Re-classifcation again to class B

[becky420]

Downing Street has signalled that Gordon Brown remains determined to tighten the law on cannabis, despite reports that the official advisory body is set to recommend against re-classification.

The Prime Minister's spokesman sought to play down a BBC report that the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) had concluded that there was no need to re-classify cannabis again as a Class B drug.

He said that the report appeared to be based on a single presentation and that the committee had yet to reach any final conclusions.

Mr Brown, he said, stood by his comments at his Downing Street press conference on Tuesday when he said that the Government needed to send out a signal that cannabis use was not just illegal but also unacceptable.

"With regard to the Prime Minister's position, I think he made that fairly clear at his press conference," the spokesman said.

Mr Brown ordered the committee to carry out a review of the 2004 decision to downgrade cannabis to a Class C drug in one of his first acts on becoming Prime Minister last year.

According to the BBC report, the committee has now concluded there is no need re-classify it again after new research produced no evidence that rising cannabis use in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s had led to increases in the incidence of schizophrenia.

However, the Prime Minister's spokesman insisted that the committee had not made any final conclusions.

"Some of these reports seem to be getting ahead of themselves. We are not expecting to receive the report from the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs for at least another another month or so," he said.

"As we understand it, this report is based on one presentation that was given to a meeting. The advisory body themselves are still some way away from making any final conclusions on this."

[Dibbz]

Ignore the experts and reclassify cannabis

By Debra Bell

I am not surprised by reports today that the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will not be recommending that cannabis be reclassified to Class B. During the ACMD Cannabis Review meeting in February, to which I gave evidence, I began to wonder how many of the Council had direct experience of the impact of cannabis in their own families. Just how much did they know about cannabis at all? I was shocked to hear Professor Rawlins ask one of us giving evidence if cannabis was most often smoked with tobacco. This is a man who potentially holds the future of our children’s health in his hands.

Reclassification sent out a message that cannabis was safe to smoke and betrayed a whole generation of young people, mainly boys, some of whom, at best, will never fulfil their potential nor become useful members of society, and at worst face a life dogged by mental illness. For every user and addict there is the family in the background. Many are at their wits end, many tell of their own guilty feelings, that it must be their parenting at fault. But the message must go out loudly that it’s not parents that are to blame, nor the children – it’s the drugs.

As Marjorie Wallace from Sane said today, ‘Use of the drug can cause harm, not only to young people but to their families, making the outcomes worse for those with mental illness and robbing young people of their motivation and future’.

It would now appear that Gordon Brown is inclined to reclassify cannabis, showing that he is listening to the police, magistrates, psychiatrists, drugs charities, and parents all of whom know the truth about cannabis. The link between cannabis and psychosis is now a fact. As Professor Murray has said: ‘Five years ago 95% of psychiatrists wouldn’t have said that cannabis causes psychosis, now 95% of them would say it does’. The issue is less about the law and the penalties for possession and dealing, than about the public perception of cannabis.

I hope Mr Brown will have the courage to stick with his beliefs to get the message across to children that cannabis is not a soft drug and could well ruin their lives for good and destroy their families as well. As he has said, teenagers are a particularly vulnerable sector in our society, and they need to understand that the relevant authorities consider cannabis to be a dangerous drug and that they are taking it seriously.

Parents will also draw comfort and feel supported rather than undermined by Government. I know only too well what this is like. Our eldest son, Will, once a highly academic, sporty, handsome, smiling young boy, began smoking cannabis at school with friends. He was fourteen. He soon began to change into someone we scarcely recognised, who stole to fund the habit that began to consume him. Pleas from us to stop were met with a shrug and the comments ‘the government wouldn’t have downgraded it if it wasn’t safe to smoke’. With predictions of nine excellent passes at GCSE, we could never have foreseen that our son would follow a route of drug abuse and destructive behaviour that would bring our family to breaking point.

William is now twenty, and we haven’t seen him for five months. We had to ask him to leave our home, in order to protect the well-being of our other two sons, who are now 17 and 14. Unable to find support for our son or our family, I began writing a diary last year, which I published on a website I set up, in the hope that it might be of comfort to other families who I knew must be suffering just as we were. This was a hidden problem on which I wanted to shed light. After extracts from the diaries were published in the national press, I received hundreds of emails from families, all saying that our story was theirs too. Shortly afterwards the action group of which I am Chair was born, comprised of parents of cannabis-damaged children. We invite Gordon Brown to be true to his word and make sure that cannabis is reclassified to a Class B drug as soon as possible so that the next generation will not be let down in the same way that this one has. Reclassification is just a beginning, a massive, effective public health campaign extending to schools and colleges should swiftly follow.

Debra Bell is the Chair of the support group Talking About Cannabis

Original Source http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/03/do0307.xml

[Even Crazier Van Guy]

Ya know... maybe it's the fact that I am so Pro Cannabis, or maybe it's the fact that I'm a fucking adult with at least half a fucking brain...

what the Hell is this stupid woman doing blaming Cannabis as the cause of her son being a complete fucking loser? ! ?
Come on, stupid woman... just cuz you raised your son to be a shithead waste of time, does not put the blame on something that was probably turned to in an effort to find comfort from a wack-job parenting figure...

gimme a fucking break! ... some 'a the stupidest shit people come up with... just blows my mind

ya know... I'd be a little more comfortable with some "promising young man" walking onto a campus full of innocent people with a couple 'a joints and a few hits of hash in his pocket (which you cannot buy legally), than I would with some other "promising young man" walking onto a campus full of innocent people with a couple of guns and a few clips of ammo in his pocket that you CAN buy legally...

have a think about that one, and smoke on THIS fattie bit :flipa:

btw... this rant was directed at that stupid woman that "chairs" that commitee :p

[Cranky]

had a chat with my doc not long back,we got onto the cannabis inducing schizophrenia and told me about her mate that has 2 sons now suffering from schizophrenia.both smoked weed she said but then went onto say that she couldn't say for def that its cannabis has played a part in it.she then went on to say that the main prob with cannabis in the UK is that its linked to smoking which is true as most of us mix are bud with tobacco.

she then asked me if i would be happy to see my eldest son(15) start smoking cannabis.

i told her sure i would,she raised her eyebrows at this,i then went onto say id much prefer to see my son sat in the house chillen with his mates on the xbox or somit rather than out on the streets drinking to be a smart arse then getting into all kinds of trouble and probably at some point being offered harder drugs cuzz its cool and hip(peer pressure and all that shit).so ya i say,as long as i know hes in the house smoking weed and not out getting up to god knows what then its cool by me.my dad smokes it,i smoke it and no doubt my son will smoke it...if not then thats cool to :D

this is Gordon browns personal views hes enforcing.never has a PM ignored the advice of the advisory.

hes a right fuckin cock,fuckin T.Blair wasn't this bad!:mad:

cranky

[CB]

fuckin T.Blair wasn't this bad!

cranky

always liked tony myself....

I believe the rate of psychosis is less then 1% ??? correct me if I'm wrong...

so you UK peeps....just how hard are they try'n to reclassify? and do you think they will?

[becky420]

I dont give a crap cuz I hope to be heading home soon.
where weed is real people is real!tired of getting burned by stupid people.
peace

[Cranky]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLxqsZHgAmk

[Cranky]

basically CB from whats being said,Gordon brown is gonna reclassify no matter what.:mad:

fight fire with fire i say.

we should all use are vote and vote for the opposition,i mean there all corrupt.that would make the fucker think twice if 2 million pot heads were going to vote him out!

just he know most pot heads don't vote and so he gets away with it.

the ball is in are court and always has been!

cranky

[sombro]

unfortunately the knee-jerk right wing press generate much of the public opinion in the UK. From repeated dubious stories about..

1. how pot ruins lives
2. how much stronger it is
3. how little the government (supposedly socialist) is doing to stop your kids from turning into junkies who wear hoodies and will be robbing your house in no time.


pot legislation around the world is a political tool and has almost nothing to do with either health or social issues. Brown would introduce the death penalty for possesion if his advisers told him it would guarantee a win in the next election.

That said I'm glad that I did not smoke until I was 18 yrs old. The story from the chair of the support group is not an isolated case. I'm sure that pot has had a negative influence on the educational results of almost all of those who smoke it regularly.

It's easy for us weed apologists to cry foul at every attack on our favourite herb. What should lift us above the detractors is the ability to see the truth.
Other than for those who need it as medicine, weed is a recreational drug, something you do to relax.

I'd bet that everybody reading this has suffered at one time or another from weed induced inertia, just can't be bothered to do what you have to do. Happens to me all the time. It's not a wonder drug with no downside, only a 1% chance of psychosis?? And that's good is it??

I think that weed is fine for people who have matured sufficiently. I wouldn't want my daughter to try it until she is adult enough to see the whole picture.