Cannabis classification, a pointless issue that just isn’t going to go away.

Now lets be quite clear: Cannabis isn’t a controlled drug because it’s illegal, I’m sure this blog has mentioned that before once or twice. The problem with cannabis in the real world is that fact that although illegal, millions of people use it and a massive unrestrained, unregulated uncontrolled illegal trade funds organised crime as it supplies a product of uncertain strength, type and purity to anyone with £10 including children.

The problem in the other world – the one occupied by the media and politicians is that the hype which determines the news agenda and government policy isn’t supported by the facts, which annoys the experts paid to provide those facts who get ignored as a result.

Professor David Nutt is one such expert who has been ignored. Prof Nutt as we all probably know was asked by the government in his role as chief drugs adviser (or “Drug Tsar” as the Daily Mail described him) to carry out yet another review of the classification of cannabis prior to this years reclassification. The idea no doubt was that the ACMD would rubber stamp the Gordon Brown’s decision to move cannabis back to class B, despite failing to do so only a couple of years before. Anyway we all know the history, Prof Nutt did the research and still came to the same conclusion as the ACMD did last time; that cannabis should remain at class C. Gordon Brown of course ignored this advice because he had already decided what he wanted to do  and Jackie Smith, the then Home Secretary did as she was told and reclassified cannabis back to class B. In doing this, Brown destroyed any pretence that the UK drug laws are evidence based and showed himself to be more concerned with the opinion of the tabloid press than is healthy. It was, perhaps, the start of his present unpopularity.

Anyway it seems Prof Nutt isn’t just going to let this go and he’s been  making a lot of noise about it again today. We all know the arguments about Prof Nutts research finding no evidence of a causal link between cannabis use and severe mental illness (The Keele Study), no evidence of a desire on the part of the public to see longer prison sentences for cannabis possession (the only effect of a more back to B) and so on. Dr Nutt remains scathing about the way he was ignored, and rightly so.

But of course, the reaction in large sections of the media has been predictable, the London Evening Standard  was outraged:

Drugs chief under fire for saying cannabis is safer than alcohol

The Government’s chief drugs adviser was expected to be facing calls to resign today after criticising ministers for not reclassifying ecstasy, LSD and cannabis as less dangerous than alcohol and cigarettes.

He “was expected to be facing calls to resign” was he? Who was expecting that then? We’re not told. Instead we get a quote from a drugs “charity”. Which respected charity did they ask for a quote? Release maybe, or Lifeline? No, it was non other than Mr James “Clearhead” Langton himself:

Professor Nutt has been criticised by drugs charities. James Langton, a drugs counsellor with support network Clearhead, said: “If we reclassify cannabis as less harmful than alcohol it could influence more children to take it up.”

Clearhead is not a charity actually, and in all honesty, James is no expert on cannabis or on youth guidance, but he can be trusted to come up with the prohibition line  and so gets quoted.

BBC Breakfast carried a vox pop from Debra Bell, the self-appointed “expert” who runs the fact-free website Talking About Cannabis (check out the facts about cannabis page) which really annoyed one blogger:

Of course, as this was a voxpop Mrs. Bell’s comments were not challenged at all, and again she seemed oblivious to the psychology of teenagers, thinking that telling them cannabis is bad for you and is frowned upon by the authorities will be enough to make kids reconsider smoking the drugs.

Do read that blog for an excellent critique of the BBC’s truly awful coverage on the Breakfast TV show. Of course, non of these reports invited cannabis law reformers to comment, so why is it that Debra Bell and James Langton get quoted and UKCIA or Transform for example never do? Odd, isn’t it? But it is typical of the level of debate we have on this subject that studies by experts such as Prof Nutt  are “balanced” by the opinion of people like Debra Bell and James Langton, is that really the best they can find?

The outrage expressed in so many quarters of the media seems to be that by even daring to spark a debate about the true harmfulness of cannabis, Dr Nutt is undermining the war on drugs and encouraging children to queue up at the playground skunk dealer. This is the problem we face sadly, there can be no debate about drugs unless it’s of the “say no” variety because any debate will undermine the efforts of the anti drug campaigners who must be protected from the truth for the good of us all. Actually, this might be true, because if we were allowed a fully open. factual debate the argument for legalisation would walk all over the prohibition movement.

Strangely the Mail’s report was pretty objective and perhaps predicted what might happen as a result of the cannabis debate being opened up again:

They also raise the possibility of the current drug classification system – which puts banned substances into A, B and C categories – being ripped-up.

This has been the dream of the prohibition lobby for some time in fact.

But the real surprise with the Mail article (on the website) is the feedback. It used to be that comments to the Mail website were heavily moderated, such that anything which went against the paper’s hard-line policy simply didn’t make it online, but no more. Now everything goes up and you can vote for the posts you like the best and you can arrange them in order of popularity. Easy winners in the popularity stakes were posts supportive of Prof Nutt or in favour of legalisation, perhaps more surprisingly the less popular were the anti drug posts, which one would have expected Mail readers to have mostly supported.

It’s true to say that comments on all the news websites were generally supportive of Prof Nutt, or of wholesale law reform. There must be prohibition supporters out there, but they don’t seem to use the internet very much.

There’s no doubt that Prof Nutt is the hero amongst those who want a more intelligent way of dealing with drugs today, but to come back to the real world again it’s important to remember that he is a prohibition supporter; he opposes real law reform and still believes that cannabis should remain illegal, it’s just he believes that it should be less illegal than it is now, which is a distinction lost on many of us in this world. Thing is cannabis users don’t give a hurled roach about the classification of cannabis within the misuse of drugs act, the act itself isn’t a respected bit of legislation amongst the people it tries to influence.

Prof Nutt is right to be annoyed at Gordon Brown’s decision to ignore his advice, but he must be more depressed at the thought of the misuse of drugs act – an act he seems to believe in – being dragged further into disrepute like this. But on this side of the reality divide we can take some considerable satisfaction at seeing this non-debate ploughing on, day after day, month after month, year after year. Cannabis has been in the news for the best part of twenty years now and doesn’t show any signs of slipping off the agenda. There’s a reason for that which has nothing to do with which class of illegality it has…

About UKCIA

UKCIA is a cannabis law reform site dedicated to ending the prohibition of cannabis. As an illegal drug, cannabis is not a controlled substance - it varies greatly in strength and purity, it's sold by unaccountable people from unknown venues with no over sight by the authorities. There is no recourse to the law for users and the most vulnerable are therefore placed at the greatest risk. There can be no measures such as age limits on sales and no way to properly monitor or study the trade, let alone introduce proper regulation. Cannabis must be legalised, as an illegal substance it is very dangerous to the users and society at large.

6 thoughts on “Cannabis classification, a pointless issue that just isn’t going to go away.

  1. Good article derrek…it has certainly been an interesting day.

    How the truth has got so many in power in a tissy is hilarious to see

  2. Thank you for the blog-pimping. I agree completely that this argument gets distorted and used as ammunition for and against both sides of the cannabis legalisation argument, but that it’s all hollow and pointless yelling that misses the point. The interview on BBC Breakfast was completely predictable, but still utterly frustrating and laughably biased. Nothing new, I guess.

  3. Isn’t this just completely ridiculous how he has now been FIRED for speaking out the truth. The govenment didn’t like it so they fired him, they got a little nervous that he was too reliant on science, common sense and truth to follow their properganda agenda.

    If it wasn’t stopping so many ppl getting effective natural pain relief it would almost be laughable.

    Shame on you Mr Brown.

    GDM

  4. i was reading the comments on radio 1 newsbeat site after hearing about it on radio. i couldn’t find 1 comment against nutt except why waist our tax on advisors if the the government seem to know better?
    i keep hearing about this democracy stuff.
    i think we should try it

  5. If the government ignores the advice of it’s own advisers & sacks them it shows them up for what they are.Legalise cannabis for medical use.Accept the scientific evidence that it is less harmful than alcohol & tobacco & stop persecuting otherwise law abiding people.Sensible use of cannabis is a benefit in many ways.This insanity has got to stop.

Comments are closed.