04 Jul Ken Clarke At The HASC Drugs Inquiry

A guest article by DisqusCannabis.

This is the same Ken Clarke that was deputy chairman of British American Tobacco. Ironic isn’t it?

In the last HASC meeting, Prof Nutt predicted a 25% reduction in alcohol use if cannabis was legalised. Now you see why they called in Ken to give evidence yesterday, to protect the tobacco profits! He cannot relinquish his stance on cannabis for fear of BAT’s share value plummeting. ‘Soft’ drugs are never explicitly mentioned. Ministers only use the single phrase ‘drugs’ so they don’t have to class them separately, or compare them to the ‘drugs’ they want us to take.

This man doesn’t know anything about drugs, other than how to run a multi-billion dollar company that sells them. 100,000 deaths each year Ken! He even acknowledges that prohibition isn’t working, but offers no alternative solution. Mr Clarke and the government don’t want a solution. They want to funnel people down the path of caffeine/alcohol/tobacco use as they ARE addictive. That’s the whole point, a constant revenue stream.

In almost every instance, the groups that object to cannabis legalisation stand to lose a great deal of their income. Boots object so they retain a huge share of the market in ‘everyday’ drugs, for example paracetamol.

Tobacco and alcohol industries fear the drop in revenue.

‘Research’ groups and charities object as they get funding to carry out said research.

That was the cause of the disgraceful study the British Lung Foundation released several weeks ago. They know that tobacco has been proven to cause lung conditions, so are unlikely to receive further funding to ‘research’ it. As a result they switch to ‘researching’ cannabis therefore receiving funding and donations. They claimed cannabis smoking was 20 times as harmful as tobacco when the evidence suggests the exact opposite.

The BLF were even stupid enough to include Donald Tashkin’s study from 1988 in their report. In 1988, Tashkin was given a research grant from the US Government to ‘prove’ cannabis causes cancer. At that time, he believed this to be the case. After further studies, Tashkin concluded the exact opposite. Pure cannabis smokers were shown to have the same or slightly lower risk of head, neck, mouth and lung cancer as non-smokers!

The BLF conveniently ignored this result, and only published his earlier study in their report. I guess they didn’t expect anybody would disbelieve their claims. If they are looking for further funding, they shouldn’t lie in order to receive it. That is theft by deception, a criminal offence!

The fact that ‘Boots’ group submitted evidence against cannabis legalisation should tell you all you need to know! Why would a pharmacy group have cause to object to cannabis legalisation? Because of its many medicinal properties perhaps? But doesn’t our government say cannabis has no medicinal value? Why would Boots object then? Hang on, didn’t the Home Office licence GW Pharma to legally grow hundreds of tonnes of cannabis per year to sell as medicine? That could get confusing.

I have tried to demonstrate to people a current example of a politician/business/lobby group that supports prohibition for their own motives.This HASC inquiry shows all three of these groups doing exactly that publicly.

If people wish to continue believing the lies our government and media spout about cannabis, more fool them. If they wish to enlighten themselves, all the info is available on line.

In the interest of balance, I accept cannabis is not completely harmless. It is however, rated almost identically to caffeine in its potential harm to self and others, a drug our current laws allow to be sold unrestricted to five year olds.This is why the government doesn’t like to compare the relative harm of ollegal and legal drugs.

The prohibition of Cannabis is preventing cures and treatments for hundreds of conditions. Alzheimers, MS, Parkinsons, arthritis, depression, schizophrenia, PTSD etc. Perhaps the biggest failure is that a potential cancer cure is unable to be developed. THC has proven cancer killing properties, both in the lab and in animals. No ‘official’ human tests have been done that I am aware of, but many people are individually treating their cancer with cannabis. They are claiming they have full remission of their cancers after treatment with cannabis oil. We will never know if official testing cannot be done. I can only assume that our politicians don’t care about a possible cancer cure when there is so much money to be made elsewhere.

People are being lied to. Cannabis is the most beneficial plant mankind has ever known. Why don’t we stop patronising our citizens and tell them the truth? They will find out in the end, and they won’t be happy when they do!