Read the
introduction if you haven't read it yet.
Here's an outline for a cannabis legalisation
campaign in your local newspapers timed to follow the
announcement of cannabis reclassification in early
January 2004. We will provide whatever support we
can, contact us at [email protected]
.
To find your local newspaper's e-mail address
either buy a copy or check:
http://www.ccguide.org.uk/e_press.html
www.thepaperboy.com.au/uk/uk1.cfm
or search www.google.com
To check out any of our quotes see the Comparison page or the pages
linked from it - or just paste the quote into the
search box (in quotes, " ") at www.google.com
Letter 1: comparison of harm to
user
Few people realise the enormity of the drugs
problem facing society. A quarter of all adults are
now drug addicts. A fifth of all deaths are caused by
drugs. However these are not problems caused by
illegal drugs but by the only recreational drugs
legally available, alcohol and tobacco.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)
was established by the Misuse of Drugs Act as an
independent group of experts with the legal duty to
advise Government about drug dangers. They are the
highest legal authority on drug harm in the UK. The
ACMD have stated in their report Reducing Drug-Related
Deaths that tobacco "smoking kills about
120,000 people each year, and between 28,000 and 33,000
people die annually as a result of alcohol". The
ACMD have also stated in their report The
classification of cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs
Act 1971 that "the high use of cannabis is
not associated with major health problems for the
individual or society".
Which drug would you rather your teenager adopted as
their drug of choice?
Letter 2: comparison of harm to
user
Alcohol Concern and ASH are both concerned that
our drug laws encourage people to believe that legal
drugs are safer than illegal ones. The Government's
Home Affairs Select Committee report Government
Drugs Policy: Is it Working? states that "legal
drugs, such as tobacco and alcohol, are responsible
for far greater damage both to individual health and
to the social fabric in general than illegal ones".
This view is confirmed by the World Health
Organisation's report Cannabis: a health
perspective and research agenda which states that
"cannabis poses a much less serious public
health problem than is currently posed by alcohol and
tobacco in Western societies".
How can we justify continuing to prohibit safer
alternatives to legal drugs when our teenagers are
growing up to join a society in which they have a one
in five chance of being killed by these legal but
lethal drugs? We may not like admitting we've been
wrong about cannabis but our children's lives depend
upon it.
Letter 3: comparison of
addictiveness
The most lethal addictive drugs known are now sold
openly in most supermarkets and corner shops
alongside sweets for children.
The Department of Health's report The
Dangerousness of Drugs says "tobacco has the
greatest potential for dependence followed by heroin,
then cocaine and alcohol. Cannabis has the lowest
'addictability' of all the drugs listed above."
The World Health Organisation's report Cannabis: a
health perspective and research agenda says
"withdrawal symptoms are either absent or mild
after dependent cannabis users abruptly stop their
cannabis use". This explains why the large
majority of cannabis users give up in their late
twenties after they have adjusted to the stresses of
adult life.
If we are to allow the sale of tobacco and alcohol,
drugs that kill a fifth of the population, then their
sale should follow the good example set by cannabis
cafes and be restricted to premises designed for that
purpose only. All recreational drugs should be
legally available and strictly regulated with
restrictions matched to the risk of harm, but only in
dedicated drug stores.
Letter 4: comparison of harm to
others
Many of us are not too concerned if
drug users harm themselves so long as they don't harm
others. So which drug causes the most harm to others?
We know heroin and crack addicts commit a lot of
crime to fund their addiction but this is not a
consequence of the drug's effect but of it's
prohibition and consequent high price. The Advisory
Council on the Misuse of Drugs states that "alcohol
plays a part in about half of the incidents of
domestic violence and about 40 percent of violent
crimes." The Department of
Transport says "3,500 people are killed
or seriously injured each year in drink drive
accidents".
Worse still is tobacco. Only tobacco addicts kill
hundreds of innocent people every year through
passive smoking.
The World Health Organisation's report Cannabis: a
health perspective and research agenda says
"alcohol intoxication is strongly associated
with aggressive and violent behaviour" but
"there is little to suggest a causal
relationship of cannabis use to aggression or
violence."
The ACMD's report The
classification of cannabis under the Misuse of Drugs
Act 1971 states that "cannabis
intoxication tends to produce relaxation and social
withdrawal rather than the aggressive and
disinhibited behaviour commonly found under the
influence of alcohol".
Legal regulation of cannabis would not only be a harm
reduction measure but also a crime reduction policy.
Letter 5: Government drug profiteers
Why is cannabis still illegal when it has been
proven to be so much safer than the legal drugs
alcohol and tobacco?
Perhaps because cannabis represents such an economic
threat to Government finances. The Government
receives £20 billion a year from the supply of their
legal but lethal drugs. In contrast the best quality
cannabis can be grown by anyone at home avoiding any
tax revenue demanded by Government.
The Government's Ten Year Strategy for Tackling
Drugs says they will "imprison those who
profit from the drugs trade" and Home Office
guidance says that "we must continue referring
to alcohol, tobacco and caffeine as drugs". How
can we believe anything said by the country's biggest
drug profiteers?
Letter 6: Legal drug dealers
The Government licenses 200,000 drug dealers to
supply lethal addictive drugs that kill one in five
citizens. They also repress all competing drug
industries by making them illegal even though they
supply safer drugs. In exchange the Government
receives £20 billion a year from the alcohol and
tobacco drug cartels. In this country we call this
Government income 'tax revenue'. In a developing
country we might call it bribery of government by
drug cartels.
MORE UNDER CONSTRUCTION !
Letter 7: Cost of legal drug use
v grow your own cannabis
Letter 8: Discrimination,
restriction of competition & free trade (tobacco
trader v cannabis trader)
Best to have a break in the
campaign here so as not bore readers uninterested in
drug issues. But here's some letters in reply to
concerns about legalisation:
Letter - More enforcement
needed:
X suggests better law enforcement is the
answer to our rising drug pronblems.
A famous immigrant to the United States during
alcohol prohibition commented:
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been
lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For
nothing is more destructive of respect for the
government and the law of the land than passing laws
which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that
the dangerous increase of crime in this country is
closely connected with this."
Surely we don't have to be Einstein to accept his
conclusions?
Driving:
Concerns about cannabis users
driving must be treated seriously but also must be
kept in perspective. Studies comparing the effects of
alcohol and cannabis on driving always show cannabis
to be the far safer intoxicant.
The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs report
'The classification of cannabis under the Misuse of
Drugs Act 1971' states that "cannabis
differs from alcohol, however, in one major respect:
it seems not to increase risk-taking behaviour. This
may explain why it appears to play a smaller role
than alcohol in road traffic accidents."
Lung cancer:
Mr X claims that "there is
a higher incidence of lung cancer among people who
smoke cannabis as well as tobacco than those who only
smoke tobacco". This is untrue.
The Government's Select Committee on Science and
Technology's report 'Medical use of cannabis' says
that an 8 year comparison study showed that "marijuana
smokers did not show the age-related decline in
respiratory function seen in tobacco smokers. ...there
was no evidence for increases in lung cancers in
marijuana smokers".
The British Lung Foundation's cannabis report A
Smoking Gun only suggests cannabis could
be as dangerous as tobacco and of course no-one would
consider making tobacco users criminals. However the BLF's report is badly flawed as explained by the
Independent Drug Monitoring Unit's report at www.idmu.co.uk/prlung.htm
.
Mental illness:
The article about cannabis
confirms beyond doubt the link between the drug and
depression. It shows that a third of those with
depression smoke cannabis while only a tenth of
healthy people do.
However we should not jump to conclusions about this
link. What would we conclude if research showed that
those suffering from physical pain were far more
likely to take paracetamol than healthy people? That
paracetamol caused the pain?
Those suffering from mental illness may find
significant relief from symptoms by taking cannabis.
GW Pharmaceuticals is investigating the use of
cannabis for treating depression and other mental
illness based upon much research that indicates the
drug may be useful for these illnesses.
It may well be true that cannabis
users are several times more likely to suffer from
schizophrenia than non-users.
It's certainly true that paracetamol users are
several times more likely to suffer from pain than
non-users. Conclusive proof that paracetamol causes
pain then?
The Report of Scientific Committee
on Tobacco & Health 2001 states that tobacco
"smoking rates are particularly high amongst
those suffering from diagnosed mental illnesses. The
OPCS psychiatric morbidity survey 1996, reported
smoking prevalence rates in patients in institutions:
74% of sufferers from schizophrenia and delusional
states, 70% in those with affective psychoses and 74%
in those with neurotic disorders." These figures
show that those suffering mental illness are 3 times
more likely to use tobacco than the general
population.
