The proposals to re-insert the cannabis into Class B has generated a fight between the British government and the  Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Les Iversen, pharmacologist at Oxford University and member of the Council said to the press that he was not happy with “what appears to be a deliberate leak about the government’s alleged intention to reclassify cannabis or marijuana”, and ignoring the Council recommendations while doing that. “There is no significantly new evidence to suggest that cannabis is any more harmful than in the last review we did 18 months ago,” said the Rev. Martin Blakeborough, founder of the association Kaleidoscope,that helps people that have troubles with drugs. It seems that every new home secretary want to show how tough he is. Tough? Or weak?

It seems that Marc Emery, Vancouver’s  Prince of Pot, has  agreed to a five-year prison term in a plea bargain over U.S.  marijuana seed-selling charges and money laundering. Emery has faced the prospective of a long (life) enprisonement, and now it seems that he close a deal  with with US authorities to spend 5 years in a Canadian jail. Many Canadian have seen this decision as a matter of indipendence for Canada as country. Emery haven’t even been in USA, and Canadian laws aren’t so strict about cannabis seeds.Before being arrested under request of the USA, Emery was just once fine 2.000$. His tax declaration stated “marijuana seeds vendor”. We have read a beautiful reflection about this case, written by a canadian, have a read here

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary of the government of Gordon Brown, has announced that she wants to reserve the the choice of his predecessor to downgrade the prducts derived from Cannabis from class C back to class B. In this way every offender risk up to 14 years of jail. Ms Smith said: “Though statistics show that cannabis use has fallen significantly, there is a real public concern about the potential mental health effects of cannabis use.” Question: what are the scientific evidence of these potential mental health effects? Which data about consumers, increment or decrement of the use etc have been used and why aren’t they released to the public? You know the answer. And if you live in UK,you know what to do.

The war on drug is a term that define an artificial phoenomena created in USA 70 years ago. It has been a failure ever since and it didn’t help one single person on the planet to fight his problem with a substance. The war in Iraq in an artificial  phoenomena too. It has been created in 2003 in violation of the UN conventions, for the only reasonto support the gluttony of the friends of a  president of the country that invaded Iraq. 1937, 2003, 2008 what is changed? Nothing. There is a man that is the only one between all the american candidates that is proposing to leave Iraq instantly, to end the war on drugs instantly, to close the CIA instantly. And what Americans do? Support all the other candidates except him. Like that Barak Obama,that admitted to use weed and coke when he was younger, but that wanna drug users still in jail. Like over 1 million person in this very moment, injail for being drug users. Mostly with black skin, like him. What a squalor!

Singapore is well know in the world as a fast growing Asian miracle. A little country that in a few decades became an important actor in the international scene, at economical, medical, social and sometimes legal. We says legal because the system of laws, that are the toughest in the world, especially about drugs but not only: if  our memory is not failing, you can be imprisoned in SIngapore as turist we you bring into the country bubblegum, yes ladys and gentlemen, not the famous strain of weed, the bubblegum that we buy for 1 euro per package and we chew. With this premises, nobody would expect to find any drug user in the country.Instaed the scene is really active. High-flying foreign bankers and other expatriates use ecstasy and snort cocaine and smoke marijuana. They risk up to 10 years of jail, and a fine up to 20.000 USD. But the real risk is for their suppliers. In Singapore, anyone caught carrying more than 15 grams of heroin, 30 grams of cocaine, 500 grams of cannabis or 250 grams of methamphetamines faces a mandatory death sentence by hanging. Singapore defends its position by saying it needs tough laws to deter drug traffickers. We believe that it’s all another lie. If you care for someone, why would you send him to jail for 10 years, once you have admitted that he has a problem? If you are going to visit Singapore, please take the maximum care and go there clean and stay clean.

French government have decided to study the cannabis “problem” better, and to start in the good way they have decided to do a little calculation about the profit that a cannabis smuggler/seller can make in one year. “Although the average street dealer hardly makes the minimum wage out of selling cannabis, the middlemen get away with an average of 550,000 euros. That’s an annual income similar to that of a managing director in a company of 2,000 workers”.  Then they have analysed the market in its complexity: “One in ten boys and one in sixteen girls aged 17 year consider themselves regular smokers. Over half a million French smoke cannabis every day. The total market consists of 1.2 million users, who consume 208 tonnes of cannabis, and spend 832 million euros on it”.

Everybody can understand how this number are little compared to the reality. French people are believed the heavier cannabis user in Europe with a population of smokers/users of about 10 million people. However it is even forbidden to speak  about cannabis (unless you speak bad about it) and this prohibition is ennforced by the criminal laws. It seems difficult to start a debate about cannabis under such a law. Sad time for a nation that gave us in the past l’Etat de Droit, l’Illuminisme and many other contributes to the European Civilisation.

Industrial hemp is  still considered an illegal drug: it can sound like a joke, in the year 2007, but it’ not like this. This decision comes by a tribunal of a country that is yes civilised, but that has shown now for 80 years all its stupidity in the the so called “war on drugs”. Economical interest against hemp are so strong that in the tribunal a judge can still says nowadays that hemp is a drug because it contains traces of THC. U.S. District Judge Daniel Hovland dismissed the farmers’ lawsuit against the U.S. government that Wayne Hauge and Dave Monson presented to keep the federal government barred from prosecuting them for growing industrial hemp under state regulations approved last year. This shows once again how strong are the economic reasons at the base of the cannabis prohibition. The government doesn’t care of the public health, just to protect the interest of the lobbies that finances the elections campains. Here it is, the “biggest democracy in the world”.

Altought it can sound weird, it really seems that stoned drivers are good ones. Several researchs have been made in the last 2 decades, and all of them seems to show that stoned drivers have little or not disability compared to “normal”, or “sober” drivers. These studies comes from the US National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), that is for sure an unbiased source. In the first set of tests dated 1983, the NHTSA suggested that the ablity of the stoned and the normal driver are similar. Further the stoned driver was classified as safe because he drived at a considerably lower speed than the regular driver. After a decade, in 1993 the NHTSA came to Holland to test the abilities of the Dutch stoned driver: in this circumstance they arrived to the conclusion that the only difference between the regula and the stoned driver is a little bit more difficult to “maintain a steady lateral position on the road” so to drive exactly in the center of the line. In 1998, the University of Adelaide and Transport South Australia tested 2500 blood samples of people  involved in car accidents: nome of the accidents was because of the cannabis, and the incredible result was that drivers with only cannabis in their systems were slightly less likely to cause accidents than those without. Drivers that have used  both marijuana and alcohol did have a high accident responsibility rate. So the final result of this large serie of tests was “there was no indication that marijuana by itself was a cause of fatal accidents”. Further studies commissioned in the last 5 years by the Canadian and the Dutch government have confirmed these results. These data show once again how senseless is the prohibitionism on cannabis.

The Emirate of Dubai is recently at the center of discussions about its drug policy. In particular, news and governments of several western countries (French, USA, Italy etc) had to speak about Dubai because several co-citizens has been sentences to several years of prison for possessions of ridiculous amount of hashish or marijuana. So, a 27 years old frenchman has bee sentenced to 4 uears for 0.9 gr of hashish. But the worst estiny is for an italian guy 24 years old, stopped at the airport with 1/100 gr of hashish yes you read good, 0.01 gr of hashish.

But what the smart people of Dubai decides if is Dallas  Austin to be catched,he’s a famous R’n'B producer, friend of rockstars and politicians? He’s been catched with a lot more than 0.01 gr of hashish, he was catched bringing into the country over one gram of cocaine and ecstasy. They sentence him to the usual 4 years (yeah people, proportion seems an unknown concept in Dubai) and they forgave him a few hour later, after the “support” arrived from Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, singer Lionel Richie, producer Quincy Jones and others.

So if you wanna go to Dubai, don’t bring with you any trace of any drug. Unless you are rich and famous, in this case you are free to do everything you want. They will forgive you.

EU commission expressed concern about an Ice Tea that is producted and legally sold in EU, the C-Ice Swiss Cannabis Ice Tea. That tea is advertised by pointing that it contains 5% cannabis extract and 0.0015% THC - the psychoactive substance of the cannabis. The commission accuses the producer to violate a European Directive 2000/13/EC that forbids  giving misleading information about a product. More in general, the Commission is afraid that such a product could trigger positive attitudes toward cannabis use among young people. Bulgaria, Romania, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the UK are some of the countries that legally and freely sell the Ice Tea. Many other country have forbidden the sale of the beverage, and they have based their decision on article 30 of the EC Agreement, which approves prohibition of products over moral and social health concerns. What a polemic for just a few drops of (inoffensive) tea!