The former head of MI5 believes the “war on drugs” has proved fruitless and it is time to consider decriminalising the possession and use of small quantities of cannabis.
Eliza Manningham-Buller has backed calls for the government to set up a commission to examine how to tackle the UK’s drug culture and consider the highly controversial move of relaxing the law.
She was speaking at a meeting held by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform on Thursday where senior government representatives met experts from across the world to consider ways of combating the issue.
The cross-bench peer said the current policy was failing and it was time to look at alternative ways of tackling the production and use of drugs by assessing how other countries are dealing with the problem. She believes serious consideration needs to be given to the idea of regulating cannabis so that its psychotic effects can be controlled more closely…
Manningham-Buller said there was too much of a knee-jerk opposition to changing drug policy but it is an issue that needs to be at the forefront of national debate.
She urged politicians to come up with a more successful way of tackling the issue by assessing evidence that looks at how to reduce the harmful effects of drugs in a cost-effective approach.
If you have any knowledge of the topic, of the realities of of cannabis, pot, mary jane, marijuana, grass, weed, ganja or Texas Tea – you understand why I didn’t waste any space quoting foolishness from politicians at the same meeting with a vested interest in continuing the same old policy.
I think this is a non issue. If it would bring more money in then it would of been legalised already.
Is your friend bobbo confused? Clicking on the Reply link works for everybody else. Gee, I hope this works the way it is supposed to or someone will get cranky.
Don’t teach Bobbo how to use the reply button, please. My Bobbo filter would stop working. With him always at the top of a message stream, it’s much easier to filter him out.
Hmmm. I guess you don’t know who’s paying for all of legislation (hint: its not us,) which in turns causes all kinds of expenditures we are paying for to our prison system, the enforcement of the anti-drug laws, the military, the unnecessarily harsh border guards etcetera.
Why do you think Manuel Noriega though himself secure and protected from the crap he was trafficking? He was until a change of administration decided he had to be replaced by someone less expensive.
Think of the DEA and the prison system and the border guards and the huge enforcement apparatus as an enormous make work program made possible by the same laws which are keeping the pot growing industry unregulated and the price high.
What took him so long.
He just discovered a nice unused patch of peaty soil out behind the azalias.
Like every controversial decision, those in charge have no balls to call out the obvious until it becomes ‘popular’.
Gee, how many things have gone down this path?
#1–Soprano==explain what you mean by “if?” Surely the obvious falsity of your statement should cause you to ponder it further?
Please define “it”
Wow! I think they will legalize it now for sure…
/humour
…however, the boys over at MI6 said:
“are you crazy?? -that would cut down our black project funding for the Muslim Brotherhood by 33%.. -and the Mossad would never let us do that..”
-s
Legalize it and tax it. That way you have less drug money floating in the underworld and I am told by my eighth grade students that about as much as a pack of cigarettes only costs $20 anyway which tells me we aren’t winning the war on this drug.
The other issue is that hemp is a great crop and as long as weed is illegal farmers can’t grow hemp for fiber, etc.
I’m against legalizing the stuff. We all know it’s a “gateway drug” that leads youthful users to more dangerous and addictive drugs, like tobacco and alcohol.
BTW, Bobbo: A good example of why self-numbering doesn’t work. You listed your reply as #4 but it appears to be the fifth un-nested reply and the ninth linear reply.
Moran Sam is oblivious. He’s happy to see his reply directly under the first response and now he’ll go away. He has no interest in following a debate or engaging in a conversation.
Dvorak Uncensored – the blog that requires Dramamine to avoid motion sickness looking for replies!
Many people agree with you. I did for a long time until I realized that Prohibition almost ruined the country by making criminals so rich. The mob was pretty much taking over and running entire cities.
To a degree the same is true here. If enough people would obey the law then its worth having but when massive hunks of the population disobey a law like this it becomes counter productive unless you are willing to start large scale termination of users to bring about compliance. Personally I don’t have the stomach for that.
Really? Addictive, hard drug use is not highly correlated with pot (and other soft drugs) usage.
Addictive, hard drug use is highly correlated with poverty.
What we need is a joint agreement.
Did you hear that sound? That “whooooshing” noise?
Deowll? Spearmint? Skeptic?
Whoosh? No?
Never mind.
Thank you, Ubi.
Note to self: Learn ASCII icon for tongue-in-cheek.
The tongue-in-cheek was obvious to me. Is that all Ubi was talking about?
Geesh, I was looking for some hidden pun or other hidden joke.
What about my “joint agreement” pun. Too lame?
The only reason it is a gateway drug is you have to buy it from street dealers that deal other drugs that are poison. If you could buy it at a controlled clinic or store there would be no other drugs available. The only people against legalization is the liquor industry and the privatized prison industry.
It is high time!
We are at the point in history where the fear of “offending” the older generations or running rampant on the “sense of correct justice” of imagined majority voters in society has faded away from decisions like decriminalizing recreational drugs.
Yet that fear still drives politicians who just can’t let go of “the way things were” and see forward.
Get rid of drug laws and you kill the Cartels. Get rid of drug laws and you empty the prisons. Get rid of drug laws and you get into the business of legislating responsibility and all the while it pays for itself in taxes. Just like cigarettes and alcohol.
All the rest is bullshit from people who harbor fear.
The most important fact about this controversy is that there is a tremendous amount of scientific and anecdotal evidence that cannabinoids fight cancer. Unfortunately, there is also a nonsensical Federal law that opposes testing the effectiveness of marijuana as a possible cancer cure.
http://www.everythingimportant.org/cancer
Liberals on this site are obsessed with legalizing cannabis and other drugs. I wonder why…
Before you can decriminalize and regulate cannabis, you must first regulate liberals and liberalism. I imagine this site would be on the bandwagon with a post criticizing Monsanto for producing a crop that gets processed and sold by RJRNabisco as a personal consumption item that turns people into brain dead losers. The lawsuits would be all over the place against a company for producing something people want. First regulate the liberals.
The government(s) need these stupid, ineffectual laws, to show who’s boss, and instill fear in its mostly law abiding citizens.
Laws imprisoning you, if you grow the wrong thing, or eat the wrong thing, or wear (hemp) the wrong thing. Are really about strong-arming the public into submission. And perhaps a little about protecting the commercial interests of big industry.
Because if you were to grow your own smoking plants. The tobacco giants would soon be on par with other common vegetable growers. Who can’t price their produce too high, because almost anyone can grow a tomato or a head of lettuce, at home. And governments who tax tobacco sales, would also take a hit in revenue. Because if there’s anything they know the public accepts a tax on, its a tax on something that’s a pleasure, and considered a vice. Which is one “separation of church and state” argument, they’re not prepared to get into.
So don’t expect decriminalization of weed, to happen without a bloody special interest fight. It’s way too profitable to keep it illegal. No matter how costly and dangerous it is to police.
Glenn, California legalized ‘medicinal marijuana’ and the arrests keep happening, because even then people aren’t willing to grow their own plants.
MARIJUANA QUOTES FROM FAMOUS PEOPLE – HEMP QUOTES
“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.”
– Albert Einstein quote on Hemp
“Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.”
– William F. Buckley Jr. quote on Marijuana
“When a private enterprise fails, it is closed down; when a government enterprise fails, it is expanded. Isn’t that exactly what’s been happening with drugs?”
– Milton Friedman quote on Marijuana
“It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics . . . dope and all that crap. It’s a thousand times better than whiskey – it’s an assistant – a friend.”
– Louis Armstrong quote on Marijuana
“That is not a drug. It’s a leaf,”
– Arnold Schwarzenegger, U.S. President Wannabe quote on Marijuana
“Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country.”
– Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President quote on Hemp
“Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere.”
– George Washington, U.S. President quote on Hemp
“When I was in England, I experimented with marijuana a time or two, and I didn’t like it, and I didn’t inhale, and I never tried again.”
– Bill Clinton, U.S. President quote on Marijuana
“When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point.”
– Barack Obama quote on Marijuana
“There’s been no top authority saying what marijuana does to you. I really don’t know that much about it. I tried it once but it didn’t do anything to me.”
– John Wayne quote on Marijuana
“I think pot should be legal. I don’t smoke it, but I like the smell of it.”
– Andy Warhol quote on Marijuana
“I enjoy smoking cannabis and see no harm in it”.
– Jennifer Aniston quote on Marijuana
“If John Lennon is deported, I’m leaving too…with my musicians..and my marijuana.”
– Art Garfunkel quote on Marijuana
“Forty million Americans smoked marijuana; the only ones who didn’t like it were Judge Ginsberg, Clarence Thomas and Bill Clinton.”
– Jay Leno quote on Marijuana
“The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world.”
– Carl Sagan quote on Marijuana
“I used to smoke marijuana. But I’ll tell you something: I would only smoke it in the late evening. Oh, occasionally the early evening, but usually the late evening – or the mid-evening. Just the early evening, mid-evening and late evening. Occasionally, early afternoon, early mid-afternoon, or perhaps the late-mid-afternoon. Oh, sometimes the early-mid-late-early morning. . . . …But never at dusk.”
– Steve Martin quote on Marijuana
“When you return to this mundane sphere from your visionary world, you would seem to leave a Neapolitan spring for a Lapland winter – to quit paradise for earth – heaven for hell! Taste the hashish, guest of mine – taste the hashish!” – Alexander Dumas quote on Marijuana
“Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?”
– Henry Ford quote on Marijuana
“If the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” don’t include the right to experiment with your own consciousness, then the Declaration of Independence isn’t worth the hemp it was written on.”
– Terence McKenna quote on Marijuana
“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use… Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.”
– Jimmy Carter, U.S. President quote on Marijuana
“We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption.”
– John Adams, U.S. President quote on Hemp
“La cucaracha, la cucaracha, Ya no quieres caminar, Porque no tienes,
Porque le falta, Marihuana que fumar.”
– Pancho Villa quote on Marijuana