UK - Downgrade cannabis says drug expert during visit to Stroud

[edgarshade]

Stroud news and journal

9:00am Saturday 21st January 2012 in
By Chris Warne

With reader comments

PROFESSOR David Nutt, the ex-government drug adviser who provoked a media storm when he said taking ecstasy was no less dangerous than horse riding, renewed his criticisms of politicians and policymakers during a talk in Stroud last week.

That decision to upgrade the drug, Professor Nutt said, was motivated less by scientific evidence and more by political considerations and a desire to appease a hostile tabloid press.

"One of the reasons we have always argued cannabis is safer than alcohol is because you cannot overdose on cannabis," he said. The drug expert claimed lobbyists working on behalf of the drinks industry possessed too much power and were able to shape government drug policy and legislation to their liking.

All it would take to bring about a change, he said, was for politicians to start exercising a ‘little political courage’.

More...
http://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co....abis_says_drug_expert_during_visit_to_Stroud/

 

[poledriver]

Contrasting the risks associated with cannabis with those from consuming alcohol, the eminent psychiatrist argued that the policy of criminalising cannabis defied common sense.

Alcohol was responsible for 8,000 deaths a year, he said, while cannabis could only be implicated in a handful of deaths.

Too true. Good article and some good comments too.

 

[LogicSoDeveloped]

Excellent. Hopefully, more world leaders will begin to take this stance on marijuana and other drugs. The logical stance, that is. We as a society don't have the money or the time to enforce drugs laws yet the police and the government enforce them anyway. It almost seems as an easy way out. It is fairly simple to get people in trouble for drugs-more simpler/easier than I'd guess it is to catch people committing most other crimes and it makes them look good to get arrests whether they make sense or not.

 

[Pjkt2501]

Pigs love gettin' high - and who likes paying for drugs anyway? Much easier to just take them from some poor soul who spent their last $$ to not feel like shit.