Drug Experts Says Legalise Cannabis But Politicians Who Smoked It Say No
CANNABIS is a big cash crop in the UK. The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) has today published a cannabis report. And the BBC has sensational news:
Across the UK, the study found the number of commercial cannabis factories found by police every day totalled 6,886 – more than double the 3,032 discovered two years ago.
Can we look at a definition of factory?
Commander Allan Gibson, the Acpo lead on cannabis, said the findings came as no surprise.
Really? In other BBC news:
Between 2004 and 2007 police discovered an average of 800 factories a year. In 2007/08 that rose to just over 3,000, and by 2009/10 it ballooned to almost 7,000.
Those headline numbers are falling. But cannabis isn’t all that bad?
Bryan Dent, drugs co-ordinator for West Yorkshire Police, said the force had “mounted a series of operations in order to make the county a hostile place for organised crime groups who are determined to use cannabis factories as a way of producing drugs and exploiting the vulnerable”.
The vulnerable is the student buying a bag of weed? Isn’t that the willing? Isn’t the vulnerable the woman who has MS but can’t buy marijuana legally because the Government prefers to license other drugs? Are the police turning cannabis into a scare story to keep us all paranoid?
But this is all very serious and very bad.
The report explains how illegal Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants are trafficked into the country and then put to work as ‘gardeners’ in the factories…
The report says children have been trafficked into the UK to work in factories, to divert electricity and to raid rival cannabis farms.
But the report also says:
The face of cannabis growing is also changing, the report said, with more white British offenders than ever before, the majority of them aged between 18 and 35.
Of course – and whisper this – if weed were legal then the criminals would not be, er, criminals. They would be farmers. They would pay taxes.
Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the outgoing president of the Royal College of Physicians, has given this some thought. He thinks that marijuana should be legal. Says he:
“There’s a lot of evidence that the total prohibition of drugs, making them totally illicit and unavailable, has not been successful at reducing not only the health burden, but also the impact on crime. I’m trying to take a fresh look, as many people have done. There is a strong case for a different approach.”
So say the expert. But Mr Gilmore is not a politician. And so he deemed to know sod all about it. A Home Office wonk tells us:
“Drugs such as heroin, cocaine and cannabis are extremely harmful and can cause misery to communities across the country. The government does not believe that decriminalisation is the right approach. Our priorities are clear; we want to reduce drug use, crack down on drug-related crime and disorder and help addicts come off drugs for good.”
Only, that doesn’t work. Maybe David Cameron is still on drugs..?
Posted: 17th, August 2010 | In: Reviews Comments (5) | TrackBack | Permalink
