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I truly am surprised by the UK government position on MJ. That type of illogical hysteria and prohibitionist tendencies seems to be more common in my country, the USA, but we seem to be leading in legalization.
Good new's!
The Daily Telegraph has run an article saying that “police have been accused of giving tacit support to ‘cannabis clubs’ where paying members can meet and take the drug without fear of prosecution”.
Claiming that “police leaders have been rebuked by the Government”, the paper quotes a Home Office spokesman who says: “The trade and possession of recreational cannabis is illegal in the UK, regardless of where you use it,” said the spokesman.
“Scientific and medical evidence is clear that recreational cannabis use can cause harm to individuals and society. Those using it should be in no doubt that if they are caught they face prosecution and a maximum jail term of five years.
“How police choose to pursue investigations is an operational decision for Chief Constables, but we are clear that we expect them to enforce the law.”
The paper targets two Police and Crime Commissioners who “have visited or endorsed the clubs”, Arfon Jones of North Wales Police and Hardyal Dhindsa of Derbyshire.
It is well known that police have deprioritised targeting low-level cannabis possession, partly because of shrinking budgets and falling staff numbers. The article infers that there was an explosion of cannabis clubs because the police allowed it, when of course the real reason was because of the need for access to medication.
Jones, who visited the Teesside UKCSC last year, is quoted: “I wanted to see how it was run. The members bring their own cannabis – it isn’t grown on the premises and they’re not dealing or supplying.
“There are 150 members paying £35 a year and why not? There are pubs and clubs where people go and drink alcohol so why shouldn’t consenting adults be able to use cannabis recreationally and without causing anyone any harm. The location is such that there is no NIMBYism.”
Dhindsa (left), who is also the national lead on substance misuse, has called for a national policy on cannabis clubs to be introduced. He said: “The war on drugs is not working. My job is to find good practice for enforcement and treatment, and trying to find consensus. Unfortunately in this area there is not really a consensus.
“I personally, as the national lead, will look into this to see what the extent of the activity is with these clubs and how police forces have responded to this activity.”
But the paper also quotes National Police Chiefs’ Council Lead for Drugs, Commander Simon Bray, who said: “The possession of cannabis at so-called cannabis clubs is a criminal offence. It is a matter for chief constables, in liaison with their police crime commissioners, to determine the operational priorities for their force. Likewise, chief constables will determine how they address local crime issues of concern.”
The paper asked UKCSC chairman Greg de Hoedt about the clubs. He explained that he started the network after being diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and finding that, after travelling to the US, only cannabis put it into remission.
He said: “I was invited out by people who ran a dispensary and they gave me two grams of oil a day. Within six months I had a full bill of health. When I came back here I set up cannabis social club to show an alternative way that things can be done.
“If they can grow it, or have the ability to grow it, they can grow it and share it between a group of members at a fair trade cost, then that’s what they do.”
“We aren’t doing it for money, it’s not for the profit, it is so people have a safe product. Prohibition has failed. Lets just make it safer for them.”
The Telegraph has followed up yesterday’s story on anti-prohibition police commissioners and UK Cannabis Social Clubs after Arfon Jones (pictured above), Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales, signalled his support for Spanish-style collectives where users trade home-grown cannabis products with each other.
Jones told the Telegraph he was “sympathetic” to the clubs allowing users to grow their own cannabis for “regulated consumption by their members”.
He added that authorities should focus instead on the “legal regulation of cannabis for medicinal and recreational use”.
Durham Constabulary said its officers would not be likely to search homes even if the occupants were known to be cultivating cannabis. A spokesman for the force said: “Anyone who is seen by a police officer to be smoking cannabis in County Durham and Darlington will be arrested.
“However, our officers are unlikely to apply for a warrant to search a house if they learn there is a single plant inside which is being grown for personal use.”
UKCSC chairman Greg de Hoedt told the paper that their thousands of members include magistrates, bank managers, NHS nurses and television soap actors, and that they have provided cannabis oil to the wife of an MP for medicinal purposes.
Greg de Hoedt and Sy Dignam of Hampshire Cannabis Community and CannafamUK at Green Pride UKCSC
He pointed out that firefighters suffering from PTSD use the drug as well as ex-military members and magistrates in Sussex and Surrey.
In Middlesborough, cannabis club chairman Michael Fisher admitted members openly buy and sell the class B drug, because being in a collective “keeps the price down”.
“Cannabis will be traded between members for anything from £100 an ounce to £150 an ounce,” he said. “Street value is £200 to £280 an ounce.
“Our members in Teesside have a few collectives that they grow amongst themselves, and we have a collective that we work with as well, that grows cannabis for the members.
“The average age of our current members is around 45 years old. We have a couple of gentlemen in their 60s and one in his 70s. We have a lot of people that own their own businesses – everything from furniture to car sales to mechanics.
“In four years of operating we have only had one caution by police and that was for a noise complaint at the cannabis festival.”
Sy Dignam, chair of the Hampshire Cannabis Club, organised a meet of 150 people on a beach in Portsmouth last month. “The Police didn’t turn up, they never do,” he told the paper.
“If someone complains they have to come down, but the last time they came, they had a look at my stall, with my grinders and all my merchandise and said ‘We can’t smell cannabis’ and walked off.”
Cannanis Social Clubs are continuing to form in every part of the UK and an National Cannabis Social Club conference will take place in London in November this year.
surely this has damaged their credibility in the minds of many people since it is now obvious that they were either lying or incapable of making proper assessments when they claimed it had no medical benefits
Indeed, but they also need the support of their constituents, they need us turkeys to keep voting for Christmas....keep smiling and agreeing as they fuck us over. There may come a point where their current position is damaging and it becomes politically expedient to end prohibition.
nicely put and so very true. But again it's about the issues they can leverage to achieve public debate and cannabis legalisation, even only for medical just isn't as big of an issue as the others described above for the majority of people.
) debatable, many folk for religious or cultural reasons are still very anti mind expanding substances, some folk are just plain against mind expanding full stop. 51% in favour of legalisation means there is still 49% out there who are not in favour. Even if you don't believe the stats that's still a very median split.
Sigh, I know
us poor stoners don't really count for much do we
For years, she has used cannabis illegally to control her symptoms. But in a UK first, Ms Barton was prescribed medicinal cannabis last month by Dr David McDowell, a private pain specialist.
The government must now authorise a specialist importer to procure the drug from the Netherlands.
The prescription has not been provided on the NHS, and costs £2,500 for a three-month supply.
Cannabis has been legal for medical use since November 1 after a protracted battle to downgrade its legal status.
Campaigners now say that NHS doctors are still constrained by interim guidelines which make it difficult for them to prescribe the drug.
It is understood that some doctors have put up posters telling patients not to ask them for it.
Although Ms Barton has a prescription, a ‘specials’ drug importer must now be given a licence from the Home Office to legally import medical grade cannabis from another country such as the Netherlands. It is thought that it may be weeks before she is given her medication by a pharmacy.
Ms Barton argues that the high cost of her medicine will create a “two tier system”, where most people will not be able to afford cannabis and will have to continue to source the drug illegally.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she said: “It’s momentous that this has happened. It’s the first prescription that was written since cannabis was made illegal since 1928. It’s made history, this bit of paper. “But the truth of the matter is that he’s given me a three month supply that’s going to cost me £2,500. I’m going to blow all of my savings on this initial prescription, and after this three months is up I’m going to have to go back to being a criminal, breaking the law.” “There is an unfair system where the rich will have access and the poor will still have their doors kicked in.
FRANCE is way behind the UK?
Parliament voted narrowly against a bill brought by Lib Dem Norman Lamb
- BY MIKEY SMITH
- 16:18, 11 DEC 2018
(Image: MDM)
MPs have blocked a bid to legalise cannabis, after the current law was branded "cruel and inhuman."
Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb brought the 10 Minute Rule Bill because, he said, current laws "hand billions of pounds every year to organised crime."
But his Cannabis (Legalisation and Regulation) Bill failed to pass the first stage and was blocked by a 14 Conservative MPs.
Mr Lamb outlined the current "postcode lottery" of policing and highlighted the "dreadful hypocrisy" of alcohol being legal, taxed and widely enjoyed by MPs in Westminster.
(Image: REUTERS)
He said: "Isn't there a dreadful hypocrisy that we allow our drug of choice whilst criminalising people who use another, less dangerous drug - many for the relief of pain.
"My Bill offers a more rational alternative to this mess, with strict regulation of the growing sale and marketing of cannabis - we can at last start to protect children and teenagers.
"We can start to take some of the violence and intimidation off our streets and restore order in our poorest communities, and we can free up police time to focus on serious crime.
"This is rational, evidence-based policy-making - it's time for this country to act on the evidence and protect children and young people from harm."
He added patients needing access to medicinal cannabis were still being routinely denied the drug by GPs, who were willing to prescribe more dangerous and addictive painkillers such as Fentanyl.
But Mr Lamb's Ten Minute Rule Bill was contested by Conservative MP Steve Double (St Austell and Newquay), an evangelical Christian, who said he wanted to continue the "war on drugs" and labelled cannabis "dangerous" and "a gateway drug".
Mr Double said: "We are clearly in the midst of a war on drugs, but I would say we do not win the war by raising the white flag and giving up and surrendering - no war has ever been won by surrendering.
"I believe legalising would send the wrong message to our young people that cannabis is okay to use.
"I think we all understand that for many people cannabis is a gateway drug to more serious and more damaging drugs and therefore it would be absolutely wrong to send the message that somehow cannabis is okay because where it would lead for many, many people."
"We need to do better for our young people, but giving up the war on cannabis is not the way to achieve that."
The Bill was blocked by 66 no votes to 52 ayes.
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