Cannabis classification to be tightened | Reuters
LONDON, UK – Cannabis will be raised to a class B drug with a maximum five year jail term for users, the government said on Wednesday, rejecting a recommendation from its own drugs advisers to leave the classification unchanged.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said the decision had been made because of concern, particularly amongst the public, about the “alarming” use of skunk, a stronger strain of the narcotic which now dominates the market.
Throwing people in jail for years on end is working wonders for the bottom line of privatized prison systems. And by putting prisoners to work the UK and the USA can better compete with China for prison-made goods. This is solid good news for investors. We need to jail more people and keep them there longer.
UPDATE: Oddly, this flies in the face of last year’s research findings.
I’m glad to see that England is busy persecuting the hard felons..
This is psycho. Now, you want to nail someone for selling to minors, fine. Jail for personal use is
stupid on all levels. No, I don’t do drugs and I think it is not a good idea. However, if you want to mess yourself up it’s not something you should do time for.
Sounds like Texas back in the ’70s – ASININE –
They already have this in the U.S. Territory of American Samoa. Take a look at this notice from the AS Attorney General’s office.
http://www.samoanews.com/SDNimages/AGwarning.html
Oh, and regarding post #4, I guarantee you that any British prison is going to be paradise compared to the rat-infested hellhole called Tafuna Correctional Facility. Here’s a picture:
http://tinyurl.com/6ks2xg
In California I can legally possess up to a half pound…
So far, the British coppers have said they will not enforce the law. You’ll probably have to give ’em an extra J once in a while.
And bonus: we get to segregate from the rest of the population those who think you get to pick & choose which laws to follow.
RBG
Hmmm… the article says Cannabis will be raised to a class B drug with a maximum five year jail term for users…, not 5 Years Mandatory Prison Time.
>>those who think you get to pick & choose
>>which laws to follow.
That’s just about everyone.
Then following the logic of Cannabis legalization, we should abolish laws.
RBG
11, Logic: you don’t know what it means
No, just legalize weed. Wtf?
Under all the same reasoning that weed should be legal, so should all other drugs.
Simple bottom line has two parts:
1. Harm caused by drugs being illegal is greater than the harm caused by them being legal.
2. When drugs are legal, people that are harmed choose to be instead of innocent bystanders being dragged into the mire.
Being pro legalization is the superior practical and moral position.
The true irony here is that this “epidemic” of “skunk” weed is fiction. It’s been made up out of whole cloth to sound scary, and justify more police state paranoia.
1) Weed has been called skunk for decades.
2) The potency studies they push are inherently flawed, with no controls, no description of sources, and no explanation of the toxicology of a higher dose of the active ingredients; wouldn’t a variety that makes you high faster actually hurt you less, since you wouldn’t have to smoke as much?
3) There is no proof offered to support the ‘epidemic’ claims, which are actually kind of silly unless ganga is contagious.
4) There is no concern among the public that I’ve read about in any public forum. None.
Yet another successful attempt at crafting reality wholesale, with the media/prison/military/industrial complex marching in lockstep with a bunch of nanny state fascists.
“And bonus: we get to segregate from the rest of the population those who think you get to pick & choose which laws to follow.
RBG
”
Don’t you know RGB, we already do that.
It’s called the Parliament.
If they think that locking up more people is such a good idea. They should pick up the tab and not drop it on taxpayers laps.
The only beneficiaries of tougher laws on narcotics are the drug dealers who make more money and the law enforcers who keep more jobs.
From the article it seems like the police don’t care so the change is being driven by the criminals.
Someone has been paid off. Who?
kETS DO IT THIS WAY…
Have ALL those that SMOKE/have SMOKED/WILL SOME MJ, come to 1 location to be arrested..
Let them ALL gather.
Arrest them…
THEN try to…
1. Pay for 3/4 of the nation, to be imprisoned.
2. FIND room for ALL those being sent to prison..
#19: THEN try to…
1. Pay for 3/4 of the nation, to be imprisoned.
2. FIND room for ALL those being sent to prison..
1. Put them to work making cheap, lead-filled toys for export to China.
2. Just put a fence around the entire country.
Dvorak needs to brush up on his headline writing skills.
In law, there is a big difference between:
a 5-year “mandatory” jail term and
a 5-year “maximum” jail term.
This is probably due to the outrage over yobs and hooligans terrorizing the country. It’s like Clockwork Orange now.
#23, I don’t know one pot head that would ever be a hooligan. All the pot heads I knew in college would rather sit around listening to music and playing video games then actually get off the couch and cause trouble.
RGB, speaking of logic. Does it make more logic to make a drug proven to be less lethal than Tobacco illegal? Or does it make more logic to make Tobacco illegal? I think we can all agree, logic doesn’t play any role in making laws.
Alcohol and Tobacco cause WAY MORE DAMAGE TO SOCIETY THAN POT !!! What we have here is just some GORILLA POLITICIANS BEATING THEIR FLAT CHESTS AND BEING “TOUGH ON CRIME” – HAVING FIRST “INVENTED” THE CRIME OF POT SMOKING !!!
I bet this is a direct result of the studies that the camera system in Britain doesn’t work to quell crime. They decided to make borderline activities easily spotted criminal. Watch for more behavioral/morality laws.
Laws will not stop illegal activities out right. We know this to be true by history.
The only thing that stops crime is education of individuals to not do it in the first place.
But will all the mixed messages we have in society we will never educate away crime.
Cursor_
#24 – thats because all the kids you knew were educated college kids. the not so educated hooligans enjoy the reefer too.
This “skunk” theory sounds like bullshit to me. The stuff I got in England was nothing compared to the stuff I can get here in Canada. And I noticed that most people Ive spoken to/smoked with from england roll with tobacco, so their joints are not nearly as strong
We know that weed isn’t dangerous. If “skunk” is dangerous, wouldn’t the logical thing be to legalize (and tax it if you like) weed, and promote “skunk” to the dangerous list? Then nobody would smoke “skunk”. If you accept their logic at all.
Seems to me, like the Indonesia petroleum announcement, that this is mostly a political move: for Labour to make further inroads in the right-wing-cretin vote (note, I’m not saying that all right wingers are cretins).
It does, of course, bring the administration of justice into disrepute, but gov’ts do that all the time.
The headline is wrong. Before this law people could go to jail for much longer then 5 years now 5 years is the Max. You most likely will just get a warning and you weed confiscated.
I hear Britan is also planning on bring back debtors prisons.