cannabisnews.com: Britain Loosens Up on Pot Britain Loosens Up on Pot Posted by CN Staff on July 10, 2002 at 21:51:50 PT By T.R. Reid, Washington Post Foreign Service Source: Washington Post Signing on to the tolerant approach toward drug use that is spreading rapidly in Europe, the British government today said it will effectively decriminalize the possession and use of marijuana.David Blunkett, the home secretary, told Parliament that police will no longer arrest people smoking cannabis, as the drug is known here. Possession of the drug for personal use will also be ignored. Cannabis will still be considered an illegal drug, however, and those caught selling it will be arrested. Blunkett and his boss, Prime Minister Tony Blair, defended the policy change today, arguing that it will give the police more time and resources to go after violent crime and hard drugs such as heroin."Making a clearer differentiation between drugs that kill and drugs that do not would be scientifically appropriate and educationally valuable," Blunkett said. He promised an increase in drug education programs."The message is clear -- drugs are dangerous," he said. "We will educate, persuade, and where necessary, direct young people away from their use."The new national policy stems from a successful experiment begun last year in Brixton, a South London neighborhood. The local police chief declared that marijuana arrests were a "waste of time," and ordered his officers to bypass pot smokers and focus on users of hard drugs.Today, young people routinely smoke marijuana on the sidewalk in front of Brixton's police station. You can buy a joint just outside Brixton's subway station for less than $5.In an assessment this spring, the national Association of Chief Police Officers praised the Brixton experiment and urged that the same approach be taken nationwide. Blunkett said today he will institute the change next summer.Blunkett emphasized that marijuana will still remain technically illegal, and he said he will create a new crime of "aggravated possession" so that police can move against repeat offenders.By telling police to look the other way when they come upon a marijuana user, Britain has joined most other European nations. The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium are among the nations that have decriminalized marijuana and so-called "party drugs" such as ecstasy. However, a political coalition in the Netherlands, due to take power this month, today announced plans to tighten some of that country's drug laws.The trend in Western Europe is to decriminalize all drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and treat drug use as a health problem rather than a crime. Portugal, Luxembourg, Spain and Italy have taken this approach in varying degrees."The general trend across Europe is an approach that focuses on the traffickers and does not pursue the drug user as a criminal," said Georges Estievenart, director of the European Union's Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction. "The premise is that it is not in the interest of society to put these people in jail, where they don't get treatment but do get fairly easy access to all kinds of drugs."Blunkett's new marijuana policy, known as the "softly, softly" approach, is certain to become law because Blair's Labor Party has an unbeatable majority in Parliament. But the chief opposition party, the Conservatives, opposed the change.Oliver Letwin, the "shadow" home secretary, told Parliament that the new policy was "muddled and dangerous." He said it was "impossible to reconcile" how it could be legal to own and use marijuana, but illegal to sell it.In the Brixton experiment, the sale of marijuana has also been ignored by police, at least in small amounts. Some Brixton residents, including Kate Hoey, the Labor Party member of Parliament who represents the area, have complained that this has made the neighborhood a magnet for joint buyers from all over Britain.The police chiefs' association said this problem would diminish under a nationwide policy of tolerance because people would no longer have to travel to Brixton to buy marijuana without fear of being arrested.Note: Marijuana to Remain Illegal, but Police Won't Arrest Users.Source: Washington Post (DC)Author: T.R. Reid, Washington Post Foreign ServicePublished: Thursday, July 11, 2002; Page A15Copyright: 2002 The Washington Post Company Contact: letterstoed washpost.comWebsite: http://www.washingtonpost.com Related Articles:UK Govt Downgrades Cannabis http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13359.shtmlCannabis Laws Eased By Blunkett http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread13356.shtmlCannabisNews Articles -- Cannabis - UKhttp://cannabisnews.com/thcgi/search.pl?K=+cannabis+uk Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #5 posted by cltrldmg on July 11, 2002 at 08:49:23 PT lots of news today With the stock markets crashing, and the prospects of economic recovery going to shit, it's now time to start investing in cannabis!http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2118000/2118546.stmOne of Britain's most Senior Police Chiefs 'surprised' at Hellawell's position:http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_2121000/2121923.stm" "There is certainly no evidence of drug tourism occurring in Lambeth - the people being arrested in Lambeth live in Lambeth," he said. "In other words, Duncan Smith and Kate Hoey are liars.... [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by FoM on July 11, 2002 at 08:37:01 PT CNN Crossfire - Partial Transcripts http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0207/10/cf.00.htmlBut next, is it time to declare a defeat on the war on drugs? England has, Nevada may. What about you? We'll find out. We'll be right back.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)CARVILLE: Welcome back to CROSSFIRE. We're coming to you live from the George Washington University in beautiful Foggy Bottom in Washington, D.C. Put this in your pipe and smoke it, or maybe even inhale it. Dateline, London. English authorities are relaxing their country's marijuana laws. In most cases police would simply confiscate the drug and issue a warning. Dateline, Nevada. This November votes will see a ballot proposal out on adults that possess up to three ounces of marijuana. There's a war against drugs going to pot. Joining us from Fresno, California is Asa Hutchinson, head of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration. (APPLAUSE)CARLSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) thanks for joining us. Part of the rationale, as I understand it, or as it was explained yesterday by the British home secretary, is that look, England, Britain has a significant drug problem, a lot of heroin addicts, problems with cocaine, methamphetamine, ecstasy. The idea is why waste our time going after pot smokers when we could be using and should be using our resources to go after users and abusers of hard drugs. ASA HUTCHINSON, DEA ADMINISTRATOR: That's right. That is their way they express it. But the fact is that they are still remaining a tough policy on these other drugs, but the question is, whether you want to increase marijuana use or not, even David Blunkett, the home secretary, says we warned people these are harmful drugs, they're dangerous, stay off of them. Well, if that's the case, then why would you want to send the signal that there's less risk in marijuana and it's OK? And so I think it's a wrong step to minimize the punishments there, because as young people see less risk in using marijuana, marijuana use will increase, and it is still a harmful drug. So I think the correct policy is let's don't move that direction, because what we're doing is effective in reducing young people and adults in using these harmful drugs. CARVILLE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) you're leading now the war on drugs. How goes it with the war? Are we winning this thing, or tying it, or losing it? What's the score out there? HUTCHINSON: Well, that's one of the great myths of this generation, that there's not any success or antidrugs efforts. The fact is that over the last 20 years we've reduced overall drug use by 50 percent. That's 9 million fewer drug users today than there were 20 years ago. Cocaine use down 75 percent. And whenever you look at the fact that 95 percent of Americans do not use illegal drugs, I would say that this is a successful approach to a very difficult social problem, and that we should not abandon this type of successful strategy. CARLSON: But not all drug use, as you said, is the same. I mean, shooting heroin is much different from smoking marijuana. One is much worse than the other for you and for society. So in a world with finite resources, law enforcement resources for one, why not focus them all on the most damaging drugs? HUTCHINSON: Well, I mean, that's a good point, Tucker, and we all are subject to limited resources. I'm out here fighting methamphetamine. We're concerned about cocaine and heroin. So we all set our priorities. And we understand that if law enforcement has limited resources, they can't go after and arrest everyone. That's fine. We set our priorities. But to send a signal that, well, let's reduce the penalties for marijuana, when we're already not arresting them and putting them in jail, sends the signal that marijuana use is not risky. Young people get confused. They say, hey, it must be all right. It's going to go up. And so if you want to increase marijuana use, harmful drug use, then that's the signal to do, by decreasing the penalties for it. CARVILLE: Well, look. Let's be honest. Our last two presidents have used marijuana. I've used marijuana before. I don't want to speak for Tucker, but I suspect he has and a lot of other people. How big a mistake is that that we did something like that? How big of an error did make? Should I feel guilty about this? HUTCHINSON: Well, I don't think the job is making people feel guilty. I think that we should discourage marijuana use, experimentation, educate that it's wrong. In fact, more teens are in treatment for marijuana use than any other drug, 225,000 Americans are in treatment for marijuana use. So I think that we should discourage the use but understand that people do make mistakes and they should not be penalized forever. And so, you know, Mayor Bloomberg acknowledged that but he still has a tough drug policy, and I don't see that as inconsistent. We make mistakes. We don't penalize everyone forever. We are a forgiving society, we move on. CARLSON: Well, you -- it almost, it sounds to me, maybe I'm mishearing -- making the case not for liberalization but for dramatically lessening the penalties, as Nevada is considering, as England has done. I mean, you just said that for marijuana smoking, generally people don't get arrested. So why not just codify that? Why not just make that the law, that you don't get arrested, and isn't that a reflection of what happens anyway? That's what you're saying. HUTCHINSON: Well, let me make it clear. I think it's a wrong step for Britain to take. I think it's the wrong step for any state to move to legalize or to decriminalize these harmful substances. The objective is to illustrate the risk associated with it. It is illegal because it is harmful, and that's what discourages use. What I'm saying is that obviously it's another myth that we're locking up all the users and they're filling up our prisons. That's not the case. You still have to work pretty hard to get into prison for drug use today. We're referring people to treatment programs so they can get over their addiction problems whenever they are an addict, but it's guided into crime problems, so we're targeting our resources on the trafficker, on the violent offenders and on the serious problems that we have, but let's send the signal it is illegal conduct. We ought to discourage that behavior and usage.CARLSON: OK. Former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, now director of the Drug Enforcement Agency, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it. HUTCHINSON: Thank you. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by TroutMask on July 11, 2002 at 07:21:31 PT yum yum "the tolerant approach toward drug use that is spreading rapidly in Europe"that's my favorite phrase. great to have it in the first sentence.-TM [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by ekim on July 11, 2002 at 05:42:14 PT The highly toxic carbofuran The Environmental Protection Agency is allowing Louisiana rice growers to spread a bird-killing pesticide. The highly toxic carbofuran has been responsible for the deaths of millions of birds, including bald eagles, and the granular form is so dangerous that it was withdrawn from use in the mid-1990s. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stated: "There are no known conditions under which carbofuran can be used without killing migratory birds." But EPA didn't even consult the Fish and Wildlife Service as required by law. We alerted DEN members with a special interest in birds, and more than 2,200 of them have sent e-mails demanding that EPA reverse itself."This is an outrageous decision that won't stand," Defenders of Wildlife President Rodger Schlickeisen said. "The precedent this could set is beyond terrible. We are ready to go to court to stop the spreading of this deadly pesticide if the EPA doesn't reverse its decision before it's too late."http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/rey.html Comments to the EPA need to be sent via their Web site at:http://www.epa.gov/epahome/comment2.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by SirReal on July 10, 2002 at 22:06:37 PT .......the 'Post' no less..... .......and heeeeeeeeere we go.....the American public begins it's rude awakening..... [ Post Comment ] Post Comment