The reasons for this are plain to see as, according to a former member of the ACMD, the Rev. Blakeborough , who runs the Kaleidescope Drugs Charity, "There is no significantly new evidence to suggest that cannabis is any more harmful than in the last review we did 18 months ago."

Melanie Phillips from The Spectator said , "Gordon Brown has apparently realised the catastrophic error of downgrading it to class C, and the lethal signal this sent out that the law was now winking at cannabis use.

"Chuckles" Brown (pictured) seems blissfully unaware of the damage this law change, probably the last major task of his career as Prime Minister is going to cause to the UK. It certainly isn't going to save his job, so lets put a stop to it before it happens. Join us on the new Canna Zine cannabis forums and add your voice (and vote) to the global cannabis debate.

Excuse me?

If you want to talk about deranged violence you need look no further than the TV documentary's which follow the Police around our towns and cities on a Friday and Saturday night,

picking up the pieces of a generation hell bent on violence, and fueled by the alcohol industry, a multi-billion pound reason to keep cannabis illegal.

The diatribe from The Spectator, who's strapline reads "Champagne for the brain", continued, "...But there was plenty of evidence then of the terrible harm that cannabis does to the brain; the committee simply ignored it....It’s war over the weed; and Brown must win it."

Differing Opinions
Unfortunately any politician seen to have an opinion on cannabis which goes against the "company line", and there are one or two quiet individuals, is setting themselves up for a shortlived career.

Another indication of the apparent double standards applied to cannabis, a substance which, according to a Member of Parliament from New Zealand, "....encompasses 12,000 years of human experience and is now used daily by enormous numbers of people for recreation, yet there is no "credible" medical report to suggest that consuming marijuana has caused a single death."

Nandor Tanczos, MP for the NZ Green Party continues, "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects; however, researchers have been unable to identify the amount of cannabis which would need to be consumed in order to cause death. Estimates indicate that a person would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much cannabis as is contained in one cannabis cigarette, and they would have to consume this amount in a short space of time (e.g. less than 1 hour)."

What I don't understand is how a politician from another country can see, and say this, but our own politicians can't?

Someone needs to ask the question "Who is telling lies here?", as its becoming clear, cannabis psychosis is actually only affecting those who choose not to consume it.

Historically the UK has witnessed a number of similar campaigns, which have seen public opinion sitting on one side of the fence, while the government sits stubbornly on the other.

Homosexuality falls squarely into this category.

"Three Men Sentenced to Prison For Homosexuality."

I mean, can you imagine the uproar such a headline would create?

But this actually happened in the United Kingdom, and not very long ago.

2 men were sentenced to 18 months in prison, for allegedly comitting acts of gross indecency and a third man, a member of the aristocracy, Lord Edward Montagu, to 12 months, a lesser sentence as a result of his "standing" in society. Whats all that about?

Perhaps most surprising is the fact these imprisonments happened as a result of "acts" which were carried out amongst and between consenting adults.

Homosexuality in 2008, is as natural and as common place in the UK, as dirty trains which run behind schedule or single parent 14 year old school girls, but back in the early 1950's, there was a witch hunt taking place similar to that which surrounds cannabis today.

A situation, that witnessed a court case reach the public eye which would shake the very foundations of the government.

A case involving members of the aristocracy as well as "lesser" citizens such as you and I, being imprisoned for the crime of gross indecency - the term used in Parliament and the House of Lords, for homosexuality.

Disease?
In post war Britain homosexuality was in the eyes of government, looked upon as a "disease". 

A disease which was not only against the law but which was actively pursued and persecuted by the nations police.

So dead set against homosexuals was the establishment, the CIA became involved and pressured the United Kingdom into making sure these acts of gross indecency, commited by "perverts", "sodomites", and "buggerers" were stamped out and the lengths the police would go to in making arrests for homosexuality were by todays standards, staggering.

In much the same way as the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) shapes UK drug law today?

In a clear and present case of entrapment, plain clothes police officers would hang around in public toilets (cottages), masturbating openly, waiting for gay men to reveal themselves and when they did, they were taken away, viciously beaten up and arrested.

House search's would be carried out with no search warrant as the police looked for the slightest suggestion of homosexual relationships, and punished them with no thought for the human rights of the accused.

One of the three men imprisoned in the case mentioned earlier, author and journalist Peter Wildeblood, would become the first gay rights campaigner on his release from Wormwood Scrubs in March 1955.

A well educated, eloquent man who would later be recognised as the first person ever to admit openly in a court of law, to being a homosexual, he wrote a book called "Against the Law", in which his three main points were that homosexuality between consenting adults in private ought not be against the law, (in fact a major point the Legalise Cannabis Alliance has always questioned, is why cannabis cannot be used by consenting adults, in the privacy of their own homes?).

Points 2 and 3 were, that prison itself, only encourages homosexuality, and in the inhumane conditions prisoners were kept under in Wormwood Scrubs there was no attempt at readying prisoners for release. No thought for the prisoners rehabilitation.

In a remarkeable parallel, locking people up for cannabis offences, in a prison system riddled with more of a drugs problem than that which exists "outside", is more likely to produce ex-prisoners who are hooked on class A drugs on their release back into society.

Wolfenden
After serving 12 of 18 months, Peter Wildeblood appeared and gave evidence at the Wolfendon Committee, a Home Office departmental committee of 15 men and women which, in a similar vein to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the UK drug situation, was convened to "consider the law and practice relating to homosexual offences and the treatment of persons convicted of such offences by the courts."

The Committee was chaired by John Wolfenden (1906-1985), who had previously been a headmaster, Vice Chancellor of Reading University and later on he became the Director of the British Museum.

Other members of the Committee included a consultant psychiatrist, the chairman of Uxbridge magistrates court, the vice-president of the City of Glasgow Girl Guides, a Scottish Presbyterian minister, a professor of moral theology, a High Court judge, a Foreign Office minister, and the Conservative MP for Putney who were all brought together to make fair and balanced "moral judgements" on homosexuals.

The Committee met for the first time on 15th. September, 1954, in a room provided by the Home Office - the famed "Room 101".

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Huntley & Palmer
So concerned was the Home Office and its administrators, that the talk of homosexuality in front of secretarial staff would upset their delicate sensibilities, they issued an internal memorandum in which they referred to homosexuals as "Huntley's" and prostitutes as "Palmers", (Huntley & Palmer were a prominent biscuit manufacturer).

The committee met for 62 days out of the three years in total these deliberations took place - 32 days of which were spent interviewing witnesses, including Peter Wildeblood.

As a result, "The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution" was published on September 3rd 1957.

In all, 13 members served for the entire three years the committee deliberated and of them, in what can only be described as a remarkeable turn-around of opinions, which was brought about in no small part by Peter Wildeblood's evidence, 12 recommended that homosexual behaviour between consenting adults should no longer be a criminal offence. The committee also suggested the age of consent for this act, should be set at 21 years.

Perhaps more interestingly, the committee also found that, contrary to the evidence provided by nearly all the psychiatric and psychoanalytic witnesses, the so called "experts" who maintained the illegal status of homosexuality, "homosexuality cannot legitimately be regarded as a disease, because in many cases it is the only symptom and is compatible with full mental health in other respects".

A rather back-handed way of admitting defeat.

Blizzard
The report resulted in a veritable press storm. A blizzard of headlines ensued which filled the front pages of every British newspaper. A platform which stands as judge and jury for many laws even today.

As prostitution was under the spotlight, and being analysed and discussed by the Wolfendon committee at the same time as homosexuality the papers coined the term "The Vice Report", which has stuck ever since.

When Wolfenden found out his own son was gay he wrote to him requesting: "That we stay out of each other's way for the time being and that "you wear rather less make-up."

John Wolfenden would go on to be listed at number 45 in the top 500 lesbian and gay heroes in The Pink Paper, 26th. September, 1997.

The first parliamentary debate was intitiated on 4th. December, 1957 by Frank Pakenham (Viscount Pakenham, later known as Lord Longford). He had already become known as a social reformer and prison visitor, and as a result of the Montagu trials he had become associated with Peter Wildeblood and C. H. Rolph (Bill Hewitt) who was to become the chair of the Homosexual Law Reform Society.

Of the seventeen peers who spoke in the debate, only eight broadly supported the recommendations in the Wolfenden Report.

The Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (later Lord Kilmuir) spoke for the government and expressed doubt that the general population would support the recommendations and stated that further research was required.

In 1958 the Home Office asked the sociologist Richard Hauser to undertake a survey of homosexuality in Great Britain and the rest, as they say, is history.

The similarities
The pro-cannabis community in the UK, which numbers quite literally millions of people, are afraid to speak out for what they believe, for fear of retribution and persecution.

For every single even slightly pro-cannabis news report published, there are 1000 anti-cannabis reports, many of which are unsubstantiated, simply repeating twisted, distorted facts which fly in the face of what many people know and understand from personal experience rather than here-say and rhetoric.

Over the last couple of decades arrests for cannabis offences have climbed sharply. A situation which again mirrors homosexuality in post war Britain;

A nation purges itself
"In 1938 there were 134 prosecutions in England for sodomy and bestiality, 822 for attempted sodomy and indecent assaults and 320 for gross indecency. Fifteen years later, in 1952, at the height of anti-homosexual feeling in the UK, these figures had risen to 670, to 3,087 and to 1,686 respectively. In the period between [1938] and 1955 homosexual offences known to the police increased by 850 per cent compared with 223 per cent for all other indictable offences." 

A situation in law which would later be known as "The Great Purge" - Richard Davenport-Hines, "Sex, Death and Punishment", (1990).

Cannabis Law
The similarities which can be drawn between the case for homosexuality, and that for cannabis creates many parallel's.

There can be no doubt that cannabis is at the centre of a witch hunt. A campaign which takes place publicly, on the front pages of every broadsheet and tabloid title across the globe. But in this instance the scales of justice are weighted firmly in favour of the establishment.

Although the legality surrounding arrest and detainment may have changed these days, there can be little doubt that in times gone by the over-zealous use of police force around the world has resulted in more than one or two death's, sometimes as a result of a simple cannabis possession charge.

Health & Safety
The health implications of homosexuality would have been a driving force in bringing this matter to the forefront of public attention. Lets face it we wouldn't want a lot of diseased men running around unfettered, would we?

These days the sketchy links cannabis has with mental health is used to piledrive the fact "cannabis is dangerous" to an unsuspecting and unknowing public, who blindly follow the headlines from whatever newspaper they read, as they scream "Cannabis Psychosis", "Cannabis Mental Health Concerns" etc.

What they dont tell you is cannabis is no more addictive than coffee, and is a lot LESS dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco, but for reasons unknown to the majority of the newspaper buying public, this information is withheld.

Cannabis remains illegal on the grounds of health and safety.

Why?

Because it never receives a fair hearing, the reporting is always "tainted" with rhetoric, the facts quoted come from sources which are secretive and as a result, dubious. The links to health concerns at best, tenuous and anyone who attempts to point this out, is bullied into submission with virtual threats and legal posturing as witnessed recently right here on the Canna Zine which goes against the freedom of speech on which the very fabric of our society is woven.

Let me put it another way. Any topic which carries with it "all parties" political support needs looking at closely, because for the Conservatives to agree with the Labour party, there has to be something in it for all concerned. That's politics.

Indeed the Wolfenden committee was initially set up to reaffirm the governments line on homosexuality. What the Home Office never accounted for was the sense of fair play which John Wolfenden would bring to proceedings and ultimately the Wolfenden committee would go on to bring about law reforms which were the polar opposite of that which it was supposed to.

In a similar vein we have the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs. The governments board of advisors who are in place to oversee Home Office drug policy and advise accordingly. members of which, who are clearly driven by the want to reduce harm from drug abuse, over other, financially driven motivations which influence other's in the decision making chain.

Like the government for instance, who, in the case of cannabis, decided for the first time ever, not to take the councils advice, calling into question the existence (and the expense) of the group, with the unilateral decision to reclassify cannabis to a class B drug.

Change is Innevitable
There is absolutely no doubt about the fact cannabis law will change and it will eventually change to reflect public opinion.

Maybe not today or tomorrow.

But when a politician comes to power who has the balls to stand and face the tempest of vitriol which will no doubt befall them as a result of what are currenlty seen as anarchic views on the legalisation of cannabis, and the public is allowed to speak out, and give their own opinions?

Opinions which are untainted by the constant flow of yellow journalism which surrounds the cannabis issue?

Then the laws will change.

If cannabis is as dangerous as the "experts" claim, let the people decide by way of a national referendum on drugs?

To keep the drug issue locked away from the public decision making process, merely serves to enforce a death sentence on the many thousands who will needlessly die as a result of using dirty drugs, or dirty paraphernalia.

With regard to mental health, people who are pre-disposed to this issue need to be able to speak out, without fear of reprisals at the hands of law enforcement. And until such time as this takes place I will make a bold prophecy.

This time next year, under the current regime of prohibition and law enforcement, the figures for people being harmed by drugs will have risen, as will the amounts of people being punished for using illicit drugs.

This is the pattern of over 80 years of cannabis prohibition, and if nothing changes, everything will stay just the same, only this time, it will be the fault of Gorden Brown and Jacqui Smith.

By Ian Malley

Set up in February 2007, the Canna Zine is the first-in-the-world news agency dedicated to the global issues surrounding cannabis, hemp and illicit drugs in general. To post your press release, sign up for a free account on http://pr.cannazine.co.uk , post your news release, and the Canna Zine will do the rest.

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