Pubdate: Sat, 12 Mar 2016
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2016 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Janet Street-Porter

THE LIB DEMS SHOULD VOTE TO LEGALISE DRUGS. THAT WOULD GIVE US 
SOMETHING TO SMILE ABOUT - AND BELIEVE IN

Last week, I had dinner with an American actor who was 
enthusiastically extolling the benefits of state-controlled cannabis. 
He was describing how, in places where it is legal, customers can go 
into a shop and choose a product to give exactly the effect they want 
to achieve, like with wine or fine Scotch. His personal aim was "to 
feel mellow - and have great sex".

If legalising dope would make everyone in Britain just one per cent 
more smiley and less hostile, can you think of a better reason to 
bite the bullet and change the law? We are definitely going through 
fearful times, guaranteed to increase our levels of anxiety. Turn on 
the telly or radio and politicians on all sides compete to ramp up 
the doom-laden consequences of leaving (or staying in) Europe. 
Depending on who you listen to, we'll either be paying more for food 
(or less), be out of work (or have more opportunities), and be 
over-run with immigrants  no wonder most people I meet can't make up 
their minds which way they want to vote.

Today, the Liberal Democrats have a chance to become the first 
British mainstream party with a distinctive policy that doesn't play 
on the politics of fear, immigration or leaving the EU. At their 
spring conference in York, the party is debating whether to make the 
legalisation of cannabis a manifesto policy.

The impetus comes after the publication of a report they commissioned 
into the pros and cons of introducing state control of marijuana. 
Drug experts, scientists, police chiefs and scientists all concluded 
that to legalise cannabis would be safer than leaving it in the hands 
of criminals. The report suggests cannabis should be strictly 
regulated, produced under licence and sold in state-controlled shops 
to adults over the age of 18, with controls on pricing and potency, 
in plain packaging. If taxed like cigarettes or alcohol, the market 
for cannabis could yield as much as UKP1bn a year in revenue to the Treasury.

Every year, thousands of citizens get a criminal record for 
possessing dope. I was fined UKP5 back in 1968 for being caught with 
a piece of hash the size of my little fingernail. Ridiculous.

Most senior police officers recognise that the "war on drugs" is 
never going to be won. It is a complete waste of their time and 
hard-pressed resources to fingerprint and charge every person caught 
using cannabis.

In other countries, the tide is turning. In 23 US states, cannabis 
has been decriminalised for medicinal use. Four states, and many 
major cities, allow it to be sold for recreational purposes. It has 
not led to an increase in users, according to a study earlier this year.

Sadly, the Lib Dems have only allowed an hour to debate a proposal 
that merits far longer consideration. It's about time we managed to 
talk about drugs in a nonemotional, calm way. It costs millions of 
pounds to drag people into court for a pastime that is never going to 
change and can never be policed properly. I fail to see why 
state-produced cannabis of a guaranteed quality should be any more 
dangerous than a bottle of wine.

The same politicians who are so overexercised about immigrants 
entering our country illegally in search of work seem perfectly 
relaxed about a major industry in the UK being in the hands of 
organised gangs, with its products sold by petty criminals who deal 
in cash, thus avoiding tax or getting a real job.

A report commissioned by Nick Clegg when he was Deputy Prime Minister 
argued that legalising drugs would bring in UKP1bn in taxes a year. 
The Home Office swiftly said there were no plans to change the law 
and the report has probably been shredded.

Drug use is the single subject guaranteed to get most people in the 
public eye talking utter nonsense. The Lib Dems must grasp their 
chance today, because then they'll stand for something I believe in.

Confront the baby-boomers and face the consequences

Suggest that some pensioners might be comfortably off and you'll get 
monstered on social media.

Yesterday, my Twitter account was bombarded with complaints from 
hundreds of angry senior citizens after I presented a film on ITV 
that discussed the huge financial imbalance between my generation of 
baby-boomers and today's 20- and 30-somethings. Condemned to live 
with their parents, this generation find it almost impossible to 
raise the cash for a deposit on a home of their own.

It's been estimated that a 25-year-old currently needs to save around 
UKP800 a month and work until they are over 70 in order to achieve 
the average pension most

Drama Doesn't Have to Be All Murder, Misery and Menace

There's no point in turning on the telly for light relief. The 
frothiest drama series on the box, Mr Selfridge, has tottered to an 
implausible conclusion. In recent weeks most of the quality drama 
involves unrelenting misery and grim-faced men and women.

Happy Valley does not feature a single male character who is not 
creepy and everyone looks like they've drunk a pint of sick. 
Shetland, which has just concluded, featured lovely scenery and a 
male lead with two expressions: dour and even more po-faced. Week 
after week, The Bridge featured an implausibly large number of 
sadistic ritual killings, with bodies sawn up and decapitated.

On Saturdays, I'm reduced to yearning for Montalbano to return. At 
least the weather is good and the inspector eats some delicious 
lunches. Sadly, Mimi and co have been replaced by a load of unsmiling 
Icelandic actors in Trapped, where body parts vanish from the freezer 
and it's permanently snowing.

Sundays aren't what they were - thank goodness

It's regrettable that MPs chucked out proposals to extend Sunday 
opening hours by just 31 votes. The SNP opposed the changes - rather 
hypocritical of them, as extended Sunday trading in Scotland is left 
to individual councils to decide and workers are paid extra.

Conservative MPs who claimed that they were "protecting family life" 
seem to be out of touch. Modern Sundays are a long way from the 
routine I endured as a child in the 1950s, when all the shops were 
shut and you were sent to Sunday school after lunch.

These days, family-owned corner shops and mini-markets are open most 
of the day, there's loads of live sport and church attendances have plummeted.

By refusing to extend Sunday trading, MPs are enforcing their 
antiquated notion of how we should be spending the day. I doubt many 
of them do any supermarket shopping, anyway.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom