An exceptional scientist and a beleaguered plant. It is nearly impossible to underestimate the contribution William Brooke O'Shaughnessy has made to science. Yet, despite his outstanding talent in medicine,...
Andre Gomes is a politics and economics student at the University of Bath and is currently undertaking an internship with CLEAR Being a higher educational institution focused on consolidating its academically excellent record, the University of Bath encourages its best students to go down certain career paths, to bring about prestige to both the university and the student. Many organisations and businesses establish partnerships to ensure the crème de la crèmeare coerced and recruited at the earliest...
There are many arguments against the current drugs policy - not just cannabis but all drugs. in particular we are well aware of what the prohibitionists euphemistically call the "unforeseen consequences" of prohibition; violence, destruction of communities, corruption of government and so on. What is never discussed is how these "unintended consequences" came about. In part of course it's a simple issue of supply and demand, but that only goes a part of the way to explain what...
The truly amazing thing about the cannabis law reform debate is that it has rarely been out of the news for the past 20 or more years. Day in, day out the same tired old arguments are put forward by the prohibition lobby, dressed up as 'strong' laws that 'protect' people. Law reform arguments are dismissed as "going soft on drugs", "liberalisation" or worse. There's very little attempt to debate the real issues that are so important, even...
Originally published in the Independent 22nd April 2015 Embarrassing displays of public consumption like the 420 celebrations are not going to lead to meaningful drug reform, but I know what will > Peter Reynolds, Leader of CLEAR Thousands of people gathered in Hyde Park yesterday to mark the yearly event of 420, and protest against the UK's cannabis laws. 420 is an American code word for cannabis with very esoteric, bizarre and not very interesting origins. However,...
Daily Mail to the Rescue? The recent 'skunk' scare" promoted by some world-respected scientists and the Daily Mail was, I suspect, seen by at least some of them as an argument for continued and stronger prohibition. But perhaps they've scored an own goal, opening an argument which has the potential to be devastating for the continued prohibition of cannabis. Now one view of the study by Sir Robin Murray and others - which really set all this...
Nick Clegg. The UK's Most Progressive Politician on Drugs Policy. The Mail on Sunday (1st March) screams: "The Lib Dem leader risks provoking outrage this week when he joins Sir Richard Branson to put the case for removing all criminal sanctions for possessing cannabis – including skunk, its most potent form." Mail on Sunday, 1st March 2015 The only thing that keeps this terrorising message about cannabis off its front page is...
Daily Telegraph Headline 7th October 2014 "Cannabis As Addictive As Heroin" Tom Chivers (The Spectator), Ian Dunt (Politics.co.uk) and Jonathan Liebling (Cannabis and me) expose the dreadful reporting of the latest cannabis harms study from the husband and wife team of Professor Sir Robin Murray and Dr Marta Di Forti. The British tabloid press has long been engaged in the corruption of our society and successive governments' ability to deal with drugs policy...
Derek Williams, CLEAR Website Editor A personal take on the events of last week and what it means for the cannabis law reform movement. I've been around the cannabis law reform debate for over 20 years now and I don't think I've seen a week quite like the last one in all that time. Specifically, we might have just had one of those watershed moments for the cannabis law reform debate...
Jason Harrow is a member of the CLEAR medicinal users panel. Over a year ago I was forced out of my house by the change in the benefit system. This meant I was forced away from my doctor who had been treating me for a number of years and who actually supported my self-medication with cannabis. She prescribed...