Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

I am very much against the relaxation of the laws on cannabis. It can spark off severe and enduring mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Not in all, but in those who are vulnerable to the illness. this leads to misery for both the person taking the cannabis, and to their families.
The brain and nervous system are very vulnerable organs, and should not be misused. When tobacco was introduced nobody knew of the dangers. We DO know of the dangers of cannabis and other street drugs. We should not let down our young people.

The scandal of MP's pay and their relatives being 'employed' by spouses has touched a raw nerve with the public. As the MP for Birkenhead said in the commons if the same thing happened to one of the catering staff his feet would not have touched the ground as the Old Bill would have had collars felt...so it begs the question why are MP's immune from such scrutiny. This only drags the reputation of elected members into the gutter and after the latest revelations aka Hain plumbs new depths of cynisism.

IF THE ALCOHOL CONTENT WAS HALVED,

BROMIDE REPLACED VIAGRA,

DRUGS WERE GIVEN TO HARDENED USER'S.

HELP GIVEN TO YOUNG OFFENDER'S,
PERHAPS THREE MONTHS IN THE ARMY OR SIMILAR SOCIAL SCIENCES.

CANNABIS IS A PLACID DRUG AS OPPOSED TO MOST OTHER REC.DRUGS.
BUT IN MY OPINION THE WORST OF ALL AND READY AVAILABLE IS ALCOHOL.
IT TURNS PEOPLE INTO MONSTERS,DESTROYS FAMILIES AND ALSO A GATEWAY TO HARD DRUGS.

5 YEARS IMEDIATE INTERNMENT FOR
ANYONE CARRYING A KNFE,8 YEARS FOR POSSESING AN ILLEGAL WEAPON.
FOR NOW
JOBBLOGS

as an active cannabis user myself aged 20 i feel very badly rpresented by the broadcast tonight, i know many many people who use the drug, ranging from people who smoke it once every few months to those who smoke it daily,
from this experience i have learned if used in the wrong context cannabis can be a harmful drug but these people are a very small minority of overall users.
In my area alone i guess that around 80-90% of people my age have tried the drug and around 60% still do with only around 20% using it regularly and oly 3-5% using it more than twice to 3 times a week, as such i believe that the cannabis debate is mostly hype and hot air as there are more harmful drugs available leagally whether down the loacal pub or off licence or even over the counter in your chemists i could talk for hours about this but i shall call it a day

As the other post points out. If any drug should be illegal surely the facts and figures would point to cannabis?

Now im not saying it should be, i just dont understand why canabiss is seen to be a life destroying drug when alcohol has to be 100 times worse.

I myself do smoke canabiss, i have suffered no side effects due to this and do not smoke in excess. If the british government really want to stop teenagers taking the drug then the only option is to legalise it.

This way there would be an age system similar to the Amsterdam one. You must be 18 to purchase the drug and you would be able to do so from licenced coffee shops/canabiss shops.

Of course this would never happen.The UK government and the misinformed british public would never allow it.

Class B, Class A, Class C. It doesnt matter, canabiss will always rightfully be seen as a softer drug whichever class its placed in. Legalise, or change nothing.

The same old Cannabis debate. What a bore. The whole argue is flawed. The discussion regarding the of 12 or 13 years old children smoking cannabis. I 100% agree of the dangers and the government should do what it can to educate our children.

But this DOES NOT warrant it being re-classified to class B. It is my understanding that the drug classification system is based on the HARM of a drug.

Until alcohol is re-classified to class A due to the thousands people who DIE as a direct or indirect result of alcohol abuse a each year the whole debate is pointless.

I could go on about the whole "skunk weed" media frenzy. Skunk is simply a strain if cannabis of which there are thousands.

Perhaps I should mention the medicinal benefits or the the benefits of hemp production.

Just look at countries like Canada and some US states like California where weed has been legalized. This is the way forward. Don't push the drug further underground by making it class B. All the does is places it in the hand of criminal gangs which means adulterated produce which certainly can be harmful.

I THINK WE SHOULD UPGRADE CANABIS LAWS, SO ALL THE GUN AND PEOPLE IMPORTERS HAVE SOMTHING TO DO RATHER THAN SELL GUNS, THEN THEY CAN ALSO GET YOUR KIDS HOOKED ON HEROIN +MORE PEOPLE IN PRISON FOR THE LOANELY AND THEN BAN IPODS AS OVERZELOUS MUMS AND DADS DONT UNDERSTAND THEM ,///.!!!.
THIS IS THE CURE /1]BORDER CONTROL ,2]LEGALISE CANABIS,3]BAN ADICTIVE TOBBACO,AND THE SALE OF ALCOHOL (BREW YOUR OWN )4]GREEN ENERGY ,5] BETTER EDUCATION FOR KIDS AND PARENTS ,6]MORE FOR TEENAGERS TO DO (SKATE PARKS /BMX TRACKS)!!!

I am firmly against cannabis being reclassified to a Class B drug. I believe making it a Class C drug was a terrific move - my uncle has multiple sclerosis, my mother has an anxiety disorder, it has made their lives a lot better. It doesn't have any of the addictive attributes their prescription medication had and they no longer have to deal with the shady underground dealers since they now grow their own (check out the charity THC4MS). As for kids having it, parents should educate their children on cannabis and the dangers it carries - in my view alcohol is a lot worse. Drugs should be classified in order of the harm they cause, cannabis would be low on that list.

Also, one of my closest friends has schizophrenia, he was diagnosed at 13 and didn't start smoking cannabis until he was 17. He says it helps with his illness, maybe this is the reason so many schizophrenics smoke cannabis? I think it's an aid to this illness and not the cause.

If we're going to look at the classification of cannabis we should also look at the
classification of much harder drugs such as alcohol.

I believe cannabis doesnt cause mental problems, in fact I think it helps people control them.

There are many very respectable, otherwise law abiding cannabis users out there who with the help of cannabis hold down jobs that politicians and do gooders just wouldnt do.

Just remember the person who packed the food you eat or cleaned your car is quite possibly RELYING on cannabis to keep
up what may otherwise be a very unhappy existance.

For goodness sake. Here, in the province of Kosovo in South West Serbia, the 95% ethnically Albanian population await the declaration of Independence of Kosovo from Serbia on Sunday, immediately after the Serb Presidential polls close. Newsnight should remember this one. Tony Blair persuaded the UK and NATO to bomb Serbs and Bengrade in order to get the murderous Serb troops out of Kosovo. A foreign policy success for the UK. Now nearly 10 years later and under UN role, Kosovars would like independence, not unreasonable. There are two candidates in the Serbian presidential election on the weekend: Tadic, who sees himself as pro EU (but anti Kosovo) and Nicolic who sees himself as pro Russia. Tweedle dee and tweedle dum as far as I can see. Tweedle Dee vsiited a small serb enclave in Kosovo today to tell the serbs that he would fight for thrm. Though he believes that the 95% ethnic akbanian population are his citizens too, he ignored them, The last time we say this kind if carry on was in Afrcica, where black persons were considered not to exist. Kosovo's moderate leaders have watched thus play out with anusements. The next time Tadic will visit, he wll need a visa

The citizens of the UK are constantly told they must be greener. The government rabbits on about energy-saving light bulbs for homes and yet every building in Whitehall blazes with light (and, one supposes, with central heating on full blast, too). Every kind of expansion is encouraged or has secured government funding - airports, roads, rail and even space holidays! Now one hears about this coal-fired power station.
No-one mentions wave power any more. This reliable, harmless and relatively cheap method of producing energy has been talked about for many years. The output of two small specialist firms producing wave power "pods" here in the UK was destined for Portugal. There is no policy except getting as much money as possible into the government cofferes. I imagine that is why U.K. planning laws are being "relaxed".

Cannabis was decriminalised in Holland over 30 years ago in 1976 !

It is produced by licensed growers and distributed through licensed outlets. The product is taxed and regulated.

If you walk through the streets of Amsterdam you are not assaulted by crazed cannabis smokers on every street corner. In fact it is noticably absent from everywhere except the Coffee Shops licensed to sell it.

The idea of the coffee shop is good for four reasons.

1. It removes the drug from criminality and the problems associated with that.
2. It provides an environment to take the drug, rather like a public house is used for alcohol.
3.The coffee shops actually remove the glamour associated with taking drugs and so, fewer young people are attracted to drugs in Holland than in the UK.
4. The industry is regulated and taxed in the same way as the alcohol industry in the UK.

Cannabis use in the UK has been increasing since the 1950's. Up until four years ago it was a Class B controlled drug. Since downgrading use has actually decreased. This is nothing to do with the classification, it is to do with education and peoples choice. Fewer young people have chosen to smoke and that includes smoking Cannabis.

Upgrading to Class B will do nothing to stop the people who choose to take Cannabis from taking it.

Decriminalise and Educate. Stop providing criminals with a source of income.

I don't pretend to know all the facts relating to the links between cannabis and mental illness but as a member of society who tries to use my own reasoning to decide what information from the press, the 'experts', the politicans i choose to accept as absolute facts on many issues i think there are number of points i can raise in defence of keeping cannabis as a class c drug.
I should immediately add that i am a cannabis user and i would be the first to admit that its not a drug that has no draw backs. It can cause one to become apathetic at times, lazy if you want to put it another way, and i know from personal experience that it is possible for a person to be become dependant on it for sure. What i do take issue with is debates like the one broadcast on last nights newsnight and for the following reasons...

1) Mental illness can be triggered by use of cannabis, it has been proven so can't be debated. However as a counter argument i would say that firstly the number of cases is not a huge - 500 per yr was quoted on last nights program. Secondly, and more importantly, no one ever seems to raise the point of how many of these cases would have developed mental illness had they never used cannabis. Surely given that schizophrenia is a hereditary illness in a lot of cases, then some of the quota would have developed the illness regardless of whether they smoked cannabis or not.
2) The debate yesterday was represented by a woman arguing against cannabis who had lost her son to schizophrenia, the argument for by a representive of drugscope. How can anyone sit and with a clear conscious argue with a woman who has lost her son? It would take a cold person indeed to remark that her son might have developed mental illness anyway and that (in truth) most people who use cannabis (the VAST majority) never develop any mental illness whatsoever!
3) lastly, and most significantly, i can say that from the point of view of a user of cannabis over the last few years, that the down grading of cannabis hasn't made a blind bit of difference to me or anyone i know who smokes cannabis. Its just as available to everyone as it was before (possibly less so in actual fact, wot with the police cracking down on it to make their figures look good, while smack dealers and crack dealers evade capture because their drug doesn't smell so strong and is easier to conceal), no one cares whether it is class c or b, and no one is smoking it more or taking it up just because it is now class c (ridiculous concept!). The government shoudl just legalise it and then just accept that they won't be able to tax everyone to death (the only reason imo that they wouldn't legalise it) like they do for all other legal drugs.

Why there's a debate against the reclassification of what to grade cannibis, baffles me.It's an easy argument to have,considering most peoples opinion about cannibis.There's no scientific proof that cannibis contributes towards psychological problems,that were not already there, latent within a persons psychological make-up.If you dont like cannibis, then dont smoke or eat it!
Alcohol on the other hand,a very much more sociably accepted drug,completely gets ignored.Alcohol is the drug that should be reclassified,as dangreous!It has been proven that alcohol changes people,whilst under the influence of it.You only have to observe someone having a drink,and you can visually see the change in that person.What then occurs,when an 'imbalanced'peron,gets 'drunk',is frankly down to the individuals own psychological make-up.Do they become violent towards others,especially spouses?Some do.Does their behaviour change,from the sober person you know?Yes is the answer,to that.But to what degree depends on the individual themselves.And what ever lies latent within a persnality,certainly is allowed to service,when anhebriated,because ones inhibitions do not 'get-in-the-way'.So personality changes are very much more prevalent with alcohol consumption,than with cannibis users.It's to easy to have your gripes at what is already deemed illegal,like cannibis,and ignore the greater problem of, sociably accepted and very legal,drug called ALCOHOL.By ignoring this,and blaming psychosis on cannibis alone{and not looking at the alcohol problem in this country,thats rife},then there's no point in debating cannibis, and its so-called 'effects'.Because the establishment have already made their minds up, critisize cannibis users,so the alcoholics can be left alone.I guarantee that most, if not all M P's, have an alcoholic drink {more often than they'd like you to know}.And they are not going to address this issue,because most people in this country likes to have an alcoholic beverage{some very much more than others}.So the illegality of using cannibis,is a consequence, of alcoholic consumption, by those who make the rules.[Ironically, some of the 'rule- makers',have themselves been cannibis users- no wonder this country is mad}!