The has been a lot of debate about the idea that NHS patients should be made responsible for their own health through the shock tactic of refusing them treatment if they continue to manifest the behaviour that is causing their health problem. It seems like good sense, but people recognise that such a policy would cross a difficult line.
Yet the government, as it considers overturning its recent decision to downgrade cannabis, is at the same time considering a much more draconian step. Reclassifying cannabis might send out "an important health message". So might bringing alcohol and tobacco into a classification regime. But reclassifaction of cannabis, ostensibly a vehicle for "sending out an important health message", would also once again make possession of cannabis an imprisonable offence. Should people be jailed for damaging their own health? Doesn't jailing them damage their health further?
It is about time that policy makers woke up to the fact that a single mechanism linking damage to health with criminal punishment, as enshrined in the Misuse of Drugs Act, is entirely illogical. By all means reclassify cannabis. Reclassify all drugs. legal and illegal, according to the harm they can do. That's one debate and of itself it is hardly straightforward. But deal with the criminal justice implications separately.
These two considerations have nothing to do with each other, and the link between them is entirely abstract, completely fatuous and vastly distorting. So much damage has already been done through the creation of the illegal market for drugs that it is hard to see exactly how to undo it. But dividing consumer health issues from supplier criminality issues would be a modest and entirely sensible start.
there is a lot of assumption involved with cannabis smoking because of the lack of worthwhile research but there is emerging evidence that cannabis actually inhibits cancer in the respiratory tract and when injected into tumours(breast and brain so far)the blood supply is reduced and the cancers shrink significantly.
Much more work needs to be done before we can begin to understand this important plant.
rgds mary.
Posted by: mary james | Wednesday, 06 February 2008 at 05:41 PM
It is also the only cure I know for Alopetia
Posted by: Jane | Wednesday, 06 February 2008 at 08:54 PM
The ongoing hypocracy is sicken when the subject is treated as a political device to boost ratings by politicians
The UK has serious drug and alcohol issues
Time to get real and decriminalize all drugs
Bring the subject into a more objective environment
Classify tobacco, alcohol and so called recreational drugs on the same basis
Enough of the lies and distortion
Posted by: Perry | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 06:25 AM
Maybe the NHS shouldn't reimburse people who break their legs skiing. And shouldn't the police arrest people for possession of such potentially dangerous material. Right on for a more closely controlled society. It is after all for our own good.
Posted by: Crank | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:24 AM
Deborah Orr is wrong in suggesting that posession of cannabis is not an imprisonable offence. All illegal drug possesssion carries the potential for imprisonment. Class C drugs are illegal as well as classs A and B.
Posted by: Steve | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:28 AM
Of course, the govt. will keep this line of iniquitous behaviour towards otherwise law-abiding people who simply prefer to use cannabis rather than alcohol, or any other 'legal' drugs. Reclassification isn't the answer, either. A sensible education programme on the healthy benefits from using canabis sensibly, in moderation, seems to me to be the best way to reduce the stigmatic crime scene alonside removing a source of income for the gangs who currently control supply and distribution. This, of course, will not happen while the American administration maintains it's almost homicidal course of action towards its own citizens who smoke weed.
Posted by: Jack O'lynn | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:32 AM
If cannabis deserves to be class B, then alcohol and tobacco should be class A. Drink pushers and tobacco dealers should be imprisoned for long periods. Come to that, so should anybody selling junk food. By this logic, perhaps 95% of the UK adult population should be incarcerated.
This may be what turns the likes of Gordon Brown and David Cameron on. Perhaps it flatters their megalomania to deprive fellow human beings of liberty and civil rights on a completely arbitrary basis. But it is clearly not sensible policy.
Cannabis causes negligible harm when compared to the legal killer drugs alcohol and tobacco. For some people who suffer from chronic pain condition, it can be a highly effective remedy. The drug laws which so priviledge the pushers of the legal killer drugs, also tortures MS, cancer, glaucoma and arthritis patients (and others) by
denying them pain relief.
Whatever classification cannabis has under the Law, people will continue to use it in our millions. Prohibition cannot prevent this. All it achieves is uneducated use, a vigorous unregulated market and further disaffection with the democratic process.
Policy can either be directed towards punishing drug use (prohibition) or towards harm reduction, not both. Labour again show their malign intent towards the people of the UK when they choose to increase the harm done by drugs by persuing the expensive, corrosive and failed policy of cannabis prohibition.
Posted by: Sean | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:33 AM
One day we will wake up and realise the damage we have done both to our society and our citizens by using the criminal justice system to control our use of drugs.
Millions have given up tobacco an incredibly damaging and addictive drug.We have done this without jailing anyone but used Education,price and restriction of advertising.We can do the same with any drug that can be shown to be dangerous. We must stop treating our citizens as unintelligent children and give them information to make their own informed decisons on this issue.
We must move the use of drugs from a criminal activity to one of Public heath for the health of us all.
Posted by: John | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:37 AM
There is an old adage that says two rights don't make a wrong. Ive had to treat people who are suffering from the effects of drug and or alcohol abuse. Making more problem drugs legal and therefore more easily available is a laughably simplistic but sadly deluded answer to the problem of indulgent people.
Posted by: S Phillips | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:41 AM
I attended the ACMD review meeting yesterday. Members of the public were allowed to speak at the very end of the day in an open forum. I said
"I am the mother of a problematic cannabis user who has schizophrenia. The recommendations from Wayne Hall's research as presented by Simon Lenton today were to look for common ground and to use most effective and least coercive ways of discouraging adolescent use. Increasing penalties does not engage - it turns people off and they do not listen. Problematic cannabis users and non-problematic cannabis users need to be engaged, and increasing to Class B is not the way to do it."
I could also have said more in relation to the health promotion apprach and finding common ground.
These three points are what is coomon ground (not research but from discussions on internet cannabis forums) :
Most people, both users and non-users would agree with what Wayne Hall said and would support ways of discouraging childrens use.
Most people support the right of those who need canabis as a medicine
Most people accept that if you are going to use cannabis it should be used as safely as possible.
Moving cannabis to Class B would both pointless and unimaginative, and goes against the very important health promotion that is needed.
Posted by: Helen Sello | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 08:52 AM
In its' submission to the ACMD, mental health charity Rethink (who want it kept class C) published the details of research that says that only 3% of people stop using cannabis because it is illegal - meaning that prohibition is 97% ineffective.
Illegality did not deter the Home Secretary, her predecessor, the leader of the opposition and a large percentage of other MPs (and me).
Has the Home Secretary explained how raising the classification of cannabis back to the status it had when she ignored the law will deter other people?
Or is it just that they want another 4,000,000 entries on the DNA database?
Posted by: John Watson | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 09:27 AM
"Making more problem drugs legal and therefore more easily available"
John, can you explain how problem drugs are not easily available now? Increasing penalties on problem drugs will not reduce supply, it simply makes the supply more profitable for criminals, and perpetuates the problem, as we have seen. Prohibition has encouraged the illegal market, not controlled it.
Posted by: Steve | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 09:40 AM
Just a quick note on sentencing for possession of Class C drugs, in response to Steve's comment. Although, strictly speaking, a custodial sentence is an option, sentencing guidelines firmly recommend fines except in the case of "persistent flouting".
Posted by: Deborah Orr | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 10:02 AM
Deborah Orr makes the the common mistake of mixing up the correct placing of cannabis in the hierarchy of harms for illegal drugs with ultimate-possible maximum sentence. Cannabis should never have been downgraded. For young teenagers and pre-teens whose mental state & education are affected forever, by cannabis use, Cannabis use is almost as seriously damaging a non-lethal drug as it is possible to take. Imprisonment for personal cannabis use (or any other drug for that matter) is so rare in the UK as to be of no consequence. The maximum penalty is a red-herring in this debate. Those who have pushed hard for re-grading do NOT believe that society can arrest its way out of our horrendous drug problem (legal & illegal drugs), social sanctions may need to be more imaginative. The social and personal harm potential of cannabis needs to be flagged up to society, parents and potential users. Putting cannabis back where it belongs is only a first step in begiinning to change our drug using culture. On the evidence given at this weeks ACMD hearing, we are seeing the death rattle of cannabis legalisation arguments.
Posted by: David Raynes | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 10:45 AM
David, 136 people were jailed in 2005 for possession of cannabis (Hansard 26/11/07).
Did you not see this weeks' Horizon, which presented the result of the Science and Technology committee findings on drugs, putting alcohol and tobacco as more dangerous than cannabis? We've discussed this before on Usenet.
Can you explain how class B status, even if it is justified, will deter people from using cannabis, when it did not deter the Home Secretary and me?
Posted by: John Watson | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 10:57 AM
Thanks Deborah for once again stating what us old hippies have known for 40 years. ....criminalising cannabis does not help anyone and the law is the much more harmful than any health risks. I speak from personal experience having lost my job because of the law and ended up out of work for several years which affected my health much more than any drugs I had taken.
I am not saying that cannabis is safe for adults or young people and ideally I would hope young people would not take it or drink alcohol but in spite of the law they do ...maybe if the government remembered one of their own slogans ..education education education we might see a little sanity on this topic.
And and when will the Independent apologise for its own scaremongering re skunk being 20 times more powerful now than in the 60's in articles last year.
The law is not the place to enforce health choices or MacDonald's would be illegal
Posted by: Old Hippy | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 12:03 PM
The kind of dialogue characterised by Deborah's article and the comments on it is too narrow to be of service to either side of the argument. Whether you are for or against liberalisation of drug policy, you have to look not just at health and the law but at all the facets - for example: wider health aspects than the usual area of physical health, formal and informal education, social welfare, employment, effect on others around the user (including society as a whole), research and practice evaluation, cost-benefit and outcome analysis of policies and - very importantly - the culture surrounding and influencing decisions about drugs. It is specious to look at just two facets (law and health) and say that they are the sole criteria, or that changing one will automatically change the other, or will solve everything. This is why improving the total health of communities will always be far from simple.
Mary James says we need more research, and to some extent she is right (and researchers everywhere will bless her for keeping their jobs safe) but on the subject of cannabis damage we already have a shipload of the stuff, and the problem lies more in internecine warfare about whose research is better. We would do better by our communities if we transferred our energies away from this internal wrangling and into real health-promoting activities - which means education but a whole lot more besides.
Against this more complex backdrop it is easier to see how classification of drugs - and penalties associated with drug misuse are valid parts of the picture as understood by the community at large. (A wider impact stems from Britain's position in the world - many other countries watch and take their lead from watching how we handle this situation, and I can tell you many were shaken by David Blunkett's sudden deviation from former policy).
Classification should not have been tinkered with by a new Home Secretary barely through the door into his new office. To suggest that upgrading cannabis would bring lots of users into prison is tosh - there will always be anomalous judgements (or judges) but almost no one in Britain or America gets prison for simple possession; there are almost always other offences that have been plea-bargained away. Putting cannabis back where it belongs in the system is just a sensible part of the whole community improvement process, the 'health promotion' which Helen Sello describes. And I say this not as a policy campaigner but as a drug counsellor with 15 years service thus far, helping those who have hit problems.
Posted by: Peter Stoker | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 12:27 PM
I find myself agreeing with Peter: "Classification should not have been tinkered with by a new Home Secretary...". It should be decided by scientific evidence. This has happened twice so far and the experts both times agreed it should be in class C. Nothing has changed since then, unless you consider research that shows there is no link between cannabis use and cancer and THC kills cancer cells.
Posted by: John Watson | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 01:26 PM
John-You make my point, the number you quote is tiny in relation to UK population and of course Deborah elsewhere corrects the impression that imprisonment for personal use quantities is a common event. It is distinctly uncommon and not recommended or wanted by most thinking people. Research here and even in the US, that investigates ALL the surrounding circumstances of sentencing, shows that very often indeed, the simple approach to statistics which you have taken obfuscates what actually ocurred. What were the other charges, what plea bargaining took place (and saving of court time was involved). What was the drug offence history of the defendant? What were the circumstances of the arrest, were there public order matters, theft etc.
Personally I have little attraction to the present A to C classification. I would prefer legal or illegal.
The classification system, though, has two primary
uses. Firstly (an indication to users, their parents and those who might become users), of potential for personal and social harm. Secondly as a signal to those who enforce the law and to those who apply it and educate, of a perceived (scientific) view of personal/social harm so that efforts and penalties can be judged in that light -within the range of both, that are possible.
Given and accepting the present system, the downgrading was wrong because it seriously under-represented the potential for personal & social harm, of cannabis. It was historically driven by legalisers and their half-hearted rather silly and unthinking fellow travellers, many of them in the media. We can argue about the present system but it is an incontrovertible fact (as we heard two days ago) that cannabis is extremely harmful to many
users and a high proportion of the population are especially vulnerable if the genetic element is correct-as it appears to be.
The suggestion that legalisation (espoused by some commentators here) would in any way reduce use or personal harm, is obviously garbage, given the existing harm of and scale of, the tobacco/alcohol model in those countries where it is allowed free rein, under the capitalist system. Cannabis should be in Class B because, (despite my disliking for the A to C system), that is exactly where it always belonged. All the signs are that Government knows this full well, it knows it was misled and deliberately deceived (by some people) in relation to cannabis downgrading. Some of those involved had duplicitous motives. Downgrading did nothing to help parents, who want to get their kids from 12 to 22 without them going off the rails through drug use-legal or illegal. The pro-dope apologists saw downgrading as a route to full legalisation. That debate is now over. Government knows it. It was good to see on Tuesday that the argument for re grading to B is coming from the Department for Health-exactly as it should be. There was a lot of talk on Tuesday about public education camapaigns. No amount of such campaigns can overcome the fundamentally wrong signals sent by "Blunketts Blunder" in downgrading. Once again the main political parties are starting to unite on this whole drugs issue. Re-grading will do the education job FOR government, the media will do it for free, it will reverberate around the world. Yes I would agree, not many current users will immediately change their habits because of regrading. That is not the point, the point is starting the long road back to sanity for future generations.
The point of laws and regulations John? How would the roads be without speed limits? Do those limits mean everyone obeys them-all of the time? Do rules affect behaviour? I suggest you look at the smokers outside pubs.
Posted by: David Raynes | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 02:01 PM
On John Watson's latest comment, I would be far happier with review by 'experts' if those experts were representative of both sides of the argument i.e. libertarian v preventative. Sadly, this is far from the case, and the body of so-called experts (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs - ACMD) has been castigated by many, and recorded thus in Hansard, for being heavily biased in its membership towards libertarianism and with almost nobody representing a preventive, health-promoting position. You cannot place any more credibility on their recommendations than you could on a bunch of drunks giving recommendations for opening hours ... or is that too close to the bone?
Posted by: Peter Stoker | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 02:06 PM
What about 'have a go heroes' should these unbermensch be refused treatment for any resulting injuries on account of their reckless behaviour. How about depressed self harmers?...where dose it end. What a shame Tobaco industry millionaires can afford their own medical costs.
Blair is as much in and out of hospital, using up resources (due to his sickly heart) as he is in other people's countries...would it not also be fair to have a '3 strikes and your out' rule. Definately would of promoted world health in Blairs case.
Posted by: Tshwane | Thursday, 07 February 2008 at 02:56 PM
I am astounded that the UK media has waited so long to drive the propaganda campaign for the legalisation of cannabis.Professor Wayne Hall and Dr. Simon Lenton, the leading perpetrators of the minimisation of the harm of cannabis for its eventual legalisation are social scientists-not medical scientists.Mid-90s the anti-prohibition zealot Lenton sabotaged public debate and public health services by using the same biased jargon trotted out by Deborah Orr's journalistic spin.Hall and Lenton aligned themselves to NORML the drug user's idol and mentor and let NORML militantly campaign to legalise cannabis.Helen Sello is obviously a Hall/Lenton footsoldier,she is wrong on her 3 recommendations and in Lenton's home state,Western Australia,his"legislation"for civil penalties has been proven disastrous.WA's mental health system has collapsed due to 5 years of drug epidemics which can be directly blamed on the campaign to abolish prohibition using the minimisation of the harm of illicit drugs especially cannabis.The 2007 WA Cannabis Review of Lenton's Law was resoundingly atrocious showing that Lenton's hypotheses for removing criminal penalties for cannabis has failed.It was found that the WA Government failed to educate the public re the abject harms of cannabis.The downgrading of cannabis in WA,supposedly to keep youth from having a criminal record which they didn't get anyway and its easy availability has led to:(1)Two WA Youth Detention Centres so overfilled that the numbers of drug addled juveniles who are now serious criminal recidivists being in court more often and held in adult lockups.A new detention centre is under construction;(2Two marijuana derivative pharmaceutical medications have proven to be ineffective in treating nausea of cancer patients,WA oncologists stopped using Marinol years ago;(3)Nationally funded, in 1994 Wayne Hall incompetently and for a predestined outcome of undermining Australian law enforcement minimised cannabis dependence yet recommended its use safely to those who were dependent due to mental illness and respiratory harms.Hall's 90s mantra was that"the umpire is still out on cannabis".The umpires in Australia on illicit drug caused madness is Prof.Ian Hickie and Dr. Sev Ozdowski whilst Aust.Human Rights Commissioner via the Not for Service report which exposed Australia's failed health systems majorly burdened by cannabis and other illicit drugs causing madness for which there were no drug and alcohol services or hospital treatment.Lenton's 2003 WA Cannabis Legislation has failed.It was slammed by WA Police,Royal A&NZ College of Psychs and the Australian Medical Assoc.Lenton,Mike Ashton et al Forward Thinking on Drugs paper funded by Rountree Foundation and George Soros is the blueprint for the global legalisation of all drugs.Lenton has not declared his several conflicting interests which drives global Government downgrading of illicit drugs and the abolition of prohibition laws throughout the world via Harm Reduction.The ACMD Review must investigate the results of downgrading cannabis in WA-until these results are published world wide governments should stop undermining prohibition laws.Those countries who have already done so should ensure that Cannabis is kept illicit because of the harms caused by the social science academic chattering class perpetrating philosophical ideology by emperical hypotheses minus any reputable international medical science data and the potention for cannabis to cause the greatest preventable harms due to the sheer numbers of persons who use it caused by Hall,Lenton and their legalisation footsoldiers.
Posted by: Geraldine Mullins | Friday, 08 February 2008 at 02:45 AM
David, from your comment 'You cannot place any more credibility on their recommendations than you could on a bunch of drunks giving recommendations for opening hours ...' you obviously assume that those calling for regulation are cannabis users. As a worker in the drugs field specialising in work with young people I can say categorically that most of my colleagues agree regulation is the way forward, and guess what, not one of them is a cannabis user. As for so called 'legalisation', most sensible arguments omit this word entirely. Hardly anyone would argue for a free market, this would still allow criminal organisations to operate freely within the common market. If people wish the government to continue to spend billions of pounds on a prohibitionistic stance which has not worked in more than 40 years then feel free, the government tax me either way anyway!
Posted by: A Byrne | Friday, 08 February 2008 at 04:21 PM
In my last post I refer of course to Peter's comment, not David's (sorry, it has been a long week)
Posted by: A Byrne | Friday, 08 February 2008 at 04:25 PM
In reply to Geraldine who said "Helen Sello is obviously a Hall/Lenton footsoldier,she is wrong on her 3 recommendations".
I am nobody's footsoldier, thank you and I object to my own experiences being belittled. And my somewhat obvious 3 points of common ground are not wrong.
1. I have met very few adult cannabis users who want children to use it whether or not they accept that there are mental health risks. Its how to go about discouraging them from doing so is where there is not agreement - which is why an imaginative approach is needed - and moving cannabis to class B is about as unimaginative as you can get
2.The right for it to be used as a medicine for those who need it is something that most people agree on, apart from a few of the most extreme prohibitionists like Mary Brett.
3. If you are going to use cannabis it should be used as safely as possible - a somewhat obvious statement which can be applied to any activity involving risk. But threatening people with increased penalties blocks off the dialogue about specific risk and safest use.
Helen Sello
Cannabis HM
Posted by: Helen Sello | Friday, 08 February 2008 at 11:32 PM
Helen,By virtue of the fact that you spread Lenton and Hall's spurious diatribe you are their footsoldier.(1)I have met very few tobacco addicts who want children to start smoking tobacco at an early age but the reality is that many children mimic adult's tobacco use.The same happens to children when they see their parents who don't give a rats using mull.Public Health gurus have won the war for the de facto prohibition of tobacco use in Australia. Since Australians Lenton and Hall are the leading global apologists for cannabis for its eventual legalisation let us stick to their pro-drug peer's official findings eg:"Factors that heighten the risk of developing problems from cannabis use incl.frequent use of cannabis at an early age;poor parenting;school drop-out;mixing with drug-using peers; moving away from home at an early age;attention deficit hyperactivity disorder;daily cigarette smoking in adolescence and being able to get cannabis easily. Patterns of cannabis use such as use more than once per week, particularly daily use, and use of more potent forms also increase the likelihood of developing dependence."("Cannabis answers to your questions"J.Copeland et al for the ANCD).A recent Canberra study has shown that anti-smoking campaigns have little effect in turning young people off cigarettes.That is why cannabis must remain illegal.The 1987 Collins & Lapsley HM spin compared the public health cost of licit and illicit drug use pointing to tobacco and alcohol harms costing far more than illicit drug harms.This is not because these drugs are more harmful than cannabis but because they are legal-more use more harm-more public health cost. So why would the WHO wait to warn people about cannabis until it is legal when tobacco's legal status is nearly reversed?In 2004, 29% of Australian teenagers aged between 14 & 19 years used an illicit drug.In 2005-06 cannabis accounted for 72% of illicit drug arrests.None of these were for'simple'possession or dealing.This is no longer an offence in Australia.Oops!I don't want Australia to sound too attractive to drug users who seek to use with impunity.Australia is now like the Netherlands attracting drug tourists because its a druggies paradise-that is until mental illness hits and then there's big trouble because Australia's mental health system has collapsed due to the endemic use of cannabis.(2)Medical marijuana is already available so what's your problem.(3)No respectable anti-tobacco public health expert would recommend 'safe'use of tobacco-what level of using cannabis safely do you suggest?
Posted by: Geraldine Mullins | Friday, 15 February 2008 at 01:40 PM
i love cannabis
Posted by: garry | Sunday, 13 April 2008 at 09:33 PM
I'm a student who smokes pot to keep my grades up and focus on school. Without it i can't focus on my work but instead focus on materialistic items around me. Cannabis shouldn't be labeled as a narcotic in anyway, besides it's recreational use it's helping people all over the world despite it being legal or not. No matter the laws on it, it doesn't change the fact it's helping people.
Posted by: Marcus | Monday, 19 May 2008 at 05:26 PM
make cannabis legal for all use
Posted by: emma | Friday, 10 October 2008 at 11:58 PM
make cannabis legal for all use
Posted by: emma | Saturday, 11 October 2008 at 12:00 AM