HOW on earth did I end up on friendly terms with Howard Marks, the drug smuggler and pro-cannabis propagandist who died last week? Yet I did. You might think we would loathe each other. He stood for almost everything I am against. But not quite. He was a fierce and instinctive defender of free speech, a rare and precious quality. I learned this one long-ago evening in Blackpool, when a squawking rabble of ignorant, intolerant students succeeded in having me driven off the stage at a debate. [continues 519 words]
Juan Manuel Santos, the president of Colombia, argues that his country's narco-related violent history illustrates exactly why a global rethink on prohibition should be the key discussion at this week's UN general assembly special session on drugs How does one explain to a Colombian peasant in a rural community in the south-west of the country that he will be prosecuted under criminal charges for growing marijuana plants, while a young entrepreneur in Colorado finds his or her legal recreational marijuana business booming? [continues 1116 words]
UN Meeting to Discuss Growing Drugs Problem Up to Quarter of Psychosis Cases Could Be Prevented The risks of heavy cannabis use for mental health are serious enough to warrant global public health campaigns, according to international drugs experts who said young people were particularly vulnerable. The warning from scientists in the UK, US, Europe and Australia reflects a growing consensus that frequent use of the drug can increase the risk of psychosis in vulnerable people, and comes as the UN prepares to convene the first special session on the global drugs problem since 1998. The meeting in New York next week aims to unify countries in their efforts to tackle issues around illicit drug use. [continues 1160 words]
A CHIEF constable who wants to legalise drugs has been charged with overseeing how officers tackle the menace nationwide. Mike Barton believes some Class A and B drugs should be made legal and, in some cases, handed out for free to addicts. Despite his controversial views, the officer has now been quietly elected to an influential role at the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC). The move provoked fury from critics who warned legalising drugs would simply create a new set of challenges. [continues 200 words]
Jamie Doward's admirable special report rightly stressed the importance of the UN general assembly special session on drugs (Ungass) to be held in New York later this month.("Is the prohibition era finally coming to an end?", News, last week). As Doward makes clear, the international drugs trade is an ongoing problem that affects all countries but reaches crisis level in producer and transit countries. It is to a very large degree the product of the well intentioned but misguided UN conventions that imposed drugs prohibition on all countries without regard for their cultures or traditions. [continues 185 words]
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has been warned by the European Union's drugs agency that Britain's new blanket ban on so-called "legal highs" may not work. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) said it was "unlikely" that any new regime could stem the tide of designer drugs, which emulate the effects of controlled substances such as cannabis or heroin. It comes weeks before the Government's Psychoactive Substances Act becomes law. More than 100 new legal highs were recorded by authorities last year and more than 560 are being monitored by the EMCDDA. "It is unlikely that any regulatory system can be designed to sufficiently limit the stream of new substances being manufactured without resorting to a ban on a huge range of chemicals," it said. [end]
When the Home Office decided to impose a blanket ban on synthetic drugs known as legal highs, it must have thought this would be a reasonably straightforward matter. These substances are harmful to those who take them and have been blamed by police for an upsurge in violence among young people. But drafting legislation has not proved an easy task. There was concern in the Church, for instance, that incense would be proscribed since it is capable of producing a psychoactive effect. Assurances have since been offered by ministers that vicars would not be caught up in the ban. [continues 175 words]
THERE are fears that cannabis is being legalised by the back door, after figures showed that arrests for possession have dropped by almost 50 per cent over the past five years. The number of people being charged or cautioned for having the Class B drug has also fallen significantly, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. However, data from the annual Crime Survey of England and Wales suggest that the drop in offences has not been matched by a reduction in the number of people who admit using the drug, with around 7 per cent of adults saying they regularly smoke cannabis. [continues 356 words]
The year 2008 was momentous. Lehman Brothers collapsed, Radovan Karad i was arrested, Russian troops massed on the Georgian border, and Barack Obama beat John McCain to the White House. But 2008 was also significant for something that didn't happen. It was the year that the world didn't eliminate the illicit drugs problem. This quixotic goal had been set a decade earlier at a United Nations general assembly special session when, under the vainglorious slogan "We can do it", the supranational body pledged that, by 2008, the world would be "drug free". [continues 2177 words]
Experts Urge Reversal of Policies That Have Driven Violence and Deaths An international commission of medical experts is calling for global drug decriminalisation, arguing that current policies lead to violence, deaths and the spread of disease, harming health and human rights. The commission, set up by the Lancet medical journal and Johns Hopkins University in the US, finds that tough drugs laws have caused misery, failed to curb drug use, fuelled violent crime and spread the epidemics of HIV and hepatitis C through unsafe injecting. Publishing its report on the eve of a special session of the United Nations devoted to illegal narcotics, it urges a reversal of the repressive policies imposed by most governments. [continues 709 words]
A BATTLE to legalise cannabis is set to start in Parliament as Liberal Democrat MPs propose a major shake-up of the UK's drug laws. Norman Lamb wants the drug to be legalised in order to stop money going into the pockets of criminals and to prevent the lives of people who are prosecuted for possession of the substance from being "blighted" by a criminal conviction. The former LibDem health minister said: "A regulated market in the UK will take profits out of the hands of organised crime and reduce both health and social harms. "I've argued for a long time that our laws on drugs are outdated, harmful and well overdue for reform." [end]
Samples Collected at Nightclubs Can Provide Data on Which Substances Are Being Used and Where For decades, the war on drugs has been fought on fronts from the jungles of Latin America to the classroom. But now the struggle to understand the use of illegal substances has reached a new low - the nation's urinals. Scientists in charge of tracking drug use across Europe, in particular the booming use of so-called "legal highs", have put forward proposals to use samples from urinals in locations such as nightclubs and music festivals to try to work out which illicit substances are being consumed. [continues 414 words]
Firm Says Drug Reduced Seizures in Children With Dravet Syndrome by 39 Per Cent From page 2 A British company that has been working for 18 years to find medicinal uses for marijuana has had a major breakthrough in the treatment of childhood epilepsy. Yesterday GW Pharmaceuticals, which has a licence from the Home Office to grow cannabis, announced final-stage tests on 120 children with Dravet syndrome (a type of epilepsy) had successfully reduced seizures by 39 per cent. The phase 3 trial of the drug known as Epidiolex has been extremely closely watched in the medical community, due to the current absence of a cure for the painful and dangerous condition. Currently, Dravet sufferers have to take a cocktail of medicines but still suffer an average of 13 seizures a month. [continues 408 words]
SIR - It is disturbing to hear that delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference have called for the legalisation of cannabis (report, telegraph.co.uk, March 12). This decision indicates a lack of research on their part as well as an ignorance of the connection between cannabis and mental health disorders. Those working in this field are aware that cannabis can trigger the onset of schizophrenia, particularly in the young. It can also seriously reduce the efficacy of the medication that is prescribed to alleviate the distressing symptoms of this condition. David Orfeur London N21 [end]
A petition launched by the former Solidarity MSP seeks to legalise what he calls the "non-criminal action" of using cannabis, instead directing the money raised from taxing the drug into drug treatment programmes. Only 98 people have so far signed his petition on change. org since Saturday. The petition, called "Legalise, regulate, license and tax cannabis. Drop the stupid 'war' on drugs. Wise up", is directed at the UK Parliament. [continues 62 words]
Lib Dems' Conference Decision Is a Totemic Policy That Would Also Raise Ukp 1bn Tax, Says MP Norman Lamb The Liberal Democrats have become the first major party to support the legalisation of cannabis, a move, they argue, that will reduce drug- related crime and raise around UKP 1bn in tax revenue. The policy was overwhelmingly approved by delegates at the Lib Dems' spring conference in York yesterday. It follows a review of soft drugs set up by the former health minister Norman Lamb, one of the eight MPs who survived the party's general- election rout last year, and chaired by Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation. [continues 713 words]
LIB DEMS yesterday overwhelmingly backed the legalisation of cannabis. Just a handful of members at their spring conference in York opposed the motion. Heal th spokesman Norman Lamb said: "It's long overdue that we call time on the most discredited, most stupid, most dangerous so-called 'war on drugs'. "I want this party to lead the way to a new approach, based on evidence, which is liberal, and which protects public health." Selling the drug in regulated shops and clubs could raise UKP1billion tax, he said. In a speech today Lib Dem leader Tim Farron vows to "fight this Government's short-sighted cuts to school budgets" in a speech. [end]
THE Liberal Democrats yesterday become the first mainstream political party to call for the legalisation of cannabis. In a landmark vote at the party's spring conference, delegates voted in favour of licensing shops to sell cannabis in plain packaging and with health warnings to adults in Britain. Householders would also be allowed to cultivate marijuana and harvest the drug for personal consumption. said the MP had offered advice at last Thursday's meeting but was not planning a formal, paid relationship with the Seattle-based Privateer Holdings. [continues 165 words]
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. [continues 936 words]
LIBERAL Democrats say there's a case for setting up cannabis shops allowing people to buy the drug in their local high street. But how many people in the West Midlands take cannabis or other drugs - - and is drug use rising or falling? Here's what the official figures tell us about drug use in the West Midlands. In the West Midlands, 6.9 per cent of the population aged 16 to 59 say they have taken cannabis at least once last year. That's about one in 15 people. It's about the same as the national average. [continues 791 words]
