Dr Geoffrey Guy, the only legal skunk farmer in Britain

Well, to be strictly accurate, it isn’t.

Since June 2010, Sativex, GW Pharmaceuticals’ super-strong, super-concentrated, 51% THC tincture of skunk cannabis has been available on prescription.

Sativex is the only exception though and the way it has been licensed is a demonstration of the dishonesty, corruption and deceit at the heart of the UK government.  The Home Office and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) are involved in a calculated attempt to misinform and mislead the public that Sativex is not cannabis.  GW sponsored doctors, scientists and nurses promote the lie that there is no “high”  from the use of Sativex, even though the statutory product documentation describes “euphoric mood” as a “common” side effect.

Recently the results of phase III trials of Sativex showed that:

 “…the tolerability profile of this medicine is favourable, with limited relevant adverse effects and – particularly reassuring – the drug does not appear to lead to withdrawal effects if patients suddenly stop using it.” (Professor H.P. Hartung, Chair of Neurology at Heinrich-Heine University)

Yet the UK government continues to repeat the blatant untruth that “…there is no medicinal value in cannabis “ and that it is “..a harmful drug with a number of acute and chronic health effects.” – just bluster, obfuscation and nonsense

So, back to the question.  What are the reasons?  Why is cannabis still banned when all the scientific, medical, intellectual, moral and public health arguments have been won?

This is why weed is banned

The reasons that cannabis remains prohibited in the UK are:

1. The power of the alcohol lobby

Fronted by The Portman Group, a shadowy, incredibly wealthy lobbying organisation, the alcohol industry is terrified of a cheap, safe alternative to its poisonous products, the most dangerous and harmful drug of all.  In fact, there’s room for both.  Under a rational and responsible  system of regulation, all drugs would be controlled in proportion to the harm they cause.

2. The power of the US prohibition industry

Hypocrisy In A Spliff

When alcohol prohibition ended in 1933, there was already a massive infrastructure and that was transferred directly to  ”marijuana”, the racist term coined to demonise cannabis.  That grew and expanded into the DEA, which has become an out of control international gangster organisation, and the huge industry of private prisons.  There are hundreds of thousands of jobs in the US that depend on the prohibition of cannabis.  Even enthusiastic cannabis users like President Obama have sold their integrity and honour for the  sake of prohibition.  Woe betide the country, whatever the “special relationship”, that goes against the US.

3. The Daily Mail campaign of lies, distortion and forged scientific evidence

The Daily Mail has waged a disinformation campaign concerning cannabis for more than 10 years.  It publishes lies, exaggeration, falsified scientific evidence and, its favourite trick is to associate cannabis as often as it can with violent and bloodthirsty crimes, however tenuous the link.  Paul Dacre, the “butcher”, as he is known in the newspaper world, made a corrupt agreement with Gordon Brown to upgrade cannabis back to a class B drug in return for supporting the worst prime minister in British history.  He has no regard for the truth, for evidence or for the suffering his vile newspaper causes.

4. Corrupt and cowardly politicans

Gordon Brown said “skunk is lethal”.  Alan Johnson sacked Professor David Nutt for telling the truth about cannabis being far safer than alcohol.  Charles Walker said cocaine is safer for children than cannabis.  Nadine Dorries said one spliff will ruin a child’s education for ever.  David Cameron, like Obama an enthusiastic smoker when younger, defines hypocrisy and dishonesty in his attitude to cannabis.

5. The unlawful monopoly of medicinal cannabis granted to GW Pharmaceuticals.

The Home Office is engaged in a corrupt relationship with GW Pharmaceuticals.  It conspires with GW to misinform the public about Sativex and about the true value of cannabis.  It refuses freedom of information requests about all aspects of its underhand and dishonest dealings on the subject.  Home Office policy on cannabis causes direct harm to thousands of UK citizens and fraudulently lines the pockets of GW shareholders.

Super-Strong, Super-Concentrated, 51% THC Tincture Of Cannabis

6.  The self-destructive behaviour of cannabis campaigners

For years the cannabis campaign has shot itself in the foot by promoting its cause as an “alternative” or “sub” culture.  Irresponsible “demos” and marches have had precisely the opposite effect on public attitudes to that intended.  Stoners or big time smugglers are the last people we need fronting the campaign.  Public displays of cannabis smoking are childish and counterproductive.  CLEAR has moved the campaign onto a new level of professionalism and evidence-based argument but we have suffered jealous attacks from those who cannot campaign effectively themselves and so seek to sabotage or hijack our work.

"You cannot sustain a lie like this for ever". Professor Lester Grinspoon

These are the reasons that cannabis remains prohibited in Britain but there is hope.

Determined, evidence-based campaigning.

Relentless pursuit of the truth and confrontation of lies.

Responsible, civilised, reasonable argument.

The truth will become CLEAR.

Why Is Cannabis Still Prohibited In Britain? - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

The campaign has at last moved away from the hopeless hippy image of the past.  CLEAR has been instrumental in achieving that in the UK and it means that we are now becoming mainstream.  Cannabis is an important issue for everyone, users or non-users,  parents, doctors, politicians and, of course, hippies, whether they wear a suit or a kaftan.  In the US, organisations like NORML, the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) and Moms for Marijuana have already transformed the image of cannabis and cannabis users.  In Europe, I am confident that the temporary blip in Holland will soon pass while Copenhagen, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and former Eastern bloc countries like the Czech Republic are leading the way with intelligent and progressive policies.  Israel’s medicinal cannabis programme is establishing a model that others will soon follow.

The Home Affairs select committee inquiry into drugs policy is a huge opportunity and I am immensely proud of the way that CLEAR members and supporters have responded.  No one knows what its outcome will be as far as cannabis is concerned but make no mistake, when reform does finally arrive, this is how it will happen.  The government, ministers and the Home Office have been knowingly telling lies about cannabis for years.  They need an excuse to let them off the hook and perform a U turn.  A select committee report is exactly the mechanism that will allow this to happen.

Why have our political leaders been so dishonest with us?

Principally out of fear of the Daily Mail whose mendacious campaign against cannabis we are finally starting to bring under control.  Although the Press Complaints Commission (PCC)  is undoubtedly a corrupt and dishonest organisation (it works in the interests of the press, not the public), CLEAR’s  determined and consistent flow of complaints is having a big impact.  That is why we will continue until the PCC finally bites the dust.  Its replacement will undoubtedly be a lot tougher and I look forward to drafting my first complaint to it.  The days of liars like Amanda Platell being able to get away with falsifying scientific evidence are over.  I should think the PCC’s replacement is probably about a year away yet.

Lie After Lie After Lie After Lie...

Another reason is to please their chums in Big Booze and to secure lucrative directorships for themselves once they retire from politics.  One source of much of the improper influence over government is the Portman Group, an incredibly wealthy, shadowy lobbying organisation for the alcohol industry.  These people are the real drug pushers that no caricature can properly describe as evil as they actually are.  They really do push this most poisonous of all substances with no concern at at all for the millions of lingering deaths that it causes across the world every year.  They deliberately promote it to and make it more palatable for children.  They manipulate and distort markets with impunity and deliberately to get people addicted to their product..

Time To Get Drunk?

I shall never forget when England won the Ashes a year ago and the BBC News headlines had Andrew Strauss chortling in delight and screaming that his celebrations were going to involve “loads of alcohol”.   This was prime time television, while the kids were watching and it is deeply, deeply shocking when you consider how poisonous, harmful and deadly that particular drug is.  I should make it clear that I am not anti alcohol.  I enjoy strong lager, red wine and, particularly, Irish whiskey but all drugs should be appropriately regulated with accurate information and harm reduction advice.   I say it was as irresponsible for Strauss to say what he did and for the BBC to broadcast it as if he had been advocating heroin use.

The final reason I advance is Big Pharma, specifically GW Pharmaceuticals.  I have changed my view on this over the past year.  I used to think that Big Pharma in general was preventing access to cannabis as medicine but I think I was wrong.  GW Pharma, Echo Pharma and now Kannalife prove that pharmaceutical companies are perfectly happy to market cannabis medicines.  The problem is that GW has a corrupt and fundamentally dishonest relationship with not just the  British government but also, at least the Dutch and US governments and the DEA.

The Most Expensive Cannabis In The World

Inexplicably, except in the context of international corruption, GW obtained a licence from the DEA to import its genetics from Hortapharm in Holland.  It conned the British government into believing that Sativex was somehow not cannabis and now the Home Office has become complicit in the deception that Sativex is an extract of just two cannabinoids and has no psychoactive effect.  Ministers and senior civil servants have got themselves locked into the lie that “cannabis has no medicinal value”.

This is one reason I do expect change in the availability of medicinal cannabis quite soon.  The ACMD has recommended that Sativex be re-scheduled schedule four of the  Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.  Ministers have bee sitting on this now for nearly a year.  If it is re-scheduled as anything else but cannabis it will be a lie and I expect legal action against the government if it tries to get away with it.  That will certainly be CLEAR’s plan if we can raise the necessary funds. However, the optimistic view would be that a helpful select committee report will enable them to come clean and accept the fact that cannabis does have medicinal value.

The pressure CLEAR is already applying to the Home Office directly and through the High Court will also help with this.   Litigation from sick people who want access to their medicine as  prescribed by a doctor is, I believe, going to prove to be an irresistible force.

As for recreational use or the sort of  regulated system that CLEAR has proposed, I believe that depends on the US.  Now more than 50% of Americans think marijuana should be legalised.  77% believe that medical marijuana shoud be available, it is only a matter of time.  2012 will undoubtedly bring more medical marijuana states and it is possible even full legalisation in one or more states.  There is a mass of litigation in the US about the crackdown on medical marijuana and I believe that some it will succeed.  More importantly, I think it is quite likely that Obama will return to his more positive position as the election approaches.  He needs young voters in which the proportion in  favour is even higher.  Some have suggested that he might try to ride in like a white knight to “rescue” the medical marijuana industry and that is the sort of political trick I could see him conjuring up.

I’m afraid I don’t see much hope from the legalise cannabis e-petition.  I doubt that it will even make the necessary 100,000 signatures.  That level has been set ludicrously high when you consider that the equivalent in the US only needs 5,000 signatures in a country with four or five times the population.  CLEAR will continue to support the petition but even if we were to get a parliamentary debate, after it would need to come something like a select committee inquiry so we’re already there.  The petition has already been overtaken and superseded.

One very exciting possibility arises in just a couple of weeks.  Week commencing 23rd January, the Sentencing Council will publish its new drug offences guidelines.  I am pretty confident that it will formally recommend medicinal use as substantial mitigation for any cannabis offence .  Even more exciting, I think there is a very good chance that the recommended sentence for growing two or three plants will be either a discharge or a minimum community order.  That will effectively amount to decriminalisation because neither the police nor the Crown Prosecution Service will be interested in pursuing such offences.  Although the guidelines are out this month, I believe they will not come into force until three or six months later. As a minimum they should produce some consistency in sentencing so that anyone growing will know how to avoid a severe sentence.

So 2012 holds a great deal of promise.  I think the greatest enemy of reform is tribalism.  Both CLEAR and I have been attacked by some cannabis users and growers as the enemy because of our tax and regulate proposals and particularly the idea of licensing for home cultivation.  This attitude is so short sighted and exactly what has stopped us form making progress up to now.   Of course, I would like to see cannabis treated as carrots or tomatoes but it isn’t going to happen.  Sticking to this obstinate, tribal position is delusional and self-defeating.  We need to grow up!  We need these sort of constructive proposals to move the issue along.  There is not going to be a revolution and however unfair it may be, if you have to pay a hundred quid or so for a licence to grow your own, it’s going to be a lot better than the present situation!

If the cannabis campaign is still seen as the bunch of hopeless hippies that it has been for so long then we will get nowhere.  Making our message mainstream is key. That is why CLEAR needs and deserves your support.

What Does 2012 Hold For The Cannabis Campaign? - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

In February on YouTube, David Cameron said cannabis is:

1.”incredibly damaging”

2. “very, very toxic”

3. “and leads to, in many cases, huge mental health problems”

And then, with regard to medicinal cannabis, he said:

4. “That is a matter for the science and medical authorities to determine and they are free to make independent determinations about that.”

This week on YouTube, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor was asked two questions:

Q. What is your opinion regarding the demand to substitute the existing black market for cannabis by a regulated market restricted to adults and with a quality control (including THC content), and use the tax money earned for increased preventative measures?

A. I do not agree with that. I think, we have made exceptions in very specific cases. However, we should not legalise cannabis in general. Of course the question is: Is overall prohibition a reason of the black market?; one could say that. On the other hand, legalizing it would lower the threshold for use even more, and we do consider the side-effects of cannabis so dangerous that this should not be done.  After all, there are two million cannabis users and that is already way too many, I think. Thus I tend to, or it is in my opinion, not to legalise it in general.

Q. Now, there are two million users or buyers of cannabis. However, there are many times more number of people consuming alcohol and tobacco, of course. The latter is taxed and thus integrated into our normal society. Why is there this difference? Is there a historical precedent, or can this be justified — by whatever means — by applying plausible facts?

A. We think of cannabis as a drug, in accordance with international opinions. This means that even consuming small amounts can lead to very severe dependence. With alcohol or cigarettes however, sensibly limited consumption does not bear the risk of immediate addictiveness as this is
the case with cannabis according to our opinion. With alcohol there surely is an element of a tradition. However, enjoyed in moderation, as supplement to a meal for example, alcohol is not something that causes immediate dependence. Still, there is a great need for prevention and information in this matter.

Did they both go on the same DEA misinformation course? Do they think we’re stupid?

They both speak untruths. What they say about cannabis is factually incorrect. The statements about damage, toxicity, mental health problems, danger and dependence are all absolute nonsense. They are false and easily disproved. Cameron’s words about the availability of medicinal cannabis are a cynical deception. Do they really think we’re that stupid?

What this shows is that both Cameron and Merkel hold the people of Britain and Germany in the deepest contempt. They both lie with impunity and with reckless disregard for their duty. They each commit an act of treachery to their country by their dishonesty and deception. Clearly this is a joint enterprise. They conspire with the United States government to deceive and misinform their electorates. They are charlatans and fraudsters.

What we should really be worried about is how far this extends. They care not one jot for the truth about cannabis, for criminalising millions of citizens, wasting billions in taxpayers funds, nor for denying millions more safe and effective relief from pain, suffering and disability.

What about the economy, defence, health care, social services, Iran, China, Africa, climate change, any other policy you care to think about?

What lies, deceit and misinformation are we subject to on a daily basis? Why do we trust these dishonest, self-serving tyrants at all?

The access to truth that the internet provides and has seen the dictators of the Arab world overthrown has work yet to do. Either the leaders of the western world must face up to reality and put aside their dishonesty or they must start to repress and misinform us even more.

The euro crisis, the impending US attack on Iran, the brutalisation of Gaza, the wider “war on drugs” and CIA-run trade in heroin and cocaine. The unstable nuclear state of Pakistan.

Never has the world been so ripe for revolution and war.

Cameron And Merkel, Untruths And Deception. How Their Lies About Cannabis Reveal The Truth About Them - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

Originally published on politics.co.uk, 21-11-11

The Unexpurgated Version!

In the mid 1930s, after the end of alcohol prohibition, Harry Anslinger, former assistant commissioner at the Bureau of Prohibition was settling into his exciting new job as head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and working on his next campaign.

“This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with negroes, entertainers and any others.” he wrote in one of Randolph Hearst’s newspapers.  Hearst was behind the organised campaign against cannabis hemp, then one of America’s most successful crops, by timber, oil and paper interests.  The strategy was to slur the plant with the racist term “marijuana”, demonise it, outlaw it and wipe it out.

Come forward about 80 years to the present day.  In the US there is the White House drugs czar Gil Kerlikowske and the head of the DEA, Michelle Leonhart.  In Britain we have James Brokenshire, the Home Office minister.  These people are faithful in style and message to their role model Anslinger.  They use arguments and propaganda of exactly the same type and value but adjusted to politically correct 2011 terms. Their weapon is deceit and their strategy is intransigence. The prejudice, discrimination and media scaremongering continues.  As Anslinger had Randolph Hearst’s media empire, so Brokenshire has the Daily Mail.

James Broken...... (complete as desired)

The Mail came out all guns blazing last week in response to the Global Initiative on Drug Policy Reform and the ex-head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller,  calling for legal regulation.  Despite the furious propaganda war it has waged against cannabis and cannabis users the issue won’t go away.  Why?  Because millions of British citizens regularly use and enjoy cannabis with no ill effects and many find it of enormous therapeutic benefit for conditions such as chronic pain, MS and Crohn’s disease.  Also, because this war on cannabis is just another war on people.  It is futile, expensive and causes far more harm than it prevents.  It has created the modern phenomenon of rented property being destroyed, electricity being stolen with human trafficked gardeners and intensive production of high potency cannabis.

Buffoon

For forty years the Daily Mail has been running its malevolent, systematic campaign of misinformation and false science.  So successful has it been that it has had both the present and the former prime minister repeating its untruths like faithful disciples.  Gordon Brown and Paul Dacre conspiring together to come out with the “skunk is lethal” buffoonery in 2008 is one of the most blatant examples of improper collusion between government and media. In March this year, in a YouTube Al Jazeera interview, David Cameron made a series of statements about cannabis that are absolutely false which despite repeated polite requests he has done nothing to correct. Even more astonishing is the way the Mail has brought its competitors along with it.  Not just tabloids, even The Independent, which had made a noble and courageous stand for a rational policy back in 1997 was duped 10 years later into its famous “Cannabis, An Apology” front page.

The Daily Mail In Disguise

Duped is exactly the right word.  Amongst a torrent of sensationalist claims there was “skunk cannabis is 25 times stronger”, “more than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction”, that there was “growing proof that skunk causes mental illness and psychosis”.  All presented in accordance with the Daily Mail stylesheet.  This year, the Independent on Sunday’s chief political commentator, John Rentoul, wrote “It is a bad thing that the drugs business is in the hands of criminals. My view is that it would be a worse thing if it were legalised, and regulated or administered by the government.” It is astonishing that a man who takes such an irrational and irresponsible position should be given a platform for such views.

All of The Independent’s claims were false.  The truth is that cannabis today is on average about two to three times stronger than it used to be, about 750 people each year are admitted to hospital for cannabis (while 3000 are admitted for peanuts) and there is no proof at all of a causal link between cannabis and psychosis, only of correlation and increase in risk – but the increase is far greater for alcohol and tobacco use, even for energy drinks.  Also alcohol is clearly proven actually to cause psychosis in around 1% of users.

The best evidence about cannabis and psychosis is a review of all published research (Hickman et al 2009) so, by definition, not cherry picked.  It shows that, although there is no proof of causation, the risk of a correlation between lifetime cannabis use and a single psychotic episode is at worst 0.013% and probably less than 0.003%.

High Priest Of Propaganda

The Daily Mail’s campaign has become self-perpetuating.  Its high priest was chosen as Professor Sir Robin Murray at the church of the Institute of Psychiatry.  Science is usually about dispassionate analysis of evidence but Sir Robin is a very active anti-cannabis campaigner.  In 2005 he found what he thought was his holy grail, he was a co-author on a paper which postulated a theory about a functional polymorphism in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene.  This was reported as meaning that 25% of young people who used cannabis would go on to develop psychosis.

This single piece of research, which was only ever a theory, has been at the centre of all the Reefer Madness scare stories of the last six years. The Daily Mail and Sir Robin promote it  with vigour, it is the foundation of Mary Brett’s Cannabis Skunk Sense campaign and of the deeply irresponsible hysteria from Charles Walker MP, who even goes so far as to say that cocaine is safer than cannabis.

What none of these mischievous propagandists will tell you is that three further studies have been published since, the most recent just two months ago, that disprove the COMT gene cannabis theory completely.

But it is much more than mischief. This mendacious campaign has criminalised millions of citizens, worldwide tens of thousands have been killed and millions more denied safe, effective and inexpensive relief from a wide range of diseases and conditions.  What was originally driven by oil, timber and paper interests is now driven by Big Booze and Big Pharma.  The first is terrified of a much safer, non-addictive, non-toxic alternative to its popular poison.  The second is desperately trying to patent new varieties, extracts and components of the plant in the knowledge that modern science now proves that cannabis is as close to a panacea as possible. Only discovered in 1988, we now know that the endocannabinoid system is fundamental to all aspects of life.  Endocannabinoid deficiency is now being postulated as the fundamental cause of cancers, MS, fibromyalgia and many other conditions.  The only natural source of cannabinoids outside the body is the cannabis plant.  No wonder that 100 years ago more than half of all medicines in the British pharmacopeia contained cannabis.

The Mendacious Paul Dacre

The Daily Mail’s campaign has been remarkably successful.  Make no mistake, virtually all of the reefer madness can be traced back to it.  Other newspapers have followed its lead.  Even police officers and members of the judiciary declare as facts what are actually Daily Mail scare stories. Funding for cannabis research is most easily available if a scientist subscribes to the Daily Mail agenda.  The truth and the scientific evidence have been corrupted.  Irrational prejudice has been promoted and swallowed whole by many who should know far better.  It is a bandwagon that many have chosen to jump on.

What is the truth about cannabis?  Another myth is that there is disagreement amongst scientists.  This isn’t the case.  All the evidence points in the same direction – that cannabis use does increase the risk of psychosis and that the risk is greater at a younger age. This is meaningless though unless it is placed in context and compared with the risk from other activities.  Then it is clear that, relatively speaking, cannabis is very safe.

Professor Les Iversen. "Cannabis is safe"

The bizarre truth is that Professor Les Iversen, the government’s chief drugs advisor, is on the record saying this again and again but the Daily Mail doesn’t print it and the government ignores it, only accepting the advice it chooses to.  Professor Iversen is also a long time advocate of the medicinal use of cannabis but the government continues with its inane position that “there is no medicinal value” in cannabis. Simultaneously, the Home Office has granted a unique monopoly licence to GW Pharmaceuticals to grow 20 tonnes of cannabis a year for medicinal use.  You really couldn’t make it up, could you?

Just last month GW announced the results of clinical trials which show that its super-strong, super-concentrated, 51% THC skunk cannabis medicine Sativex has “…limited relevant adverse effects and – particularly reassuring – the drug does not appear to lead to withdrawal effects if patients suddenly stop using it.” – a far cry from the usual hysteria about psychosis and addiction.

There is a furore in the US over medical marijuana.  The DEA and the massive forces of prohibition see their business coming to an end.  They are fighting back furiously but ultimately they cannot frustrate the declared will of the people.  77% of of all Americans now favour legalising medical marijuana on a federal level.  16 states have already done so.  The market is predicted to be worth nearly $10 billion within a few years.

Last week Switzerland announced that cultivating four plants per person would no longer be an offence.  It’s one plant in Belgium, five plants in Holland and they’re even less strict in Italy and Spain. The Czech Republic and Slovakia are reforming their laws.  In Britain, cannabis production is regularly treated more severely than paedophilia or violent assault.  Just a few plants can get you more than a year in prison.  There is a brutal and disproportionate crackdown in Sheffield at the moment led by Judge Alan Goldsack QC and the South Yorkshire police.  Both the judge and police officers are on the record in local media spouting false science and encouraging hatred of cannabis users.

Medicinal cannabis is available all over Europe except Britain and France.  Residents of other European countries, prescribed cannabis by their doctor can bring it to Britain and use it without restriction under the protection of the Schengen Agreement.  A British resident would risk jail. The Daily Mail’s campaign amounts to a hate crime against cannabis users.  The Press Complaints Commission has proved itself incapable of correcting even blatant falsification of scientific evidence.  More than a million people in Britain now have a criminal record for cannabis.  According to independent research, every year our government gifts up to £9.5 billion to organised crime rather than adopting the safer, more responsible policy of tax and regulate (Taxing the UK Cannabis Market, IDMU 2011).

All these factors are combining to make change urgent and imminent.  We are witnessing the death throes of prohibition while its advocates make a desperate and frantic last stand, their final frenzy.

There is one huge obstacle left to overcome.  How can our cowardly political leaders find a way to save face while reversing the dreadful policy they have supported for so long?  If any issue exposes the hypocrisy and dishonesty of politicians and the way that the media has an improper influence, then it is cannabis.  We have to find a way to let them off the hook.

Miracle

In years to come, the attitudes that now prevail towards people that choose cannabis will be as politically incorrect as racism, homophobia or denying women the vote.  Cannabis is one of God’s greatest gifts with which mankind has had a symbiotic relationship since the dawn of time.  The prohibition experiment of the last 80 years has been a disaster.  A rational approach will bring enormous benefits to our country, save billions in wasted expenditure, create thousands of new jobs, cut crime and disorder, provide tremendously safe and effective relief to millions in pain and disability.  The time has come to embrace cannabis as the miraculous plant that it is.

Reefer Madness In A Final Frenzy - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

It causes far more harm than it prevents.  It is based on prejudice and discrimination.  Science, medicine and all the evidence shows that regulation is the only rational policy.

We have won the argument.  There are now two more steps we must take before change can happen.  Firstly we must defeat the prohibitionists, the ProHos, and their vested interests.  Secondly we must find our cowardly, hypocritical politicians a way to save face in reversing the disastrous policy they have pursued for so long.

Judge Goldsack, the brute of Sheffield

Martin Barriuso

The ProHos are fighting a  desperate rearguard action.  The DEA crackdown on medical marijuana, the frenzied scaremongering of the right wing Australian press, the panic stricken lies and blatant falsification of scientific evidence by the Daily Mail.  The vicious and disproportionate campaign by the Sheffield police and judiciary. In Spain this week, Martin Barriuso, president of the Federation of Cannabis Associations was arrested and held without bail just as he was about to travel to London to present the cannabis social clubs concept in the House of Lords.

Skunk

Don’t doubt that the DEA is behind all this.  It is an autonomous, extrajudicial army that answers to no one, certainly not the US president.  It is in cahoots with GW Pharmaceuticals  which last week released clinical trials data showing that its super-strong, super-concentrated skunk cannabis medicine Sativex is safe and non-addictive.  The medical marijuana industry in the US is taking off.  Israel and all of Europe except Britain and France are recognising the immense value of medicinal cannabis.  The Portugal experiment has now run for more than 10 years and is a resounding success.  The DEA is panicking.  An awful lot of drug war soldiers are going to be redundant soon.  Some very fat cats are about to spill their last saucer of cream.

Michelle Leonhart, DEA

Melanie Phillips, Tabloid ProHo

The vile Melanie Phillips reveals her own panic in an absurd diatribe in today’s Daily Mail.  A deluge of statistics clogs her article, even relegating her usual hatred and prejudice to second place.  Does she really think that the average delusional Daily Mail reader is going to read them, or that anyone else will believe her cooking of the books?

We are winning.   These are the death throes of the most destructive and evil policy that the world has ever seen.  Expect more violent reaction.  Expect more cowardice from Cameron, whoever is Home Secretary and from the mendacious Daily Mail and its stooges.  Expect more misinformation and deceit from Home Office civil servants.  Expect more propaganda and misconduct from police officers and judges  that see their multi-billion pound gravy train coming to an end.  Expect more bribes and under the counter funding from Big Booze and Big Pharma.  Expect more numpty politicians like Charles Walker, Alan Johnson and Nadine Dorries to do everything they can to scare and mislead the public.

Expect all of this and more.  But know that all of this is because we are winning!

The ProHos Are Losing And They’re Fighting Like Alley Cats - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

The iniquitous DEA crackdown on medical marijuana in the past week is appalling and completely contradicts President Obama’s assurances about respect for democratic state law.

Stephen Harper, the new quasi-fascist Canadian PM, has just introduced a bill which will make the sentence for growing more than 200 cannabis plants more severe than for child rape or forced child bestiality.

In Britain, offences involving child porn, paedophilia and under age grooming are commonly treated far more leniently than growing a few plants.  Deeply prejudiced, out of touch judges are distorting science in disgustingly inaccurate and discriminatory comments in cases they are supposed to supervise with wisdom and fairness.  Let me put on record the names of those British judges who, in the past six months or so have shown themselves to be unfit to preside in any cannabis case: Judge Richard Bray, Judge Nigel Thorne, Judge Alan Goldsack and Judge Christopher Plunkett.

Anyone who faces trial on a cannabis matter in front of these men will not be treated fairly.  You must instruct your lawyers to object to them taking charge.

Amongst our politicians, David Cameron tells bare faced untruths and refuses to correct them.  Charles Walker says cocaine is safer for children than cannabis and Anne Milton, the minister for public health, receives his comments with courtesy.  The ministers in the Home Office are beneath contempt for their dishonesty and perverse administration of the law.  Our health ministers are cowards who care not one jot for those who need cannabis as medicine and simply bounce enquiries back to the Home Office.   Mary Brett, the promoter of the sham charity Cannabis Skunk Sense, deceives and dissembles about the COMT gene scare story, despite it being disproven again and again and again.  Professor Sir Robin Murray, the rabid anti-cannabis campaigner, uses his position and qualifications to endorse false scare stories and encourage misleading propaganda.

Then what do we have from the drug reform thinktanks?  More reports, more studies, different websites, more pontification about international co-operation.  I am told that calling Charles Walker and Mary Brett “prohibitionist nutters” is name calling and doesn’t help.  A couple of months ago I was told by another thinktank that my style is “too confrontational”!

Well I say it’s about time we got a whole lot angrier and provoked a lot more confrontation!  These talking shops have a vested interest in prolonging the debate.  CLEAR is a political party and we are about making change happen!  Not after another report and another study and another couple of conferences on expenses,  funded by our worthy sponsors.  We want to see reform now!  We want to see an end to injustice now, not when we’ve dabbled and debated and discussed for years longer.

That’s why we need your support.   We need your money.  Democracy is no longer free in Britain.  All sorts of financial obstacles are placed in our way.  CLEAR needs donations now to continue the campaign, to take the Cannabis Truth roadshow all over the country.

We need a portable PA system.  We need a budget of around £300 for each roadshow venue, for travelling and overnight stays.  We need funding to print more leaflets, stickers, to get a T-shirt and merchandise business underway.

In return I promise you that CLEAR is not going to retreat.  We are not going to be subjugated, neither by the prohibitionists nor by the appeasers who pretend to be on our side but instead work for their own self-serving interests.    With your support we are moving towards a campaign of direct action that will overturn the inertia that so many buy into.

Think Greenpeace and responsible if dramatic protest combined with remorseless action through the courts.  This is where CLEAR is going with your help.  Please go to the CLEAR home page and click on the donate button now!

It’s Time To Get Angry! - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

Dear Sirs,

“VIDEO: Police strike at Dunmow cannabis factory”, the Herts and Essex Observer, 17-05-11

I wish to make a complaint concerning the above article which is still available online at: http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/Dunmow-Stansted/VIDEO-Police-strike-at-Dunmow-cannabis-factory-16052011.htm

I make the complaint on my own account but also in my capacity as the Leader of Cannabis Law Reform (CLEAR), a UK political party, of P.O.Box 674, Salfords, Redhill, RH1 9BN. For the purposes of correspondence, please use my personal address as below.

1. This article breaches the Editors’ Code Of Practice clause 1.i) in that it publishes inaccurate, misleading and distorted information.

2. During the video, PC Rebecca Hawkins, Lead Officer, says “The plants themselves can be very, very harmful to officers because the spores if they’re ingested they can cause serious illness”. Although these words are spoken by the police officer that does not absolve the publisher from its obligation not to publish “inaccurate, misleading and distorted information.”, particularly as in this case readers might reasonably expect the officer to be an expert and to provide factual information. In fact, this statement is inaccurate, misleading and distorted information, both in its use of the term “spores” and in its description of potential harm.

3. Cannabis plants do not release “spores” because they are seed bearing plants. “Spores” are an entirely different method of reproduction used by fungi.

4. The only substances that could potentially be ingested by anyone in close proximity to cannabis plants are pollen or dust. The chances of anyone ingesting these unintentionally in sufficient quantities to cause any form of illness are infinitesimally small.

5. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration Judge, Francis Young, cannabis is one of the least toxic therapeutically active substances known to man. The scientific measurement of toxicity is the therapeutic ratio – effective dose:lethal dose. The therapeutic ratio of alcohol is 1:20, of aspirin 1:35, of cannabis 1:20000. Clearly, it would be impossible for anyone to ingest sufficient quantity of cannabis pollen or dust to cause “serious illness”

I would be grateful if you would deal with this complaint at your earliest convenience. I shall be happy to provide any further information required or to give oral evidence in support.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Reynolds

PCC Complaint. Herts And Essex Observer, 17th May 2011 – RESOLVED - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

By Ian Malley, Cannazine Cannabis News

While PM  David ‘I demand a private life’ Cameron and his deputy Nick ‘I-dont-care-as-long-as-I keep-my-job’ Clegg ramp up their action against otherwise law abiding UK citizens whose only crime is to grow their own cannabis, new evidence from the United States suggests the reason prohibition is so harshly enforced in the UK is to make way for the pharmaceutical industry. And on the strength of the evidence available to us its hard to deny the probability that this could indeed be true.

It’s an accusation once made of the oil companies who stood to lose so much money if industrial hemp was allowed to be grown and sold on the open market.

It wasn’t, and now the Pacific ocean is filling up with the scrap plastics produced as a by-product of petroleum exploration. And similarly, as a result of heavy interest in the pharmaceutical industry, the cannabis situation in the United Kingdom is now more mixed up and ambiguous than ever before.

Scott Paplowski Owes His Life To Cannabis.

Cannabis Conundrum
On the one hand we have a product which is far, far safer than either tobacco or alcohol, yet the UK government insists on sending mini-vans full of tactical police to UK citizens’ homes in the hope of finding just enough cannabis to make a joint, which then justifies the damage caused by gaining entry.

The unfortunate citizen has not a foot to stand on. If cannabis exists in the premises, the police have carte blanche to gain entry causing as much damage as is necessary to make the arrest.

Leaving the home-dweller with a repair ‘tax’ which can run to thousands of pounds.

Click here for Scott Paplowski’s story

Kathy Reynolds Believes Cannabis Helped Her Beat Breast Cancer. As Do Her Specialist Consultants.

In the meantime GW Pharmaceuticals runs a cannabis grow operation in the south of England covering hectares of ground with glass, growing over 30,000 cannabis plants per crop.

Cannabis which the Conservative government tells us has no medical worth. So why invest so heavily to grow it if it’s worthless?

The truth is of course it’s far from worthless. It’s worth quite literally billions of dollars a year, which is why the government simply cannot have people growing their own willy-nilly as the revenue hit is too much to even begin to calculate.

Click here for Kathy Reynolds’ story

Medicinal Cannabis in America

In America Obama’s administration has gone one step further. Or rather, 55 steps further as its been announced 55 companies in the US now hold government issued permits to grow medicinal cannabis.

The Drug Enforcement Administration told Legalization Nation in an e-mail last week that 55 unnamed companies now hold licenses to grow cannabis in the United States.

A fact that contradicts the widespread belief that there is only one legal pot farm in America, operated under the DEA for research purposes.

Julie Falco Uses Cannabis To Help Fight The Symptoms Of Incurable Multiple Sclerosis.

Marinol = $$$$

It appears as if the upswing in federally approved pot farming is about feeding the need of pharmaceutical companies who want to produce a generic version of THC pill Marinol and at least one other cannabis-based pill for a wide variety of new uses.

In other words, if big corporations grow dope with the government and put it in a pill, it’s medicine.

But if you grow it at home or at a city-permitted pot farm and then put it in a vaporizer, it’s a felony.

>Read Julie Falco’s story here.

It’s a weird piece of news that comes at a strange and contradictory time for the drug war.

As US attornies send threatening letters to states and cities, including Oakland, warning them against “commercial cultivation” of marijuana, the DEA is quietly handing out licenses for commercial cultivation.

Clearly, governments on both sides of the pond are having a laugh and they’re doing so at your and at my expense.

Civil disobedience in an ugly brute at the best of times but as countless activists have found out it brings news column inches to a cause struggling for publicity amidst the hypocrisy of politics and big business .

For instance, when a single citizen gets his or her home raided by the police, who go on to find perhaps a few grams of cannabis, that citizen can feel very alone without the regularly-preached-to-choir to back them up.

But if 10, or 100 citizens report themselves to the police for growing cannabis in every major town or city, the judicial system would clog up in an instant.

I’m ready to give up my liberty in a bid to expose the hypocrisy of the cannabis situation in the UK and I know of plenty others who are prepared too.

Its time for some action, as other means simply don’t work or are ignored, by the people who YOU voted for.

How does THAT work in a country supposedly run along the lines of a democracy?

Cannabis Con Becomes Cannabis Lies - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

Admissions to hospital for alcohol abuse reached 1,057,000 in 2009-10.  See the BBC story: “Alcohol-related hospital admissions reach record level”

Similar figures for hospital admissions in 2009 are:

Peanuts – 3000

Cannabis – 750

Now there are “lies, damned lies and statistics” so take them as a pinch of salt. Is this really news? When I researched the same figures three months ago, Alcohol Concern, a respected source, said there were 1.1 million admissions for alcohol.  You can only take these figures as indicative.  Look at them in very broad terms, allow for error, be sceptical.

This was my analysis of mortality, hospital admissions, toxicity and propensity to psychosis.   Now I am not a scientist, nor a doctor of public health, nor a statistician – but I don’t think I need to be to understand the truth.

Cannabis/Alcohol Harms 2011, P.J.Reynolds

100 X Safer than Alcohol? Cannabis Is 1000s X Safer! - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party

Dear Sirs,

“I was wrong on cigarettes but believe me, I’m right on cannabis”, The Mail On Sunday, 13-03-11

I wish to make a complaint concerning the above article which is still available online at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1365661/Cigarette-display-ban-I-wrong-smoking-Im-right-cannabis.html

I make the complaint on my account but also in my capacity as the Leader of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance, a political party, of P.O.Box 674, Salfords, RH1 9BN.  For the purposes of correspondence, please use my personal address as below.

1. This article breaches the Editors’ Code Of Practice clause 1.i) in that it publishes inaccurate, misleading and distorted information.

2. It also breaches clause 1.iii) in that it fails to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

3. In the last paragraph the article uses the phrase “…that sinister poison, cannabis…”. Clearly, whether cannabis is “sinister” is a matter of opinion or comment.  However, whether it is a “poison” is a matter of scientific fact. The article therefore fails to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.  Furthermore, cannabis is not a poison so the article publishes inaccurate, misleading and distorted information.

Francis L. Young, Administrative Law Judge of the US Department of Justice, DEA, made the following Findings Of Fact concerning cannabis:

“a. Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects. But marijuana is not such a substance. There is no record in the extensive medical literature describing a proven, documented cannabis-induced fatality.

b. This is a remarkable statement. First, the record on marijuana encompasses 5,000 years of human experience. Second, marijuana is now used daily by enormous numbers of people throughout the world. Estimates suggest that from twenty million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally, smoke marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision. Yet, despite this long history of use and the extraordinarily high numbers of social smokers, there are simply no credible medical reports to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death.

c. By contrast aspirin, a commonly used, over-the-counter medicine, causes hundreds of deaths each year.

d. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana’s LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.

e. At present it is estimated that marijuana’s LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.

f. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity.

g. Another common medical way to determine drug safety is called the therapeutic ratio. This ratio defines the difference between a therapeutically effective dose and a dose which is capable of inducing adverse effects.

h. A commonly used over-the-counter product like aspirin has a therapeutic ratio of around 1:20. Two aspirins are the recommended dose for adult patients. Twenty times this dose, forty aspirins, may cause a lethal reaction in some patients, and will almost certainly cause gross injury to the digestive system, including extensive internal bleeding.

i. The therapeutic ratio for prescribed drugs is commonly around 1:10 or lower. Valium, a commonly used prescriptive drug, may cause very serious biological damage if patients use ten times the recommended (therapeutic) dose.

j. There are, of course, prescriptive drugs which have much lower therapeutic ratios. Many of the drugs used to treat patients with cancer, glaucoma and multiple sclerosis are highly toxic. The therapeutic ratio of some of the drugs used in antineoplastic therapies, for example, are regarded as extremely toxic poisons with therapeutic ratios that may fall below 1:1.5. These drugs also have very low LD-50 ratios and can result in toxic, even lethal reactions, while being properly employed.

k. By contrast, marijuana’s therapeutic ratio, like its LD-50, is impossible to quantify because it is so high.

l. In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume. For example, eating ten raw potatoes can result in a toxic response. By comparison, it is physically impossible to eat enough marijuana to induce death.

m. Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.”

4. Prof.Leslie Iversen, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University and current chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, in his book “The Science Of Marijuana”, says: (Tetrahydrocannabinol is the principal active ingredient of cannabis)

“Tetrahydrocannabinol is a very safe drug. Laboratory animals (rats, mice, dogs, monkeys) can tolerate doses of up to 1000 mg/kg (milligrams per kilogram). This would be equivalent to a 70 kg person swallowing 70 grams of the drug —about 5,000 times more than is required to produce a high. Despite the widespread illicit use of cannabis there are very few if any instances of people dying from an overdose. In Britain, official government statistics listed five deaths from cannabis in the period 1993-1995 but on closer examination these proved to have been deaths due to inhalation of vomit that could not be directly attributed to cannabis (House of Lords Report, 1998). By comparison with other commonly used recreational drugs these statistics are impressive.”

5. Quite clearly, cannabis is not a poison.

I would be grateful if you would deal with this complaint at your earliest convenience.  I shall be happy to provide any further information required or to give oral evidence in support.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Reynolds

—– Original Message —–
From: Elizabeth Cobbe
To: peter@peter-reynolds.co.uk
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 10:24 AM
Subject: PCC Ref 111428

Commission’s decision in the case of
Arnold/Reynolds v Daily Mail

The complainants considered that the reference to cannabis as a “sinister poison” was inaccurate.

The Commission noted the complainants’ argument that cannabis was not a poison. However, it made clear that newspapers are entitled to publish the views of individuals, provided that they are distinguished from fact. In this instance, the article had clearly been presented as a comment piece – it had been written in the first person – and the Commission was satisfied that readers would be aware that the views expressed in the article about smoking and, subsequently, cannabis represented the personal opinions of the columnist. The columnist was entitled to express his opinion that cannabis was a “sinister poison” and the Commission did not consider that readers would understand the reference to amount to a statement of scientific fact. As such, it did not consider that readers would be significantly misled in such a way as to constitute a breach of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code.

One complainant had been of the view that the newspaper was harassing its cannabis using readership. Clause 4 (Harassment) was designed to address the conduct of journalists in the newsgathering process in order to prevent individuals being harassed or persistently pursued. The repeated publication of articles on a particular subject did not engage the terms of this clause. Given that the complainant had not expressed concern over the actual conduct of the journalist, but rather his views, the Commission could not establish a breach of Clause 4 of the Editors’ Code of Practice.

—– Original Message —–
From: Peter Reynolds
To: Elizabeth Cobbe
Cc: Charlotte Dewar
Sent: Friday, April 22, 2011 3:22 PM
Subject: Re: PCC Ref 111428

Dear Elizabeth,

Thank you for this. I am an ardent supporter of a free press and the right of anyone to express their opinion. That is why I can accept many of the commission’s rulings. This decision though is absurd.

It is not a matter of opinion whether or not cannabis or any substance is a poison. Opinion has nothing to do with it. It is a matter of scientific fact. I respect the commission’s intention to preserve the right of journalists to express their opinions but this decision goes way beyond that. This sanctions the publication of wholly false and inaccurate information. It is simply a lie and I cannot accept that the commission has properly discharged its duty in reaching this decision.

Please will you ask the commission to reconsider this case? Surely, the concomitant of a free press is that when lies and falsehoods are published they must be corrected. This decision is a charter for any nonsense to be published. I think the commission vastly overestimates the ability of readers to distinguish between a “comment piece” and news or factual reporting. With respect, this is the conceit of a professional journalist. The average reader does not make that judgement at all.

Peter Hitchens repeatedly publishes inaccurate and misleading information about cannabis. If it was an occasional incidence then the defence of his right to express an opinion might be credible. However, the fact that the Mail On Sunday and/or the Daily Mail repeatedly allows him to publish what can only be described as lies, brings the whole newspaper business and journalism into disrepute. This is an organised campaign of misinformation and deep-seated prejudice. It behoves the commission to have the courage and common sense to grasp this nettle and rein in what amounts to a disgraceful and irresponsible deception on the British public.

Please ask the commission to reconsider its decision.

Kind regards,

Peter Reynolds

—– Original Message —–
From: Elizabeth Cobbe
To: Peter Reynolds
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2011 1:44 PM
Subject: RE: PCC Ref 111428

Dear Mr Reynolds,

Thank you for your email. I am sorry you disagree with the decision and find it absurd.

I do understand your position on the matter, and the Commission was made fully aware of the information you provided in the body of your complaint regarding the toxicity cannabis. However, it was of the view that readers would understand that the term poison had been used, not as a statement of scientific fact, but rather as an expression of the columnist’s view of the substance. In cases where new evidence has come to light that would have a bearing on the Commission’s decision, or the Commission has demonstrably misunderstood the complaint, it will on occasion reconsider complaints. In this instance, it does not appear that the Commission has misunderstood the complaint, but rather that you disagree with the Commission’s view on the article. While you are certainly entitled to disagree with the Commission’s position, I am afraid this does not amount to a reason for it to reconsider the complaint.

Again, I am sorry you so strongly disagree with the decision.

Kind Regards

Elizabeth Cobbe

—– Original Message —–
From: Peter Reynolds
To: independentreviewer@pcc.org.uk
Sent: Sunday, May 15, 2011 11:44 PM
Subject: Press Complaints Commission complaint no. 111428

Dear Sir Michael,

I am writing to you because I am concerned about the way in which the Press Complaints Commission has handled my complaint no. 111428 concerning an article in the Mail On Sunday/Daily Mail by Peter Hitchens.

Are you able to refer to the correspondence between the Commission and me or must I send you a full record of the proceedings?

Please advise me accordingly and I will prepare my submission to you.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Reynolds

PCC Complaint. The Mail On Sunday, 13th March 2011 – NOT UPHELD - CLEAR UK: Cannabis Law Reform Party