Reuters is reporting that the UK has decided to raise cannabis from a class C drug to a class B drug, meaning users can now be hit with a maximum sentence of five years in the pokey.
Not brahsome.
In January 2004 cannabis was downgraded to class C on the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), meaning possession was a non-arrestable offense. One step forward!
Apparently Great Britain has solved all other crime and now needs more work for their police officers. So, shortly after Gordon Brown took office last June as the UK’s new Prime Minister, he asked the ACMD to re-evaluate the drug’s classification. They did. And they recommended ganja stay a class C. Apparently no one cares what these science geeks think.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the decision had been made because of concern, particularly amongst the public, about the “alarming” use of skunk, a stronger strain of the narcotic which now dominates the market.
Two steps backwards.
A group of qualified commission members suggest one thing, uninformed Johnny Everyman raises his uninformed concerns and, obviously, the politician sides with Mr. Everyman. Brilliant.
How long is it going to take before people realize cannabis is not as harmful as the politicians make it out to be?
The Shafer Commission under President Nixon (1972) suggested that Congress remove the criminal punishment for possession and nonprofit distribution.
The report’s author, Gov. Raymond Shafer of Pennsylvania, ended the report with: “Neither the marihuana [sic] user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety.”
Nixon’s reaction was something like “um…what report?” as he dropped a match in the trash can full of papers under his desk.
Now we have the UK’s ACMD, a group whose sole purpose is to study such things, suggesting to the Prime Minister that there is no need to upgrade the “drug” to class C. His reaction? “um…what report?”
It’s nice to see we’ve made so much progress in 36 years.
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I thought Mary Jane was the gateway drug to shooting up H. Do you mean the government would not tell the truth to its citizens? I am shocked.
This is such bullshit, all the European countries with lenient drug laws have been getting more conservative lately. The UK, the Netherlands and Denmark have all made recent changes that make it harder to enjoy some harmless grass. The timing’s not too bad, I got picked up by some of London’s finest undercover officers after I copped a bag in Camden market earlier this year. They took the pot but let me go, the whole affair was downright cordial. Guess I’m fucked if that happens again.