim No Crime

Contact: cwherald@global.net.co.uk

Notes: newshawk's header

NO VICTIM NO CRIME

You only have to look around the neighbourhood to see how the banning of cannabis has had a devastating effect on our society and environment. It is an issue which directly affects crime, drugs, education, health, pollution, textile, food, agriculture, religion, and Human Rights. The disastrous prohibition of cannabis affects us on a local as well as national level.

All the problems associated with the illegal use of cannabis are created by prohibition itself. Efforts at enforcing the law usually result in the prosecution of the cannabis user, the very type of person the law is meant to protect. The present laws neither protect the user from bad quality cannabis adulterated with many impurities, nor from high prices. Those who choose to use cannabis -whether for medicinal, religious or for recreational reasons - are forced to venture into the illegal marketplace where hard drugs may also be on offer. That includes children.

The Labour Government recognises the problems with hard drugs used amongst schoolchildren; they also say that there is no such thing as a 'soft' drug. Their policy of "Tackling Drugs Together" throws all the illegal 'drugs', including cannabis, into one bag labelled 'dangerous'. No wonder some people move from cannabis on to hard drugs when the authorities insist they are all equally dangerous. They are certainly all the more dangerous because they are illegal due to the nature of their supply.

Nobody has ever died from consuming cannabis (over thousands of years of use). Cannabis is not itself addictive; the truth is that it could be said that for an addictive personality cannabis is the safest of all substances to take! It is not chemically addictive and not poisonous unlike coffee or tea! (Cannabis is non-toxic).

Many scientific studies have confirmed that cannabis is safe, yet the Government continues to spend BILLIONS of pounds each year 'fighting the drug war', which in truth is a war on people. Over 100,000 people are arrested each year for simple possession of a safe plant. Over 70,000 are prosecuted. Few stop using cannabis. Some lose their jobs, their homes or their lives.

I know from watching the therapeutic effect on the on the symptoms of my wife's illness -multiple sclerosis- that a law that punishes those who benefit from cannabis is entirely unjust. I would not wish to advise anybody to break the law, but clearly I am not alone in feeling that sometimes it is essential. In any case it makes no sense to punish a cannabis-user who is hurting nobody. It is a waste of resources and unnecessarily creates alienation and criminal records.

The old 'Reefer Madness' campaign, which claimed that one smoke on a joint would turn a man into a homicidal maniac, with a huge budget and propaganda machine, frightened the public so much that many people willingly sacrificed the use of the plant as a fibre (for clothes, ropes, sails, tents), fuel (for cars, planes and homes), medicine, food and general relaxant. Conveniently - for some - it was replaced by synthetic products. Super-rich industrialists have become even richer. Meanwhile the world is polluted and we have the drugs problem. There is something wrong here. Why ban a plant which has a proven medicinal value - one which has been described as "remarkably safe" - in favour of synthetic products? Why ban a safe fuel in favour of polluting oil and deadly radioactive isotopes? Why ban a fibre which is stronger and softer than cotton and which requires no artificial fertilizer, in favour of nylon and plastic which have polluting bye-products? Why lock someone up for selling a plant, which kills no one, yet tax the sale of another plant (tobacco), which kills over 150,000 people a year in the UK alone? It is certainly not in the interests of society.

My reason for standing in this election is to give a voice to cannabis users and help bring an end to the immense damage caused to society by the prohibition of cannabis.

Mark.

NO VICTIM, NO CRIME!