Now experts say cannabis should be legal - Scotsman.com News
CANNABIS should be legalised and taxed, an influential Scottish think tank recommended yesterday, just weeks after the Government hardened its attitude towards the drug, reclassifying it as a class B substance.
The Scottish Futures Forum yesterday published a report on drugs and alcohol in Scotland, saying one way to tackle the problem of addiction to harder drugs was to tax and regulate cannabis.
Forum chairman Frank Pignatelli said studies of San Francisco, where cannabis is illegal, and the Netherlands, where it is decriminalised, showed that the idea is worth considering because it breaks the link with class A drugs. In the Netherlands, only 17 per cent of cannabis sellers were also selling drugs such as crack, cocaine and heroin, while in San Francisco it was more than 50 per cent.
The idea was one of several aimed at halving drug addiction in Scotland by 2025.
The forum’s suggestion has been welcomed by the Legalise Cannabis Alliance UK, which claimed Scotland is leading the way on the issue.
Don Barnard, a spokesman, said: “The Scots seem to have been taking a more mature view and I hope the recommendation is taken seriously.”
The idea has also been backed by the Greens. Patrick Harvie, MSP, said: “The current approach to criminalising drug users has been one of the most obvious failures of social policy over the last 50 years, and the Futures Forum should be thanked for their efforts to move the debate on. We broadly welcome their report.”
The only way that marijuana is a gateway drug is that it takes you to the gate of the drug dealer who is also selling harder drugs. You know why scotch isn’t a gateway drug? Because there is no shelf full of cocaine next to it at the liquor store. When 1 out of 6 Dutch pot dealers offer hard drugs compared to 3 out of 6 San Francisco dealers, it becomes obvious that criminalization of cannabis is exacerbating hard drug use.
It’s Thursday, May 22nd and it’s 4:20 somewhere in the world. I’m your host, “Radical” Russ Belville and this is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
Don’t forget to get on the phone and call your Congress at 202-224-3121. Tell your representative to support Ron Paul’s HR5842, the bill to end DEA raids in medical marijuana states, and Barney Frank’s HR5843, the bill to end federal penalties for personal possession of marijuana.
Today on the Daily Audio Stash we’re traveling across the pond to speak with Steven Rolles, the research director of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation in London, England. We’re talking about the recent reclassification of cannabis from Class C back up to Class B and the overall UK reefer madness obsession with the dreaded “skunk”.
For our musical break today, Cannabis Karri brings us some smooth funky jazz from Yamasaki, with a song he calls “Herbal Remedy”.
Then we’ll finish up with Ryan Davidson from the Liberty Lobby of Idaho. Ryan’s the man behind three initiatives passed in Hailey that legalize medical marijuana and industrial hemp and direct police to treat cannabis law enforcement as the lowest priority. You’ll hear about the latest crazy twist in this story coming up in our Hemp Headlines.
We’re also playing Pass the Stash – you could win a free autographed DVD of the movie “Totally Baked” – keep listening for details.
We’ve got a lot to cover, so sit back and relax with a meeting of your Joint Subcommittee and enjoy your NORML Daily Audio Stash…
Oh, that dastardly cannabis! First you turn us into sex crazed dope fiends back in the 1930s, now you shrink our willies and force the gub’mint to spend too much money on boner pills!
The number of patients being prescribed the blue pill is climbing by 20 per cent a year in some areas.
Experts believe cannabis use could be why more younger men and teens are being treated for impotence.
The majority of those taking Viagra are men under 40 - but there has been a marked increase in the number of teenage boys being treated for erectile dysfunction.
In the last two weeks, two experts have linked cannabis use with impotence in young men.
Ian Russell, an expert on sexual health at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, revealed more Scottish teens than ever before are suffering impotence after smoking cannabis during puberty.
And Derek Rutherford, a specialist in sexual medicine for NHS Ayrshire and Arran, said he had prescribed Viagra to cannabis smokers.
It is believed so much is being spent in the west of Scotland because traditional health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes, coupled with the high incidence of smoking, all increase the likelihood of impotence.
Leading urologist Robyn Webber believes men are no longer embarrassed to admit they have problems in the bedroom.
She said: “Only a few years ago, it was quite rare for men to come forward and seek help for sexual problems. Now it is far more common.”
No, it’s not that there is wall-to-wall advertising for Viagra, more people have heard of Viagra, more people know they can get Viagra, men feel pressure to perform and would buy the drug as an enhancement rather than a treatment, more young people are fatter and eating poorly and playing video games all day, no, no, it’s the reefers!
Hey, I don’t have any problem with men who wish to take a moderately-safe drug for recreational purposes. But I think that the ratio of young men with medical-grade erectile dysfunction to those who use it to make their sex lives better is about the same as the ratio of cancer and AIDS patients in state medical marijuana programs to those who use it to make their daily lives better. (No offense, cuz I think anyone who wants the herb should have it, medical condition or not.)
Could it be that there are just a lot of people who smoke cannabis, and some get ED? And what of the men who report enhanced sex lives from using cannabis? Whoever they may be…
Wednesday is Cannabis Science day on the Stash, and coming up after the news, we’re separating the stems of propaganda from the buds of truth with Dr. Mitch Earleywine. Today Dr. Mitch has a message for the prime minister of the United Kingdom, Gordon Brown, who is considering upgrading the classification of cannabis from a fine-only drug to one that can get you arrested, despite his panel of experts recommending against it.
Cannabis Karri is back for our musical break this hempday humpday with some reggae from a group called “Pirate Radio”. The song is called “The Dread Pirate Roberts”, and it just makes me wonder if one of the band members isn’t named “Inigo Montoya”.
Then we wrap things up with Mike Gray of Common Sense for Drug Policy, the acclaimed filmmaker and screenwriter and author of Drug Crazy. Mike is promoting a new educational DVD entitled Clergy Speak Out on the War on Drugs and it is a powerful look at the rabbis, priests, and ministers who work on the front lines of the drug war every day and deal with the people left hopeless by addiction.
So welcome to the show, grab your best glass and sit back with your favorite strain… This is your NORML Daily Audio Stash.
Gordon Brown is facing a dilemma over whether to overrule his own panel of experts and increase the penalties for being caught in possession of cannabis.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is understood to have decided at a private meeting that it will not recommend tightening the law on the drug.
The decision presents a potential embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who earlier this week said that he regarded cannabis use as not just illegal but also unacceptable.
It is understood that 20 out of the panel’s 23 experts decided on Wednesday that there was not sufficient new scientific evidence to justify a change.
If Mr Brown decides to press ahead with reclassification, he will risk becoming only the second Prime Minister to over-rule the council, which is a statutory non-departmental public body dating from 1971.
The Government reclassified cannabis as a Class C substance - dropping the penalty for possession from five to two years in jail - in 2004.
Since then it has reviewed the decision twice, in 2005 and 2008.
Conservative leader David Cameron said: “There are all sorts of cannabis on the streets today. Skunk and super skunk are incredibly powerful and can lead to people having all sorts of mental health problems.”
The mental health charity Rethink, which gave evidence to the committee, said Mr Brown should heed the committee’s advice.
Paul Corry, a spokesman, said: “Gordon Brown should put aside his personal views on cannabis and accept the fact that it does not make sense to reclassify.
“Use of the drug has gone down since it was downgraded in 2004 and research by Rethink shows that only 3 per cent of users would consider stopping on the grounds of illegality.”
The committee is understood to have concluded there was no need re-classify after new research found no evidence that rising cannabis use in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s had led to increases in schizophrenia.
This is despite many reports pointing to a links between super-strength skunk cannabis, which accounts for 80 per cent of street cannabis, and mental illnesses such as schizoprenia and psychosis.
The prime minister and the conservatives are completely in the grips of reefer madness. The media in the UK flood the airwaves and newsstands with scare stories of the dreaded “super skunk” causing violent psychosis and schizophrenia, stories that would make American 20th century prohibitionists Harry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Hearst proud.
The reason 20 of 23 of the experts on Brown’s committee on misuse of drugs recommend against upgrading cannabis to a higher class of dangerous drugs is because they pay attention to the science, not the lurid British tabloids that want to peddle reefer madness stories to sell copy and suck up to the conservative government.
Next Wednesday, I’ll discuss this story with Dr. Mitch Earleywine, who has all of the science on these reports of “super skunk” in the UK. Meanwhile, if there are any tokin’ Tories, sinsemilla subjects, or bong-hittin Britons who want to weigh in on cannabis culture across the pond and the crazy reefer madness in the media, please email me at stash ‘at’ norml.org.
If you haven’t followed the War On (Certain British Subjects Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs going on “across the pond”, then you’re missing some Reefer Madness reminiscent of the days of Harry J. Anslinger and warnings of marijuana being more frightening than Frankenstein and the devil’s tool to make Negroes kill white men and rape white women.
The tactics are familiar. Anslinger took “cannabis” and “hemp”, which almost every early-20th Century American knew to be a common medication and a source of rope and canvas, and re-branded it “marijuana”. That way he and his buddy, William Randolph Hearst, could spread sensationalist lies about cannabis in Hearst’s newspapers, and the scary, Mexican-sounding word helped frighten people about weed in a way that scaremongering on “cannabis” and “hemp” would not.
But the British version of this, happening right now in the 21st Century, is to re-brand the popular herb as “skunk”, with the addition of the scaremongering “this ain’t your father’s pot” rhetoric (”’skunk’ is fifty times more potent than the ganja of the 1960s!”). And this time, it’s not the Negroes coming to hurt whitey, but rather the patently false claim that ’skunk’ triggers psychosis and schizophrenia.
Here is a typical article, from The Argus in the UK…
A mother driven insane by cannabis stabbed herself repeatedly through the chest with a carving knife after claiming she was spoken to by a dog.
Julie Cross told friends the animal was “trying to tell her something” before picking up the 5in blade and ramming it at least five times into her chest and abdomen.
An inquest was told the former receptionist, from Goring, used speed and cannabis on a daily basis and in the weeks running up to her death had slashed her wrists and smeared her blood across a crucifix and also hung a noose from her attic.
Cannabis and speed! Do ya think, perhaps, the speed had more to do with the psychosis? That’s a link that has substantial basis in research and plenty of anecdotal evidence that I’ll testify to as a former club musician who’s seen his share of tweekers.
Environmentally-friendly concrete made from a variety of the cannabis plant is being used on a new £6.2m project at an eco-centre in Powys.
Made from hemp and called hemcrete, the mixture is being applied to walls at the Centre for Alternative Technology (Cat), near Machynlleth.
A lot of energy is used to make the common form of concrete in comparison to its “greener” cousin, said Cat.
Hemp is legal and part of the cannabis species, which includes marijuana.
It is identical in appearance to the illegal drug, but it lacks the narcotic qualities.
Hemp is grown in the UK and is recognised to be a versatile crop and is used to make many retail products.
Hemcrete, made from hemp stalks, lime and a small quantity of cement, produces less carbon emissions than conventional concrete, said Cat.
The product is being sprayed onto heraklith (woodwool) boards at Cat’s new Wales Institute for Sustainable Education (Wise).
The £6.2m training and conference venue will extend the eco-centre’s courses in subjects such as sustainable architecture and solar power for electricians.
Meanwhile, the United States still bans the cultivation of hemp to be made into such environmentally-friendly products because you can’t smoke hemp, but it looks like something you could smoke, so we just can’t be too careful.
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