Your Thursday edition included a piece by Owen Jones commending Uruguay's sensible decision to bring cannabis production, distribution and sale under the control of the state, thereby pulling the carpet from under the murderous crooks who - a futile global "war on drugs" notwithstanding - have grown fat and powerful off the trade for half a century. Ironically, in the World section of the same edition, a brief paragraph quotes the UN's International Narcotics Control Board as warning that Uruguay's decision would "endanger young people" and "contribute to earlier addiction". The INCB's claim might carry a bit more weight were it to explain how this might happen, when the sale of this product is being transferred from street-corner dealers to licensed outlets. [continues 77 words]
Uruguay is the first country brave enough to point out that the emperor wears no clothes. The days when governments can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of cannabis prohibition is to subsidise violent drug cartels, prohibition is a grand success. If the goal is to deter use, cannabis prohibition is a catastrophic failure. Consider the experience of the former land of the free and current record holder in citizens incarcerated. The United States has double the rate of cannabis use of the Netherlands, where cannabis is legal. The global criminalisation of people who prefer marijuana to martinis has no basis in science. The war on cannabis consumers is a failed cultural inquisition, not an evidence-based public health campaign. Not just in Uruguay but throughout the world, it's time to stop the arrests and instead tax legal cannabis. Robert Sharpe Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington DC [end]
Owen Jones argues for a Uruguayan-type change of policy to legalise cannabis use, possession and supply. I may be about to change my long-held grumpy views, in part thanks to the succinct summary of Prohibition in Bill Bryson's book One Sumer: America, 1927. What unlearned lessons: the rise in official and unofficial violence; the public hypocrisy; the inability to enforce effectively; the unintended consequences of increasing the thing being controlled; the opportunities for fortunes to be made illegitimately and poverty to be increased legitimately. It's time to rethink - thanks, Owen and Bill. Dan Mace Swindon [end]
Colin Davies - once jailed for drug trafficking and famous for handing over a bouquet of flowers containing cannabis to the Queen - is heading for another collision with the authorities after announcing his intention to open The New Way Cafe on Tariff Street in January. He said cannabis wouldn't be traded on the property although members would be invited to bring their own drugs for personal consumption. Possession and supply of cannabis remains against the law despite long-standing campaigns to legalise the drug. [continues 446 words]
The Heroic Legislators of Uruguay Deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for Legalising Cannabis. They Put the UN and the US to Shame I used to think the United Nations was a harmless talking shop, with tax-free jobs for otherwise unemployed bureaucrats. I now realise it is a force for evil. Its response to a truly significant attempt to combat a global menace - Uruguay's new drug regime - has been to declare that it "violates international law". To see the tide turn on drugs is like trying to detect a glacier move. But moving it is. Wednesday's statute was introduced by the Uruguayan president, Jose Mujica, "to free future generations from this plague". The plague was not drugs as such but the "war" on them, which leaves the world's youth at the mercy of criminal traffickers and random imprisonment. Mujica declares himself a reluctant legaliser but one determined "to take users away from clandestine business. [continues 807 words]
It's a policy that would be a hammer blow to criminal gangs. It would stop criminalising non-violent people, drastically undermine racist policing, improve people's health and it would save lives. But while a mainstream British politician is more likely to have smoked cannabis than to propose its legalisation, the courageous Uruguayan government has done just that. Uruguay made a pragmatic choice. It could continue to leave cannabis production and sale in the hands of violent criminal gangs, or the state could take it over and regulate it properly. "A regulated market that is visible has greater oversight than prohibition," as Diego Canepa, the president of Uruguay's National Drug Board, has put it. Uruguayans who register on a national database can buy up to 40g of pot from a pharmacy, and adults are now allowed to grow up to eight marijuana plants each. [continues 747 words]
Illegal drugs ketamine and cannabis are being supplied to cancer patients in Scotland by the NHS. Academics at Edinburgh University are leading two clinical trials at the Beatson Cancer Centre in Glasgow to test the effectiveness of cannabis mouth spray and ketamine, a common tranquilliser for use in horses. Research shows that pain is uncontrolled in around 20% of patients with advanced cancer who are prescribed morphine-based treatments, and many others experience negative side-effects from traditional painkillers. But no effective alternatives have been approved for cancer patients on the NHS. [continues 126 words]
CANNABIS may help to reduce brain damage after a stroke, new research suggests. Chemical compounds found in the plant could help shrink the area of the brain affected by stroke, the study suggests. Cannabinoids that are found in the plant as well as those that can be made artificially and those that are found naturally in the body can also help improve brain function after a stroke attack, the authors said. The study is to be presented to the annual UK Stroke Forum. [continues 137 words]
Latin American Nations Call for a Treatment Strategy, Not Prison Terms Major international divisions over the global "war on drugs" have been revealed in a leaked draft of a UN document setting out the organisation's long-term strategy for combating illicit narcotics. The draft, written in September and seen by the Observer, shows there are serious and entrenched divisions over the longstanding US-led policy promoting prohibition as an exclusive solution to the problem. Instead a number of countries are pushing for the "war on drugs" to be seen in a different light, which places greater emphasis on treating drug consumption as a public health problem, rather than a criminal justice matter. [continues 587 words]
The new minister responsible for drugs has told MPs legalising cannabis "should be considered". The minister responsible for crime prevention, Norman Baker, who was moved to the Home Office from the Department for Transport in October's reshuffle, was quizzed by the Home Affairs Select Committee over his views on drugs. The Liberal Democrat MP refused to be drawn on his position on khat - the intoxicating herb favoured by Somali and Yemeni communities that was banned by the Home Secretary before his appointment. [continues 269 words]
World's Biggest Study Offers Chance to Reject Stereotype This is an opportunity for Scotland not to be judged on media hype and stereotype, but on hard data instead SCOTS are being urged to take part in the world's biggest drugs survey to replace the stereotype of reckless indulgence with the truth about drink and drug use north of the Border. The nation is being targeted along with 17 other countries by the researchers who want to paint a picture of the way people really use everything from caffeine and cannabis to cocaine. [continues 557 words]
FORMER government drugs adviser Professor David Nutt, who has repeatedly clashed with ministers over his outspoken views on illegal drugs, has been awarded an international prize for "standing up for science". Prof Nutt was sacked from his role as chairman of the UK government's advisory council on the misuse of drugs by then home secretary Alan Johnson, in 2009, after maintaining that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. The professor was quoted as saying that horse riding was inherently more dangerous than ecstasy. [continues 150 words]
A STAGGERING half a million people in the UK are running secret cannabis farms in their homes. An explosion in production of the drug means hundreds of thousands of suburban houses have been converted into hidden marijuana factories. The booming industry is fuelled by gangs switching from hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin because of the more lenient penalties for cannabis, police say. An investigation found dealers know they will escape jail if they grow fewer than ten plants in a single property - even if they are growing the dangerously potent skunk form. [continues 558 words]
For centuries the coca leaf was a staple of Andean culture, prized for its medicinal qualities, especially in the alleviation of altitude sickness. But the booming demand for cocaine, of which the leaf is the central ingredient, saw the plant outlawed by international governments with devastating effects for farmers who had grown it for generations. An independent report commissioned by the All- Party Parliamentary Group for Drug Policy Reform published today urges that the illegal status should be reviewed and research conducted into the possible legal uses of the leaf which, it is claimed, could benefit the lives of millions of the world's poorest. It was banned in 1961 amid mounting concern over the impact of the global cocaine trade. But a 1995 report by the World Health Organisation found there were "no negative health effects" resulting from coca use. [continues 254 words]
You ask (leading article, 30 September) how "die-hard supporters of the status quo" will react to the latest call for weaker drug laws, from the Chief Constable of Durham. The question itself and the absurd claim that drug liberalisers are "silenced" by derision show a curious lack of knowledge or observation. Liberalisers are in fact guaranteed a prominent and uncritical hearing in most of the British media. Politicians, it is true, noisily proclaim their supposed toughness on the subject to gullible media. But the status quo - as any police officer should know - is that informal decriminalisation of drugs has been under way in this country for more than 40 years, and many of the ills that we now see are the results of that. [continues 84 words]
SIR, Durham Chief Constable Mike Barton has rightly called (the Press and Journal, September 30) for the decriminalisation of all narcotics, including heroin and cocaine, and for problems to be dealt with in clinics, not the courts. Mr Barton is not the first senior policeman to criticise Richard Nixon's decision to use the failed methods of prohibition to tackle the problem of recreational drug use. In 2010, Tim Hollis, chief constable of Humberside, said the war on drugs had clearly been lost and the only group to benefit from the present setup was organised crime. [continues 63 words]
A senior police officer says making drugs legal - but controlling supply - would stop the flow of money to gangs and destroy their power Have we not learned from history? The Mob's sinister rise in the US was funded through the supply of a prohibited drug As a police officer for nearly 34 years, I have witnessed the worsening problems of drug addiction whether it's to controlled substances or legal drugs, such as alcohol. The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has prevailed throughout my time of service, but it would appear not to have had the impact that optimistic legislators planned. [continues 927 words]
A SENIOR officer has won praise for claiming hard drugs should be legalised. Durham Police's Chief Constable Mike Barton said the war on narcotics had failed, and decriminalisation was the best way to bring down criminal gangs profiting from drugs. Writing in The Observer, the national intelligence leader for the Association of Chief Police Officers also said addicts should be able to obtain class- A drugs such as heroin and cocaine through the NHS. "Not all crime gangs raise income through selling drugs, but most of them do in my experience," said Mr Barton. "So offering an alternative route of supply to users cuts off the gang's income stream. [continues 85 words]
NHS 'Could Be Used to Supply Addicts' Durham Chief Urges Policy Revolution One of England's most senior police officers has called for class-A drugs to be decriminalised and for the policy of outright prohibition to be radically revised. In a dramatic move that will reignite the debate over the so-called war on drugs, Mike Barton, Durham's chief constable, has suggested that the NHS could supply drugs to addicts, breaking the monopoly and income stream of criminal gangs. [continues 688 words]
Drugs Must Be Decriminalised - Even the Police Say So The case for reforming Britain's draconian but ineffective drugs laws is a robust one, which is why this newspaper has long championed change. If that discussion has not taken place, it is partly because no politician wants to be seen as the druggies' friend, and because proponents of reform are routinely silenced by the simple means of derision. They are dismissed as louche metropolitan types who "would say that, wouldn't they?" In other words, they want a little legal cover for their own bad habits, and are making a case from motives that are far from disinterested. [continues 237 words]
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