Pass the spliff please minister

Sad too, as "pot" can help many people, not the druggies of course:)

The Law of Unintended Consequences rules again.

However, if out law makers were a little more intelligent and could think things through properly, there would be fewer unintended consequences.

Saddest of all, the whoile sorry tale of how we got here in the first place. Something to do with a DuPont (American synthetic textile magnate) heading a comission in the US in the 20s / 30s (IIRC) looking at cannabis use. Sadly, their recommendation to ban knocked the props out from under the hemp growers. Of course the fact that hemp was a very versatile raw material for natural textiles had nothing to do with their decision. Yeah, right....

Interesting about the effect of the anti-cannabis push in your area. In Norway the price of alcohol is horribly expensive, the price of heroin comparitively cheap - no surprise that Bergen and Oslo both have huge heroin problems (although to their credit Norwegian users are friendly and mostly harmless - I can't say the same for their British counterparts).

One wonders if the people who make these policies ever look abroad at other countries experiences... in this case, its obvious that political concerns in marginal constituencies have trumped every source of advice to the government.

-faceless-

absolutely ridic! That's all I've got to say.

(the cannabis going up to B I mean!)

Much better to use the Dutch model in my opinion and have coffee shops where it can be bought and smoked/eaten legit. Same as prostitution, they will never go away so why not have then in a controlled environment rather than criminals running the show and making money out of it. Imagine the tax they govt would get from it too!

Maybe that is why the army is in Afghanistan

they really need to look at what their doing to prevent the harder drugs not weed.
the fact that class a drugs are available to kids of such a young age should sound alarm bells.
lets up booze, lets up fags, lets ups weed, lets up coffee but keep the crack and smack low in fact lets make it two for one.
they advertise it so glamorously with celebrities getting off with drug offences all the time.

Between increasing alcohol prices and the controls of cannabis, I'll be hitting the harder stuff soon. Maybe once I can buy a pill for the price of a pint...

ELL: Hello, welcome. Exactly right!

Elaine: Indeed. Although I suspect there could be a legal challenge to this decision as I understand the only reason the govt are allowed to consider for classification is on harmfulness. They've gone against the recommendation for entirely different reasons.

DrJ: That's interesting thank you. As I understand things, banning cannabis has massively contributed to the heroin problem because in areas such as Afghan where the poppies are grown the only other crop which will grow so well in those conditions is cannabis. Which was what people grew there until the hysteria in the 50's caused the american govt to crack down on cannabis.

Faceless: That's interesting about Bergen. I quite agree about british addicts, but I think the point most missed is that if someone is going to take that path in life they will do so anyway. Why? Because it's got nothing to do with the drugs per se and everything to do with the reasons people are desperate to escape.
BTW, I meant to ask, are you Norwegian?

Vi: Exactly

Middy: Couldn't agree more! I think all drugs should be legalised though, ultimately it seems the only way to gain control and remove the criminality. And like you say, think of the tax income!

TFA: It's as good a reason as any!

Monkey: Spot on! Hello btw :)

OFMN: How much does a pint cost? I don't drink other than the occasional falling over after sniffing the wine bottle. I don't dabble in harder drugs either, but know you can get pills very cheaply, same for speed and coke. Its certainly already a great deal cheaper to take drugs than it is to drink. BG

"Its certainly already a great deal cheaper to take drugs than it is to drink" - When you can buy oblivion with half a bottle of reasonable scotch in Tescos for £4.77 (or a full bottle of cheapo scotch for just over £7) ???

I'm no longer much in touch with drug prices, (and never, apart from a couple of "special" occasions, did go much beyond the odd quarter here or there) but don't think we're quite there yet Bendy!

Cogi: As I understand it from friends (having never tried any illegal drug other than cannabis) £5 can buy you plenty of pills. They can be as cheap as 50p each, but I reckon there are strong regional variations. BG

Our local youth "enjoy" a White Lightning/Benyllin cocktail...