If everyone at Westminster jerked...

...their knee at the same time, do you think it might catapult them all off to Poland or similar where they'd no doubt find their authoritarian meddling in other peoples' lives more acceptable and satisfying?

Haroon Siddique and Matthew Tempest
Wednesday July 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

Gordon Brown today announced the second review in two years into whether cannabis should be reclassified, in response to concerns that its current status does not reflect the drug's dangers.

Mr Brown announced the review, which will look at whether cannabis should be reclassified as class B again - rather than its present class C - at prime minister's questions.

Of course a "review" is also an opportunity to persuade of the opposite case, though anyone who received the government's reply to a pro-legalization petition the other day will know just how prejudiced they are heading into this latest review.

In 2005, 10,000 11- to 17-year-olds were treated for cannabis use - 10 times the number a decade ago.

Yeah - you know what - reclassifying will not make any difference in a black market where pushers don't really care about the age of their customers. Decriminalizing and penalizing people extremely harshly who sell to minors would.

But I'd love to know where this 10,000 figure comes from - before it becomes a matter of popular "fact" created by a political spin doctor. Officially there were just 946 mental health admissions related to cannabis in total in the UK in all age groups in 2005-6. So it seems extraordinary that, given the most common juxtaposition is between mental health and cannabis, that ten times the total number of mental health admissions can be attributed to youngsters suffering other problems as a result of the drug. By contrast, there were 5700+ hospital admissions of under 16 year olds due to alcohol abuse in the same year.

Plants are increasingly cultivated to include high levels of the active ingredient of cannabis, THC, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, which encourages addiction and can cause a range of symptoms, from short-term memory loss, anxiety and panic attacks to triggering schizophrenia.

They are so cultivated because of the illegal market in which they operate. Where pushers and growers want to get the maximum value they can out of as little as possible to minimize their chances of being caught. It's not that difficult to measure the THC in any one strain or plant. So decriminalizing and forcing people to sell only with a statement of how strong it was would solve that one too. You don't expect people to be drinking pints of full strength Whisky when they go out for small beer do you? That's what the criminal nature of the market is forcing on cannabis consumers.

Prohibition has not worked and never will work. However unlikely, every review of the situation is an opportunity to persuade of the better course. Jacqui - read this first. On the other hand, given that most of us are criminals anyway, maybe if you stick to the paper clips and I'll stick to unwinding after work with a joint we'll all get along fine.

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