Pubdate: Tue, 08 Mar 2016
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Guardian News and Media Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Alan Travis

LIB DEMS DEVISE MODEL FOR LEGAL CANNABIS

Cannabis should be sold over the counter in plain packaging in 
specialist, licensed shops to over-18s only, according to an expert 
panel set up by the Liberal Democrats to examine what a regulated 
cannabis market in Britain should look like.

They suggest cannabis should be sold in three strengths - lower, 
medium and higher - in prescription medicine-style resealable 
childproof containers with a health warning.

The panel also recommends that smallscale licensed "cannabis social 
clubs" should be set up, and that home-grown cultivation of up to 
four plants for personal use should be allowed.

The Liberal Democrats are set to debate a motion at their spring 
conference this weekend which would see them become the first of the 
big British political parties to support the legalisation of cannabis 
for recreational use.

Tim Farron, the party leader, said: "Prohibition of cannabis has 
failed ... It is a waste of police time to go after young people 
using cannabis and ludicrous to saddle them with criminal convictions 
that can damage their future careers. A legal market would allow us 
to have more control over what is sold, and raise a considerable 
amount in taxation."

The report, which partly draws on Cabinet Office work done when Nick 
Clegg was deputy prime minister, says that credible estimates suggest 
regulated cannabis sales could raise UKP500m to UKP1 billion in taxation.

It suggests that the pricing of cannabis products should be directly 
linked to potency and weight. So a gram with 5% THC (the active 
ingredient in cannabis) should cost a third of the price of a gram of 
15% THC potency.

The expert panel included Mike Barton, the chief constable of Durham, 
Professor David Nutt, the former chair of the government's advisory 
council on the misuse of drugs, and Tom Lloyd, the former 
Cambridgeshire chief constable, who is chair of the national cannabis 
coalition.

The experts argue that a closely regulated legal market in herbal 
cannabis could displace synthetic "legal highs" with their unknown 
effects and high-potency cannabis and other forms that increasingly 
dominate the illicit market and have been linked to higher risk of 
dependency and psychosis.

The cannabis "off-licences" - separate from retail chemists, "who may 
feel it is in conflict with their duty of medical care" - and online 
retail sites would be supplied only by UK-based producers licensed by 
a cannabis regulatory authority. Imports and exports would be banned.

The panel rejects the development of Dutch-style cannabis cafes in 
Britain , anticipating that people will smoke cannabis in pub 
gardens. The cannabis social clubs would be modelled on a 400-strong 
Spanish network of clubs.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom