Ever since Release established the world's first drugs helpline in 1967, the organisation has witnessed first hand the damage which has been caused by one of the most misguided, hypocritical and discredited laws ever to reach the stature books. In the last 25 years alone, some 500,000 individual cannabis users in the UK have suffered prosecution, persecution and harassment because our law-makers have lacked the courage to face up to the appalling record of a system of prohibition dreamt up by moral fundamentalists and po-faced lifestyle dictators who have consistently spread lies and half-truths about the world's most popular illegal drug.
USERS AND THE NANNY STATE
Cannabis is consumed by millions of people every year without serious side-effects, in stark contrast to those real killers tobacco and alcohol, which between them cause a massive 125,000 deaths a year. Cannabis is virtually impossible to overdose on, it is not physically addictive and it has been safely used for its therapeutic properties for thousands of years. Yet today's cannabis users are treated as criminals by an interfering 'nanny state', which refuses to accept that a citizen's choice between a packet of cigerettes, a bottle of beer or a couple of cannabis joints should be theirs - and theirs alone.
Ironically this approach directly contradicts one of the central tenants of modern political thinking. The emergence trend towards deregulation and reducing red tape is a recognition that old-style, meddlesome government is out of place in today's society. There is a rare political concensus that the paternalistic Big Brother state belongs in the past - and that, in today's world, it is up to the individual to make informed choices on matters affecting his or her own lifestyle.
Controlling the use of cannabis through criminal sanctions contradicts the spirit of this trend. An informed policy on cannabis should be based on the principle that people have the right to take acceptable risks with their own lives, providing they do not harm others. Legalising cannabis does not mean a blanket withdrawal of current legal controls and the introduction of an unfettered free market in the substance. On the contrary, what Release favours is a responsible system of regulation within the law rather than the uncontrolled and chaotic situation caused by prohibition.
LICENSING AND CONTROL
A new legal framework would allow for licensing and control base on a consistent approach to the individual and society. Cannabis would be subject to firm regulations against sale to children, as well as restrictions on advertising and promotion. As with the trend to restrict tobacco smoking in many public buildings, it is conceivable that cannabis consumption could be limited to 'licensed premises' and private households.
In addition to regulating the sale and taxation of cannabis, the state would quite properly take charge of quality control and consumer protection. Over-the-counter cannabis would be sold with detailed health warnings against driving or operating machinery while under the influence. As the law now stands, accurate information on the health risks of smoking cannabis is sadly lacking, and shop owners are unable to sell healthier pipe-smoking equipment because it is illegal. It should be up to the individual cannabis consumer to decide whether to choose 'snesi', 'Afghan black', or 'Nepalese temple balls', or whether to roll a joint, make a cake or buy a vaporiser for healthier smoking.
Legalisation would also undermine the power and profits of organised crime. As Home Office figures demonstrate, cannabis regularly makes up around 90 per cent of all drug seizures. Legalising it would, therefore, remove a substantial sum from the pockets of organised crime. It would also release considerable amounts of police time and resources which could be spent more effectively safeguarding the community. Instead of the insane policy of prohibition - which creates the finances on which organised crime thrives, just as it did during the Prohibition era in 1920s' America - legalisation would produce an income to the Treasury to use on health promotion and for the treatment of those with a hard-drug problem. Legalisation would also create a system of 'market seperation', which would mean fewer young people coming into contact with dealers keen to sell more harmful drugs.
The prohibitionist's favourite argument - that cannabis is a 'gateway drug', which encourages people to try progressively stronger ones - is clearly contradicted by the facts. There are over 3 million cannabis users in the UK compared to only 28,000 'registered addicts'. The fact that these hard-drug users might have also used cannabis along the way is about as relevant as the fact that they no doubt also invariably used alcohol and tobacco on a regular basis. Indeed, after almost three-quarters of a century of cannabis prohibition, there has not been a single piece of rigourous academic research to demonstrate any causal link between cannabis and hard-drug use.
Release rejects the patronising and phoney notion that, when it comes to cannabis use, the good of society and the rights of the individual are incompatible. Government's goal must be to inform consumers - not mislead them with a constant stream of unproven assertions, moral outrage and scare stories.
POSITIVE EFFECTS
The harm done by criminilising cannabis use - and the benifits of reform - extend beyond the traditional debating ground. Often overlooked is the positive effect legislation would have in removing a source of conflict between the police and the black community, where 'stop and search' in the name of cannabis has damaged relations and increased mutual suspicion. This is all the more relevant in the light of increased police 'stop and search' powers and the confirmation in recent Home Office figures of the disproportionate numbers of black people stopped by the police.
As for its therapeutic uses, in 1994 the British Medical Association's own journal revealed that 74 per cent of doctors approved of cannabis for medical use, and a third favoured general legalisation. This reflects the emerging evidence of cannabis's diverse uses as a medicine, borne out by a US study commissioned by the Drug Enforcement Agency in the mid-1980s which concluded that cannabis 'is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man'. Case studies have revealed how particularly useful it is in helping to improve muscle control among multiple sclerosis patients and to relieve the side-effects of cancer chemotherapy. It has also been shown to help asthma sufferers, AIDS patients and people with anorexia, and to ease the pain of arthritis. Yet the idiotic nature of the law means doctors can only prescribe it in a synthetic capsule form (nabilone) - but not in its safe, natural herbal form. The Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics (ACT) campaigns for a change in the law on behalf of patients who find cannabis helpful for their conditions, often without the support of paternalist medical charities all too fearful of rocking the establishment boat.
The hypocrisy of official attitides to cannabis is well demonstrated by the fact that it is already cultivated legallyy in this country as a European Union subsidised crop grown under Home Office licence. Cannabis as an agricultural and industrial product, known as hemp, is at the forefront of innovative new ways of tackling environmental destruction. Hemp fibre is harder wearing than cotton (it was used in the first-ever pair of Levi's jeans) and less damaging to the environment than using wood to produce paper.
It can also be used as a fuel without the dangers of global warming posed by fossil fuels. But, once again, further research into the development of hemp as part of the search for possible solutions to profound ecological problems is hampered by cannabis's illegal status maintained by an unholy alliance of moral fundamentalists, vested interests and blinkered governments.
THE TURN OF THE TIDE
Public opinion is now turning in favour of changing the cannabis law, despite the welter of discredited information and dubious research regularly trotted out by puritans with a bag full of horror stories. It is sometimes claimed that there is new evidence showing that cannabis is more harmful than was thought in the 1960s. In fact, most recent studies have tended to confirm cannabis's relative safety, refuting claims that it causes birth defects, brain damage or reduced levels of the male hormone testosterone. Indeed the 'brain claim', based on a study of brain damage in three monkeys, has since been discredited by two much larger monkey studies, including one by the US-based National Center for Toxicological Research.
For many reasons, the taboo around cannabis legalisaiton has been broken, and people are now seriously considering the case for legalisation. When, in 1994, the Home Secretary announced an increase in the maximum penalty for cannabis possession from £500 to £2500, it was criticised by everyone from the chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation to the Magistrates Association. In June of that year, West Yorkshire's Chief Constable, Keith Hellawell, called for a wider debate about cannabis laws, and the same month, the editor of the Police Review, Brian Hillard, said: 'Legalising cannabis wouldn't do any harm to anybody.' After the Liberal Democrats' autumn conference vote to decriminilise cannabis, an outraged Sun newspaper speedily ran its own poll of readers' opinions on the subject - only to bury the results in the back pages when three to one voted in favour of change! While in October, a 500-strong poll (carried out by International Communications Marketing) revealed that 52 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds agreed that using cannabis was no worse than drinking or smoking.
Legalisation is not a magic wand, but it is a thousand times better than the senseless crusade against cannabis use and users which we have at the moment. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to repeal these antiquated cannabis laws, which have caused so much harm and so little good for not just individuals but society as a whole. A Royal Commission, or similar revoew body, could map out precisely how a step-by-step process of law reform would work in practice. Keeping cannabis illegal is no longer an option - it is not a matter of when, but how we change the law in the best intersts of society and individuals.
Later in 1995, Release Publications is publishing Cannabis - The case for change, which will include contributions from leading civil rights, medical and academic figures, outlining why cannabis should be legalised.
Regarding all the evidence relating to and effects of all hemp-related drugs:Findings of the INDIAN HEMP DRUGS COMMISSION 1894
- The moderate/occasional use of marijuana may be beneficial - this is more a medicinal approach.
- Moderate use of marijuana seems to have no bad physical effects.
- No mental effects.
- No moral injury - no adequate grounds that it injures the character of the consumer. There is no connection between marijuana use and crime.
We are convinced that the present penalties for possession and supply are too high. We recommend at most a maximum penalty of two years for large-scale traffickers.THE WOOTON REPORT 1968