BERLIN - A conservative politician who crossed the aisle and has joined the German Green Party's campaign to legalize marijuana has revived a long-running debate about the drug in Europe's largest economy.

Lawmaker Joachim Pfeiffer, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, recently co-sponsored legislation that would lift Germany's ban on marijuana and regulate the drug like alcohol and tobacco - and, supporters say, bring in billions more marks in tax revenue.

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Psychedelic Drugs May Have a Role in Medical Treatment

On balance, you would not be in your right mind, as the saying goes, to voluntarily take psychedelic drugs. Though the long-term physical and psychological effects of LSD are sometimes exaggerated in the public mind, a bad "trip" carries risks.

In a medical context, however, psychedelic drugs may be beneficial. That, after all, is where LSD and others have their origins, before their widespread abuse and subsequent prohibition. The British Medical Journal hardly populated by ageing, addled hippies - carries an article by a leading psychiatrist suggesting that a change in the law should foster more research into a neglected arm of the pharmaceutical industry, and allow the legitimate prescription of LSD and other substances where they clearly do serve a medical purpose.

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THREE detectives were slashed with a knife and then attacked by a pitbull dog when they went to carry out a drug search at a house in Co Louth yesterday morning.

The incident happened in the rural townland of Sandpit, between Termonfeckin and Drogheda, at around 10am.

Gardai from Ardee station arrived at a property with a search warrant.

Sources said that a man, originally from Dublin, lashed out at the three men with a number of knives when he answered the front door.

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Infection rates are set to hit three million, but drug use and unsafe sex - the main causes - are rife. Alecc Luhn talks to those ignored by aid programmes

Almost as soon as two HIV-prevention activists set up outside the pharmacy in the outskirts of Moscow with two huge backpacks of supplies, a skinny young man with mussed hair and an impish grin quickly walked up to them.

"Do you have any ointment?" he asked, lifting up the leg of his tracksuit trousers to show a mass of red sores.

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OSLO - In a country so wary of drug abuse that it limits the sale of aspirin, Pal-Orjan Johansen, a Norwegian researcher, is pushing what would seem a doomed cause: the rehabilitation of LSD.

It matters little to him that the psychedelic drug has been banned here and around the world for more than 40 years. Mr. Johansen pitches his effort not as a throwback to the hippie hedonism of the 1960s, but as a battle for human rights and good health.

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Decriminalisation Would Safeguard Families and Drive the Gangs Out of Business

Outside of their families and friends, few tears will have been shed for the eight heroin smugglers just executed by firing squad in Indonesia. They may have claimed to have become reformed characters in jail, but they knew the Indonesian penalty for trafficking drugs. Yet the pantomime of death played out in the full glare of the global media reminded us of two things: first, the hideous barbarity of the death penalty; and second, the dreadful futility of the war on drugs.

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Astonishing claim of the arrogant cannabis campaigners who intend to light up in public

THOUSANDS of illegal drug users plan to flout the law by smoking cannabis in public tomorrow.

Activists who want the Class-B substance legalised will taunt police by lighting up at the 'Cannabis Celebration' in Glasgow's George Square - claiming 'they can't arrest us all'.

Nearly 4,000 people have pledged to attend Scotland's biggest pro-cannabis rally in front of the City Chambers. Speakers will promote the so-called health benefits of the plant - including incredible claims it can cure cancer - as well as encouraging people to 'grow their own'.

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The web's two largest drug markets go down, panicking dealers and buyers

"I JUST can't bear this any longer," writes "Megan" in an anonymous internet forum. Waiting for online shopping to be delivered is frustrating. But for drug users it can be agony. Megan's vice is OxyContin, an addictive prescription painkiller. Like many users, she buys her illicit supply on the "dark web", a hidden corner of the internet accessed with anonymous browsing software. In the past month the online market for drugs has been rattled, after the two main drug-dealing sites suddenly locked buyers and sellers out. "If you know anyone...who would sort something out for me tonight or tomorrow I'll drop dead of gratitude," pleads Megan.

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Fury as drugs activists get free airtime for election

PRO-DRUGS campaigners in Scotland are to be given a prime-time slot on television to call for the legalisation of cannabis.

A radical new political party has been set up with the sole purpose of making drugs laws more lenient.

Funded by an internet millionaire, CISTA - short for Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol - is fielding candidates across the country in the General Election. It will be able to exploit electoral rules to air its controversial ideas, which include giving cannabis to sick children.

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YVONNE MacLean left the SNP to stand for CISTA in Rutherglen and Hamilton West.

The 41-year-old single mother admits being a 'criminal' for 'self-medicating' to alleviate depression with cannabis she buys from a drug dealer.

Miss MacLean, of Hamilton, Lanarkshire, believes legalising the Class B drug would be 'good for the environment, the economy and the community'. She said: 'I don't think people should be criminalised for their choices. They should be trusted to use drugs sensibly and addicts should be helped. People can get addicted to coffee, cigarettes and alcohol if they have that type of personality.

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Almost One in Ten Adults Admits to Using the Drug Scientists Warn of Deadly Potential Side-Effects

Cocaine use, once the preserve of celebrities and the wealthy, has spread throughout British society, drug advisers say.

A report by the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) found that although consumption of the drug had fallen slightly from a peak in 2008-09, its use has permeated a wide social demographic that includes the middle classes and those on lower incomes. This has been driven by the emergence of a "two-tier" market; one selling very low purity, cheaper cocaine alongside a smaller trade in a more expensive, purer version.

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Further to Janet Street-Porter's column on pain-killer abuse (7 March), new research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that US states with open medical marijuana access have a 25 per cent lower opioid overdose death rate than cannabis prohibition states.

The protective effect grows stronger with time. States with established cannabis access showed a 33 per cent reduction in deaths. This finding has huge implications.

The substitution effect was documented by California physicians long before the JAMA research. Legal cannabis access is correlated with a reduction in opioid and alcohol abuse. The cannabis plant is incapable of causing an overdose death. Not even aspirin can make the same claim, much less alcohol or painkillers.

The phrase "if it saves one life" has been used to justify all manner of drug war abuses. Legal cannabis has the potential to save thousands of lives.

Robert Sharpe Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, DC

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FACING a wipeout at the General Election, Nick Clegg is busy finding ever more desperate ways of appealing to the young voters who have abandoned his party in droves. Having betrayed them over his manifesto pledge to abolish tuition fees, his latest wheeze is to target the druggie vote by reaching out to students who smoke cannabis.

The Lib Dems have pledged that personal possession and the use of drugs - not just marijuana, but even heroin - would no longer be a criminal offence. Even by Clegg's standards, this is a proposal of such reckless imbecility that it makes you wonder what he's been smoking.

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Isn't it about time we acknowledged that 99 per cent of us take drugs? It's just that some are legal and therefore "acceptable". But if all drugs were defined by the harm they can cause, then the current rankings and legal penalties would be pointless.

Dealing with the long-term effects of alcohol and tobacco costs the NHS far more than dealing with those addicted to class-A drugs. Apart from liver disease and heart failure, alcohol abuse causes death on the road, domestic violence, murders and absenteeism from work. Not to mention the damage to family life and relationships. Can we put on a price on all of this and be sure it's less than the cost of illegal drug use?

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Charlie Cooper Takes a Trip to Meet Professor David Nutt - and Finds Out Why the Former Government Czar Believes That Mind-Altering Drugs Have a Place on the Prescription Pad

Professor David Nutt has been no stranger to controversy over the years. So the psychiatrist and former Government drugs tsar, will not have been fazed when he raised eyebrows recently by drawing a parallel between the repression of research into the effects of psychedelic drugs like LSD with the censorship of Galileo and the banning of the telescope.

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Sir Richard Branson and Nick Clegg are urging the UK to begin decriminalising the use and possession of almost all drugs, following the example of Portugal.

The Virgin founder and deputy prime minister are to address a conference on fighting drug addiction today, and in an article on the Guardian website they write: "As an investment, the war on drugs has failed to deliver any returns. If it were a business, it would have been shut down a long time ago. This is not what success looks like.

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A FORMER UK Government adviser has said Scots should go Dutch and open cannabis cafes.

Professor David Nutt, who has advised the Department of Health, said it could be "very good" for the economy. Prof Nutt sacked by the UK Government in 2009 for saying horse riding was more dangerous than ecstasy also blasted plans to ban legal highs.

Speaking ahead of a talk in Edinburgh, Prof Nutt said: "If Scotland had a sensible medical cannabis policy you'd get a lot of health tourists and that would be very good for your economy. People could have a cuppa in cafes in Edinburgh and Glasgow and have a spliff as they do in Amsterdam."

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George Square Event Criticised by Politicians

DRUG users are planning to stage a "cannabis celebration" in Glasgow's George Square.

The annual '420 event' sees campaigners gather in a public place on April 20 to call for the legalisation of the Class B drug.

Last year Glasgow Cannabis Social Club held a gathering of 150 people at Glasgow Green and five were reported to the procurator fiscal for flouting the law by lighting up in full view of police.

The maximum penalty for possession of cannabis is five years in prison.

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CAN you put two and two together? Have a try. The authorities, and most of the media, cannot. Did you know that the Copenhagen killer, Omar El-Hussein, had twice been arrested (and twice let off) for cannabis possession? Probably not.

It was reported in Denmark but not prominently mentioned amid the usual swirling speculation about 'links' between El-Hussein and 'Islamic State', for which there is no evidence at all.

El-Hussein, a promising school student, mysteriously became so violent and ill-tempered that his own gang of petty criminals, The Brothers, actually expelled him.

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BRITAIN'S brightest teenagers are among those most at risk of mental illness caused by smoking a potent form of cannabis, a leading expert has warned.

Professor Sir Robin Murray said it tended to be 'clever and sociable' youngsters who were damaged by using the super-strong strain of the drug, known as skunk.

Sir Robin, the foremost authority in Britain on the effects of smoking cannabis, led a landmark study with colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry which found that regularly smoking skunk triples the risk of psychosis, as revealed last week by The Mail on Sunday.

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