2012 was a tumultuous year which saw great progress in the development of the cannabis campaign and, most importantly, the introduction of responsible and intelligent legal regulation in Colorado and Washington state.

Derek Williams, CLEAR website editor and member of our executive committee, has already published an excellent review of the main events of 2012.  My purpose here is to look forward to what we aim to achieve in 2013.

I must, however, thank all those on the executive committee for their hard work, loyalty and courage:  Joel Dalais, Buster Dawson, Alan Hobday, Mark Palmer, Graham Smith, Jan Wells and Derek Williams.  Special thanks also to the CLEAR media team and all the Comment Warriors who have worked so hard to tell the truth and confront the media’s insatiable appetite for misinformation and scare stories about cannabis.

CLEAR is the largest membership-based drug reform group that Britain has ever seen.  Despite treacherous attempts to sabotage our work we have stayed focused, on message and we are the voice of responsible, evidence-based cannabis law reform in Britain.  Other groups represent the ‘stoner’ community but these are only a tiny proportion of the millions of  cannabis users in Britain.  CLEAR will continue to engage in the mainstream political process.  We will not discredit the arguments for reform by indulging in the sort of cannabis evangelism that has held back progress for so long.  There is more than enough evidence on our side without resorting to ‘hemp will save the world’ or ‘cannabis cures cancer’.  These distortions and wild exaggerations make fools of those who advance them.  Our arguments will always be based on science and evidence.

We have much work yet to do following the completion of the HASC drugs inquiry.  Much as with Leveson, its recommendations were the very minimum that could reasonably follow from the evidence yet were rejected out of hand by an out of touch, arrogant and incoherent coalition government.  Unlike Leveson, the evidence heard was partial, unbalanced and ruthlessly cherry picked to avoid upsetting the political establishment.  Most worrying was its absolute failure to consider the interests of the vast majority of non-problematic drug users and Keith Vaz’ shameful denial that medicinal cannabis was an issue it should have considered.  Despite us maintaining a dialogue with the committee for more than a year on medicinal use, it was only after the inquiry finished that Vaz claimed it was not within its remit.  Yet again, Home and Health are passing the buck back and forth while hundreds of thousands suffer and live in fear of punishment merely for seeking to relieve their pain or disability.

Our Comment Warriors campaign will continue and we intend to co-ordinate it with efforts to engage the new Police and Crime Commissioners in setting more intelligent priorities for law enforcement resources.

Our pledge never to allow untruths about cannabis to be published without challenge also continues.  We await with interest the replacement for the discredited and useless Press Complaints Commission.  However, whilst it remain the only avenue for complaints we will continue to use it.  We will also continue to make formal complaints to the police when officers step over the line from their duty into politicking and propaganda.

Joel Dalais will be heading up a new membership and fundraising drive.  We can do nothing without funding and the party still relies too much on executive committee members paying their own travelling expenses as well as giving their time for free.  We are in the process of applying for substantial, long-term funding from several grant-making institutions.

If the HASC drugs inquiry was our main focus through 2012, then in 2013 we have a plan to communicate directly with the general public and the media.  This will involve significant monthly expenditure, more than ever seen before by the cannabis campaign.  We will need your help and your money to make this succeed.

We also intend to ramp up our efforts to co-ordinate the lobbying of MPs.  Many have tried but failed to make this work effectively.  We aim to get in front of ministers within the coming year, to look in the eyes of those in charge at the Home Office and Department of Health and interrupt their game of ping pong with the issue of medicinal cannabis.

In order to develop these plans further we will hold a two-day strategic planning meeting later this month for the executive committee.  At that time we will also finalise plans for our first national conference which will take place in the spring.

Thank you for your support and encouragement through the past year.  Never before have the prospects for legalisation been so realistic.  This is entirely because of the professional, business-like approach taken by our colleagues in the US.  CLEAR is the only group pursuing reform in Britain in an equivalent and effective fashion.

By the end of this month we will have set out clearly what you can do to help. Please join with us, dig deep to provide the financial support necessary for success and let’s all have high expectations for what we can achieve.  I guarantee you that everyone at CLEAR will dedicate themselves and all their efforts as never before.

The CLEAR Cannabis Law Reform Campaign In 2013 - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

This has been a terrible 10 days.  In fact, it’s been a pretty terrible year so far with the relentless hate campaign against me and the noisy trolling of  CLEAR by a small group of people who are angry, bitter and jealous of our success.  I am immensely proud of the way that, through all of this, CLEAR has continued to take the lead in the cannabis campaign.  It is CLEAR that has been putting out positive campaigning effort seven days of every week, of every month.

We now have a valiant and diligent team of comment warriors who take the truth to every corner of Britain, every day. Our PCC complaints are changing the way that the press behaves.  A year ago, could anyone imagine a letter like yesterday’s in the Mail on Sunday being published by a Paul Dacre newspaper?  We have forced them to start publishing the truth.

I have almost finished reading the drugs inquiry evidence and around 50% of all submissions cite CLEAR evidence.  This is an astonishing achievement of which we can be very proud.  We have mobilised people who previously would never have considered making a submission to a parliamentary  inquiry.  We are making change happen!

This is why a coup was attempted.  CLEAR is the most successful and effective cannabis campaign Britain has ever seen.  Those who attacked me wanted to take over what we have created because they can’t do it themselves.

It will take some days yet before the website is fully restored.  We will move it back to its proper domain name in the next day or so.  All membership data is safe.

Thank you to all those who have stood by CLEAR, even in the face of the most disgraceful and underhand plotting, scheming and sabotage.  We have lost some good people who were duped and led astray by the lies and propaganda.  What we need to do now is ramp up the campaign even harder, show that we deserve their trust and welcome them back to the party.

Thank you.

CLEAR Domain Name Secured. The Campaign Continues. - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

I really believe that change in our cannabis laws is imminent. Since the CLEAR campaign began the whole impetus for change has accelerated. Even those who are not supporters of CLEAR and who disagree with our policies have become more focused, more coherent and more active.

The impact we have had in the media with the Comment Warriors campaign and the Press Complaints Commission should not be underestimated. Those with a keen eye for progress should check the letters pages of this weekend’s Sunday newspapers. Our message is being listened to and heard.

It is the written evidence to the drugs policy inquiry that really excites me. So much of it recites CLEAR evidence and support for our policies but even when we are not mentioned, all the submissions that advocate reform deliver a coherent message. They cannot be ignored.

The cannabis e-petition has now been superseded. It was never going to reach the 100,000 signature target anyway. Even if it did, all that was offered was the possibility, maybe the probability, of a debate in parliament and the best we could have expected from that was for an inquiry – which is what we’ve got already.

I think the cannabis e-petition has probably been signed by 80-90% of the “stoners” or user activists but we know there are three million people in Britain who use cannabis regularly, so where were they?

These are people who don’t want to join the campaign but, undoubtedly, they’d like to see a change in the law and I believe that many non-users are now seeing the social and fiscal advantages of regulation instead of prohibition. These are the people that hold the power.

It will probably start with some sort of medicinal use and gradual relaxation of enforcement until it is actually formalised. In fact, that’s what ‘s already happening with Sentencing Council guidelines. It will be fascinating to see the impact of the US elections when drugs policy is bound to come to the top of the agenda.

We are getting there. I congratulate all who are involved in delivering our message with the invincible power of evidence and truth.

Change Is In Sight - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

This is an old version but it means that all the crucial information is now back online.  We have more recent partial backups that will enable us to restore all the more recent content in due course.

Legal action is being taken today to regain control of the www.clear-uk.org domain.

Anyone who has difficulty logging in should contact memberadmin@clear-uk.com

CLEAR Website Restored – We Have Control! - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

Fundamental to everything that we do is the democratic process. A year ago it was the 68 members of what was then called the Legalise Cannabis Alliance that voted to elect me as leader, to re-register as a political party, to change our name to Cannabis Law Reform and to adopt a new set of aims, objectives and a new constitution. Soon, at our first national conference, members will be able to vote on policies and campaign strategies.

CLEAR is now close to having 10,000 registered supporters. We are almost 800 full members and over 8500 Facebook members. We still need many, many more but we have put the cannabis issue back on the agenda as never before. We have elevated the campaign onto a new level of professionalism and evidence based policy. We are making the truth about cannabis CLEAR more effectively than ever before.

This is something that all of us who have joined together can be very proud of. If you contrast where the UK campaign is now compared to a year ago there has been a transformation. We are focused on the single issue of cannabis but CLEAR is now the largest, membership based, democratically run drug reform group that Britain has ever seen. We are making history.

So, how can we take the campaign forward? What can we achieve? What is the best strategy to create progress?

I believe that cannabis is a mainstream issue. Cannabis policy affects everyone, not just those who use it. Non-users and even those who dislike it are threatened and disadvantaged by prohibition. We all suffer from the crime created by a massively profitable illegal market.

So, to achieve reform, our most important audience must be those who do not use cannabis. They are the people we need to convince. CLEAR is not about promoting a stoner culture or an alternative or underground lifestyle. We say cannabis is not a culture in itself. It transcends many cultures, lifestyles and beliefs. CLEAR is about truth and justice, most importantly for those who need cannabis as medicine. We aim to reform laws which have been imposed on us because of prejudice and false propaganda.

So cannabis users are not the subject of our campaign although their interests are at its heart. Our strategy is to bring the subject into open, rational, informed debate so that progress can be made. To do that, cannabis users have to recognise the fears and uncertainties of the wider community. We have to be seen to be responsible. More than responsible.

The fear that so many feel, that is stoked up by the Daily Mail and by politicians like Charles Walker, is based on lies and propaganda but we have to recognise it. We have to be prepared to accept strict regulation – entirely disproportionate to the facts but as a means to make progress.

That is why responsibility is at the core of the CLEAR campaign.

We must set an example. Gratuitous displays of cannabis use or cultivation achieve nothing. In fact, they work against the cause. It may well be unfair and unjust and infringe our rights on all sorts of levels but if we want change we have to make it happen. Blowing smoke from a joint into a policeman’s face never was going to achieve anything and neither are YouTube videos which, in effect, do the same thing.

There are other groups that believe in such protest and confrontation but CLEAR aims to achieve real change in the real world in a practical way. We value and respect other campaigners but it is CLEAR that must set an example and show the wider community that there is nothing to be feared and everything to be gained. Cannabis law reform is about reducing crime, reducing harm, protecting those at risk. Cannabis can be good for Britain.

So yes, that does mean some differences in the emphasis of our campaign. The Cannabis Truth roadshow, taking the truth to town centres and local communities, will be our focus. CLEAR will be represented at every march and protest up and down the country but we will not be sponsoring them. They are not the way to reach the people we need to convince.

If you use cannabis then do so responsibly, with discretion but be relentless about advancing the evidence about its safety, medicinal benefits and the damaging effects of prohibition. This is the CLEAR way forward.

I make no apology for saying that CLEAR must be the acceptable face of cannabis. We recognise that cannabis is now much more potent than it used to be, that the lack of CBD in modern cannabis is potentially harmful, particularly for young people. This is another problem caused by prohibition in exactly the same way as alcohol prohibition led to high strength “hooch”. These arguments are crucial in campaigning for a safer, more intelligent, regulated system.

Claiming “rights” or expecting a revolution in cannabis policy is the stuff of dreams. It is unrealistic. If we want to make progress we have to be smart, not held back by stubborn positions.

What can you do? First of all, encourage your friends to join. It costs virtually nothing but means you make your mark. Then – donate! If we had just £10 from every cannabis user in Britain, I promise you, we could change the law tomorrow! Do your bit!

Join the members forum where you can discuss your thoughts and ideas and directly influence policy. Local groups enable you to network with others in your area. These are opportunities to organise against MPs who support prohibition.

Please join us on the roadshow when we visit your area. Write to your MP and register that you have done so on the CLEAR website. Join our Comment Warriors campaign and write to your local newspaper. A little effort from everyone will make a big difference. We are already a significant political force. Let’s make it so we can’t be ignored!

If you want to see an end to the prohibition of cannabis then the way forward is CLEAR. Join. Join in. Contribute. Tell the truth politely. Set an example. Work for understanding, not for division.

In unity, with courage, together, we will make the truth about cannabis CLEAR.

A CLEAR Future - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party