Latest UKCIA blog - 7th February 2010

The stranglehold the psycho-pharms? What we’re seeing is an interesting development whereby the abstinence movement has picked up on something the cannabis law reform movement has been trying to get across for years: Where we are now, the laws we have and the drugs regime we have is the product of corrupt meddling by powerful industrial concerns and what it actually set out to do was not what it said on the tin.

Prohibition – from the “when in a hole dig faster” school of problem solving. So why is cannabis illegal anyway? A simple question...

Cannabis: Britian's secret farms, a look at the recent BBC 3 documentary, another bit of bad cannabis reporting from the BBC

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Talk to Frank
The government's anti drugs advertising campaign

Talk to Frank answers some questions about its "Cannabis facts" - well, sort of. Read the reply to an e-mail sent two months ago!

Following up on recent observations about the Talk to Frank cannabis information an e-mail was sent to the Home Office Frank team

Talk to Frank gives good, honest information shock horror. The Sunday Telegraph spat blood at Talk to Frank's help line for giving honest advice.

A cost benefit analysis for the war on drugs? The government just says “no”! An examination of the reasons the Home Office gives for not allowing a proper examination of the prohibition policy. In truth, they know that if anyone did such a study, prohibition would be exposed for the sham that it is.

The first casualty of war is the truth - prohibition depends on it.

You may have heard Talk to Frank adverts on radio and TV that claim cannabis will make you sick (puke as they put it). Unless you mix it with alcohol cannabis is very unlikely to do that. The information given by Talk to Frank is highly questionable in many ways, but in this instance it is simply wrong. See information on getting a "whitey" here.

Cannabis information critique. Talk to Frank's latest version of the truth about cannabis - and by far the worst yet it contains claims which are actually wrong.

Cannabis: Mess with your mind. Seen the latest offering from the government's anti drugs advertising agency?

Inaccessible - despite costing the UK tax payer a huge amount, the Talk to Frank website is very badly designed. See how it appears to blind and partially sighted people who use JAWS screen reading software.

The Government on Drugs - talk to Frank if you must

You don't have to smoke
to be a class B criminal

the Keele study
Cannabis and mental illness

The Keele university study "Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005" was paid for by UK taxpayers and carried out for our government as a part of its review of the classification of cannabis in 2008, yet its results were kept very quiet for 18 months.

The study found no link between rates of cannabis use and mental illness undermining the stated reason for moving cannabis back to class B. The government ignored the results of the study and when it did publish the results, did so with as little media awareness as possible.

UKCIA Newsblog comment

Read the Keele study online here (Why Prohibition? website)

Welcome to UKCIA
A website dedicated to the issue of cannabis law reform

Cannabis is a stimulating-hallucinogenic depressant with anti-psychotic properties, it's not your normal run of the mill drug.

UKCIA is a law reform, specifically an "anti prohibition" site. You don't have to be a cannabis user or even like cannabis very much to understand the harm prohibition is causing to individuals and the wider society and to want to do something about it.

Actually, Cannabis is not a drug as such, it's a plant which grows widely all over the world. Some forms of the plant contain a substance known as THC which, together with certain other chemicals contained in the plant, produce an effect on perception known - in the UK - as "getting stoned". THC is rightly called a drug, but cannabis isn't just THC

This property is well known in British society and many millions of us have experienced it, but it is an experience which carries a prison sentence of five years simply for possessing a sample of the plant, trading in cannabis can land you with a 14 year stint inside which is more severe than you can expect for violent assault.

The aim of this law - called prohibition - is to prevent the use of cannabis through a deterrent effect provided by legal sanctions. It doesn't work and the result has been to create an illegal, uncontrolled and unregulated trade which employs hundreds of thousands of people and reaches into every corner of society. The dangers created by prohibition are outlined on this site and they far outweigh anything the plant could do.

Nothing on earth is "safe", especially things we all enjoy doing for fun and cannabis is no exception. But prohibition prevents any rational, informed debate about or study of the real dangers cannabis may or may not be capable of. Instead we are fed a diet of hype, misinformation and downright lies. Even to the extent that this illegal, uncontrolled and unregulated substance is called a "controlled drug" by politicians and police. "Controlled", of course, is the one thing that cannabis is not. Indeed, many of the dangers the law claims to exist to protect us from are caused by the law in the first place.

UKCIA is here for you to use. Get informed and when you hear stupid people saying stupid things about cannabis - put them right!

Please use our Forum to talk about issues, or tell us what you think with the Feedback Form.

The message from UKCIA is simple: if you want change, it's up to you to make it happen. The first step is to get informed and that's what this site is here for, please use it.

Pragmatism
UKCIA, the what and the why

Whatever politicians and the police might try to tell you, cannabis is not really a "controlled drug", prohibition prevents any real controls.

A pragmatic approach to law reform challenges this use of doublespeak. Instead it argues that the potential risks should form the basis of the regulatory approach.

UKCIA is a pragmatic cannabis law reform campaign for a drugs policy based on proper control and regulation of the commercial supply, coupled with effective harm reduction measures.

Cannabis pragmaitism and the case for law reform

What is UKCIA?

Contact UKCIA

Reefer Madness from the BBC Here is an example of Reefer Madness - ill informed opinionated rubbish - presented as fact by someone who claims to be an expert. This audio file was taken from by BBC Radio4's "You and Yours" programme broadcast in 2005 Listen here (mp3)