The northlondonhippy

I feel like a proper foot solider in the bat­tle over cannabis. The government’s recent announce­ment that they would review its cur­rent sta­tus in the UK as a “Class C” drug is crazy. They say and I quote, that this review is “likely to result in reclas­si­fi­ca­tion back into “Class B””. That’s even madder!

I don’t feel I can let this hap­pen with­out at least putting up some sort of fight. Even though the media would like you to think oth­er­wise, there is actu­ally no gen­uine case to reclas­sify cannabis. In fact, if the argu­ment is pre­sented objec­tively, then the smart con­clu­sion to reach is that full legal­i­sa­tion is the cor­rect move.

I’m hardly the first per­son to call for cannabis to be legalised and I’m not likely to be the last. Many peo­ple feel the same, as wit­nessed in count­less opin­ion polls.

In response to the siege on cannabis, I’ve put together sev­eral entries which put forth a much more bal­anced view, based on gen­uine sci­ence and per­sonal expe­ri­ence, espe­cially, my own per­sonal expe­ri­ences with cannabis, which I will briefly share with you now.

I’ve been a daily cannabis smoker for over 26 years. For 25 years of that, I’ve been smok­ing mainly “skunk weed” as it has come to be known, so I have some degree of author­ity on the subject.

For the record, what is known as “skunk weed” is not new, but has been around and avail­able for decades. All it really is, are par­tic­u­lar strains of cannabis, that have been selec­tively grown and bred for their pos­i­tive qual­i­ties, be they taste, yield or potency. The tech­niques used are no dif­fer­ent from those used by farm­ers everywhere.

“Skunk weed” is not genet­i­cally mod­i­fied, as I have seen reported in the press, because that would be ridicu­lous. Can you imag­ine some white lab coat wear­ing sci­en­tist aban­don­ing his research into cur­ing can­cer, or AIDS in favour of genet­i­cally engi­neer­ing stronger weed? It’s just ludicrous!

These stronger strains of cannabis, are in real­ity 2 or 3 times stronger than weed grow­ing wild, and not 25–30 times stronger, as reported recently. Also, they have been com­mer­cially avail­able for a very long time, decades in fact. I first tried it in 1982, some 25 years ago.

Peo­ple who smoke cannabis should not be crim­i­nalised. It’s a plant, for fuck’s sake. For most users of cannabis, the high is pleas­ant, relax­ing and enjoy­able. If it doesn’t agree with you, then please, don’t smoke any more, but don’t try and pre­vent those of us who do enjoy it, from doing so!

Ask any police­man if they agree with the cur­rent cannabis leg­is­la­tion and most will tell you that “Class C” doesn’t go far enough and they would pre­fer to see it legalised fully. Then ask them if they would rather deal with some­one under the influ­ence of weed or alco­hol and once they stop laugh­ing, they will tell you that a drunk is always the most dangerous.

Alco­hol, is legal and freely avail­able, yet is a hor­ri­ble drug, with mis­er­able side effects and can be directly linked to many of soci­eties ills. From anti­so­cial and vio­lent behav­iour on the streets, to domes­tic vio­lence in the home, and the loss of pro­duc­tiv­ity in busi­ness and indus­try, alco­hol is at the root of all of this.

But is any­one call­ing for a ban on booze? Of course not! And besides, they tried that in Amer­ica in the early decades of the last cen­tury and do you know what it resulted in? Organ­ised crime and the mafia tak­ing hold all over the country.

Let’s get the crim­i­nals out of the cannabis sup­ply chain. Let’s turn it into the reg­u­lated, com­mer­cial indus­try it deserves to be!

I’ve posted a series of pieces today, which puts forth the pos­i­tive argu­ments for cannabis. I’ve also put out a pub­lic offer to be the pos­i­tive voice of cannabis smok­ers, to redress the bal­ance in the cov­er­age and com­ment on the sub­ject, which is tend­ing towards hys­te­ria, rather than truth.

Here is a list of handy links to today’s cannabis series, please expect more on the sub­ject to follow:

- The northlon­don­hippy offers to be the voice of rea­son, truth, san­ity and expe­ri­ence regard­ing cannabis (534)

- Don’t just take my word for it (535)

- That Lan­cent cannabis study, the Daily Mail and truth (536)

- It’s not as black and white as they want you to believe (538)

- Demand and sup­ply – another angle on the sta­tus of cannabis (539)

Please take the time to read all of it. You deserve to inform your­selves, so you can all bet­ter inform others.

If you smoke cannabis, or you’ve ever smoked it and you’ve enjoyed it, then your voice needs to be heard too!

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