Pubdate: Tue, 27 Apr 2010
Source: Evening Standard (London, UK)
Copyright: 2010 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/914
Author: Simon Jenkins
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

WHY CAN'T OUR POLITICIANS COME CLEAN ON DRUGS?

What is the single most curable evil afflicting community life in 
London? The answer is the criminalisation of drug use under the 1971 
Misuse of Drugs Act.

It blights half the capital's youth at some stage or other. It hovers 
as a black cloud over every neighbourhood, pub and street corner. It 
causes crime and gangland disorder. It packs the courts and fills the 
prisons. It costs billions of pounds in personal loss and public spending.

Needless to say, not one party in the current General Election is 
prepared to discuss it. As a result, London is about to be taught a 
lesson in social policy by, of all places, America.

As I whiled away last week waiting in Los Angeles for Her Majesty's 
Government to find an ash cloud policy, I decided to pop into one of 
many local cannabis "dispensaries" -- strictly in the interests of research.

While the exteriors are carefully anonymous, the interiors are 
designed to cater for all whom "a doctor" has decided need the 
therapeutic benefits of a dose of "weed". I could choose between 
Harmony House and Holistic Harvest. I could try Nature's Wonder or 
Mary and Jane's mobile delivery service. The Green Oasis chain offers 
"40 flavours" of cannabis, including Sour Diesel, Blue Dream and 
Woody Kush, plus a 1,300 square meter "vaporising lounge" to help 
things go swimmingly along. In most cases, the requisite chit 
certifying medical need is available on the premises, like club 
membership in a casino.

California now makes Amsterdam's drug laws look timid. Since the 
licensing of "medical marijuana" production and sale in 1996, 
California and 14 states across America have seen a blossoming of 
cannabis retailing. Some estimates are of more dispensaries (or 
"clinics") in Los Angeles than Starbucks. The city authorities reckon 
they have at least 500 and possibly 1,000 outlets, meaning that in 
some areas there are more dispensaries than there are bars serving alcohol.

Since reliable figures are hard to find, it is impossible to discover 
whether the result has been an increase or decrease in the overall 
consumption of marijuana. Use of the drug has come out of the closet. 
There are certainly testimonials to the relief of pain delivered, and 
with it a reduction in need for conventional medicine. There is a 
corresponding reduction in pressure on law enforcement and 
imprisonment. Anecdotal evidence suggests that private growers are 
supplanting the criminal gangs who have long imported supplies from Canada.

More serious is the backlash against a spread of outlets that seem to 
cock a snook at the law, which restricts sale to those in medical 
need. Our old friend, stress, is so often cited as to render the 
restriction meaningless. As a result, two moves are now afoot. A Los 
Angeles city ordinance seeks to limit the number of outlets to 70. 
This would mean savage closures, in effect creating local licensed 
monopolies bound up in a tangle of red tape. But the effect would be 
clear, as the mayor has said, "to regulate the collective cultivation 
of medical marijuana" and to end the proliferation of operators who 
are currently "not inspected or analysed by the US Food and Drug 
administration". In other words, the marketing of the drug under 
pseudo-medical conditions would be as legitimate as alcohol.

A more radical proposition, on which Californians will vote in 
November, is to legalise the consumption of marijuana as such and do 
away with the medical facade. It would be allowed to over-21s, who 
could grow their own and possess a maximum of one ounce per person. 
What is sold in shops would be inspected as pure. It would be 
approved and taxed, like alcohol. In a recent poll, half of 
Californians wanted to see the drug taxed, if only to relieve the 
state's crippling budget deficit.

Such legalisation would run contrary to US federal policy, as well as 
various United Nations protocols. But Barack Obama has already said 
he will not enforce federal policy against states that have eased 
marijuana controls. Pressure across America to end this form of 
prohibition is now growing from the bottom up, though as with the 
ending of alcohol prohibition it is unlikely to be everywhere or overnight.

For those like me who regard cannabis as a potentially dangerous 
substance for many young people, California's route to regulatory 
control and, if necessary, treatment is sane. Nor does it make sense 
to decriminalise use but criminalise supply, since they are part of 
the same market sequence. There is no point in removing the police 
from the front of the house merely to send them to the back.

Whether the same common sense can be extended to the greater curse of 
cocaine remains to be seen. No one reading the American press can be 
in any doubt of the horrendous cost to Latin American states of the 
continued criminalisation of coca products. It has reduced large 
parts of Mexico to a lawless jungle, as a result of the gigantic 
profits available from America's cocaine trade -- said to be on a par 
with the oil industry. Heavily armed cartels are massacring each 
other daily in the streets. The policy is plunging half a continent 
into misery.

The encouraging sign is that, when Americans are asked what they 
would like done about a problem, they answer with the beginnings of a 
solution. When California has brought its cannabis use under control, 
perhaps it can start grappling with its far greater challenge, 
cocaine and heroin.

And London? It has the toughest drug laws and the worst drugs problem 
in Europe. We jam our courts and our prisons with young people, to no 
beneficial effect and at vast cost. I imagine that Londoners might 
indeed vote for a California-style proposition to license and 
regulate marijuana in the capital, to reduce the power of the gangs, 
help the young cope with drugs and raise revenue.

But I cannot imagine any national politician allowing it, certain not 
at election time. We still have a long way to go to democracy.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake