Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jul 2006
Source: Sunday Independent (Ireland)
Copyright: 2006 Independent Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.independent.ie/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/434
Author: Olaf Tyaransen
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

CANNABIS - WHY IT SHOULD BE LEGALISED

SHOULD Michael MacDowell ever do Desert Island Discs, his list is
unlikely to include the song Contemplating Contempt by obscure
Nineties Irish rockers The Far Canals. The lyrics work better sung
than read: "Write the law on a piece of paper/ Roll it up into a
reefer/ Burn it!/ Smoke it!/ That's all it's worth!"

Despite rave reviews for their album, the band never really took off
(which was particularly unfortunate for me, as their manager). But
maybe they were just ahead of their time. If the results of last
week's Oireachtas report on drugs can be believed, more than 300,000
Irish citizens now agree that our cannabis laws aren't worth the paper
they're written on.

According to the figures, up to 5,000 16-year-olds admit to regularly
using cannabis, with the majority falling into the teens-to-25 age
bracket. Given that such reports rarely get it right, it's safe to
assume that both the age profile and the real numbers of people
smoking are, ahem, higher.

Fianna Fail backbencher Cecilia Keaveney, who chaired the committee
responsible for the report, made all the usual noises about children,
schizophrenia and suicide, before adding: "[The report] reminds us
that, at an estimated value of more than UKP375m, it is the largest
single component of the illicit drugs trade."

As I write, I haven't yet heard our headmaster - sorry, Justice
Minister - comment on these figures. Doubtless, he'll say something
about us all having lost our moral compasses. But at least we haven't
lost the plot.

Not that I'm singling out McDowell particularly. He didn't draft the
Irish drug laws, he merely inherited them. And he probably wouldn't be
allowed to change them even if he wanted to.

Recently, in recognition that they were fighting a losing battle on
drugs, Mexico's President Fox was set to legalise all illicit
substances carried for personal use - including cannabis, heroin,
crack, ecstasy, LSD and cocaine.

George W Bush (a former cocaine-user himself) wouldn't allow it. To
legalise drugs would be tantamount to a surrender in the "war on
drugs". And seeing as America has already blown a staggering UKP500bn on
this unwinnable war, why would they stop now? Or allow anyone else
to?

Although South Africa was actually the first country to outlaw
cannabis (stoned miners were proving less than productive), the US is
considered the home of international cannabis prohibition. Most of
what the Irish authorities have told us about cannabis down throughout
the years has been based on American lies and distortions.

Cannabis comes from hemp (marijuana is the Mexican word for 'hemp'),
which all botanists agree is a highly sophisticated and extremely
useful plant. Throughout mankind's history, hemp has been grown for
lots of reasons besides getting high.

It can be used to make paper, rope, soap, oil, clothing and countless
other products. Its medical properties are well proven, and it's
undeniably effective in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, glaucoma,
cancer and other maladies.

So why is such a useful substance illegal? The reality is that
cannabis laws weren't introduced for the good of the public health.
They were put in place early in the last century to protect the
interests of a wealthy elite of industrialists and media barons.

Sound like a conspiracy? It was. When America first banned cannabis,
citizens were told by the corrupt prohibitionist Harry J Anslinger
that it was "the most violence-causing drug in the history of
mankind". Thirty years later, the same guy was telling the US Congress
that it was a Communist plot, and that cannabis smoking was turning
their youth into pacifists.

Space precludes a more detailed explanation here, but put "cannabis
prohibition" into Google, and the whole sorry, dishonest saga is there.

However, for all the nonsense spoken about it, it is true that
cannabis can be a gateway drug. I smoked my first joint when I was a
teenager. By the time I was 26, I had progressed to full-blown
politics, standing as a Cannabis Legalisation Party candidate in Dun
Laoghaire-Rathdown in the 1997 general election.

It wasn't a particularly popular issue to stand on (or maybe I just
wasn't a popular candidate). Will Self told me at the time that
campaigning for cannabis legalisation is "a little like marching for
more creme brulee". It's seen as a silly, middle-class thing, and not
a serious issue at all.

In actual fact, given the vast sums of money being earned and the
criminal uses to which those profits are being put, it's an issue that
affects everybody, whether they use the drug or not. That was one of
my reasons for running. Admittedly, another was that I enjoyed smoking
it myself.

The campaign was extremely difficult, and a lot of people were
fiercely opposed. The Sunday Independent, Hot Press and the Examiner
were the only national publications to take it seriously. The Irish
Times sneered and the tabloids made a joke out of it. Still, I made my
point, regardless of who wanted to hear it.

I didn't actually live in the constituency I'd chosen to run in, and
so couldn't vote for myself. I remember worrying that I could be the
first candidate in Irish electoral history not to receive a single
vote.

Thankfully, I got a respectable 348 first preferences(one of which
came from none other than the usually conservative anti-abortion
proponent William Binchy).My running mate, author and law lecturer Tim
Murphy, polled 663 in Cork South Central. We hadn't expected to get
elected. Our intention had been to stir up national debate, something
wecertainly succeeded in doing.

While people today are a lot more aware that there's something suspect
about the prohibition, the public perception of cannabis is still
skewed. Nobody seems quite able to make up their minds about it.

One of the more interesting charges levelled against Heather Mills
during the recent brouhaha was that she'd insisted Paul McCartney quit
his daily cannabis habit. Even the Mail was outraged that Sir Paul be
denied his weed. After all, it hadn't done him any harm, had it? Then
again, I suppose it may have impaired his judgement . . .

Joking aside, there's a very serious reality that nobody is
addressing. Namely, that cannabis prohibition is a relatively recent,
and utterly failed, social experiment. Illegal for less than one per
cent of the time that it's been used by mankind, the prohibition has
caused nothing but trouble.

Until such time as they acknowledge this to be true, what exactly is
the Irish Government's long-term strategy on cannabis? To continue to
criminalise massive numbers of their own citizens for indulging in a
habit that's proven to be far less harmful than legal drugs like
alcohol and tobacco?

To continue sternly lecturing about the dangers of illicit drug use
when at least 300,000 people are already ignoring them?

To continue to allow criminal gangs (the fiercest opponents of
legalisation) to enjoy a UKP375m business monopoly, with which to fund
more socially damaging activities?

Apparently, they are. In response to Wednesday's Oireachtas report,
the committee has decided to print posters and booklets warning about
the evils of drugs. The mind boggles!

Such strategies aren't just incompetent - they're dangerously
complacent.It's time for our policy-makers to wake up and smell the
ganja. Cannabis isn't prohibited because it's damaging; it's damaging
because it's prohibited.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek