Prohibition Policies Reveal Government Corruption and Ignorance

According to The Report of the FCDA, Europe, on Cannabis, it could be grown in huge quantities on waste land; the tops and heads available for medicinal and recreational use, the seed used as food and animal food, the seed oils used too, the hurd and textiles used for clothing, paper, canvas, even building bricks and chitboard, and plastics too - what is left used to make biofuels, safely, easily, locally and environmentally friendly. Anything left, thrown back into the land. The revenue from sales of bud would mean virtually free fuel!

The people would gain more independence from giant petrochemical and pharmaceutical companies, from drug dealers, suffer less pollution and save money.

Any Government that refuses to acknowldge that are liars.

Any Government that still claims that the harm caused by cannabis outweighs the benefits, are either fools or have a vested interest in prohibition, just like the alcohol-gangster-supporting prohibitionists in the USA that supporteed alcohol prohibition last century.

Home Affairs Committee launches new inquiry into Drugs

Call for written evidence
DRUGS

The Committee will undertake a comprehensive review of drugs policy in the new year. The Committee will examine the effectiveness of the Government’s 2010 drugs strategy and the UK Government’s contribution to global efforts to reduce the supply and demand of illicit drugs. Specifically, the Committee will consider:

• The extent to which the Government’s 2010 drug strategy is a ‘fiscally responsible policy with strategies grounded in science, health, security and human rights’ in line with the recent recommendation by the Global Commission on Drug Policy
• The criteria used by the Government to measure the efficacy of its drug policies
• The independence and quality of expert advice which is being given to the government
• Whether drug-related policing and expenditure is likely to decrease in line with police budgets and what impact this may have
• The cost effectiveness of different policies to reduce drug usage
• The extent to which public health considerations should play a leading role in developing drugs policy
• The relationship between drug and alcohol abuse
• The comparative harm and cost of legal and illegal drugs
• The impact of the transfer of functions of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse to Public Health England and how this will affect the provision of treatment
• The availability of ‘legal highs’ and the challenges associated with adapting the legal framework to deal with new substances
• The links between drugs, organised crime and terrorism
• Whether the UK is supporting its global partners effectively and what changes may occur with the introduction of the national crime agency
• Whether detailed consideration ought to be given to alternative ways of tackling the drugs dilemma, as recommended by the Select Committee in 2002 (The Government's Drugs Policy: Is It Working?, HC 318, 2001–02) and the Justice Committee’s 2010 Report on justice reinvestment (Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment, HC 94, 2009–10).”

Organisations and individuals interested in making written submissions are invited to do so by Tuesday 10 January 2012. Submissions should be no longer than 2,500 words. Further advice on making a submission can be found below.
Oral evidence sessions will be held in early 2012: further announcements will be made in due course.
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Written evidence should if possible be in Word or rich text format—not PDF format—and sent by e-mail. The use of colour and expensive-to-print material, e.g. photographs, should be avoided. The body of the e-mail must include a contact name, telephone number and postal address. The e-mail should also make clear who the submission is from.
Submissions must address the terms of reference. They should be in the format of a self-contained memorandum. Paragraphs should be numbered for ease of reference, and the document must include an executive summary. Further guidance on the submission of evidence.
Submissions should be original work, not previously published or circulated elsewhere, though previously published work can be referred to in a submission and submitted as supplementary material. Once submitted, your submission becomes the property of the Committee and no public use should be made of it unless you have first obtained permission from the Clerk of the Committee.
Please bear in mind that the Committee is not able to investigate individual cases.
The Committee normally, though not always, chooses to publish the written evidence it receives, either by printing the evidence, publishing it on the internet or making it publicly available through the Parliamentary Archives. If there is any information you believe to be sensitive you should highlight it and explain what harm you believe would result from its disclosure; the Committee will take this into account in deciding whether to publish or further disclose the evidence.
For data protection purposes, it would be helpful if individuals wishing to submit written evidence send their contact details in a covering letter or e-mail. You should be aware that there may be circumstances in which the House of Commons will be required to communicate information to third parties on request, in order to comply with its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The remit of the Home Affairs Committee is to examine the expenditure, administration and policy of the Home Office and its associated public bodies.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/home-affairs-committee/news/drugs-call-for-ev/

TAKE DRUGS OFF THE STREETS.

Surely after all these years of "fighting" drug addiction and problems, whether through law enforcement or treatment, somebody i Government has the common sense to realise that these tactics alone are not working.

So long as there are people willing (in fact eager) to make money out of the illegal drugs trade, the supply will remain out of control, with no accurate point-of-sale advice, no quality control, and no tax on profits.

The line of people willing to replace those small percentage of dealers and especially the people at the top - as soon as one is locked up supply and demand and profit motivation fills the gap.

Meanwhile those that fall prey to those dealers suffer through addiction, impurities and the cross-drug gateways (actually dealers and other users).  Often more than one drug may be just as easily available from the same supplier!

And all this costs the tax-payer BILLIONS of pounds each year, not to mention the amount of crime committed to raise funds to by dirty drugs on the street.

The SOLUTION - just like alcohol - take the supply out of the hands of criminals - put it into the hands of qualified doctors and pharmacists, for the class A drugs, and chemists and adult shops for others.  Introduce different systems of supply for different substances to adults.

TAKE DRUGS OFF THE STREETS.

STOP PUNISHING THE USERS - those that the law ought to protect as it does those that choose to drink alcohol.

That is the only way this battle against drug-caused harms will ever be one.

At it's time that the Governments of the UK and other countries woke up to this simple fact:  the prohibition causes more problems than the drugs themselves.

As for cannabis - I echo the words of the late Eddie Ellison, retired head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad: "Cannabis ought never have been illegal in the first place."

The above was my comment left on the Home Office Drug Strategy Blog

I wonder if it will be published?