Puppet Masters
The report from the UN's International Narcotics Control Board, which includes data from governments around the world, shows the UK produced 95 tons of legal cannabis in 2016. This accounted for 44.9 percent of the world total.
The nearest competitor is Canada, with 80.7 tons. Some 2.1 tons was exported from the UK, making it responsible for 67.7 percent of the world total, followed by the Netherlands (16.4 percent).
The UK government has refused to allow medical cannabis in the UK on the basis that it has "no therapeutic value." There is, however, one licensed cannabis-based medicine in the UK called Sativex - a cannabis extract in spray form - produced by GW pharmaceuticals, which accounts for a significant proportion of UK legal cannabis production. It is available on prescription for patients such as those suffering the effects of multiple sclerosis, but only via the National Health Service (NHS) in Wales.
Steve Rolles, lobby group Transform's senior policy analyst, says it is "scandalous and untenable" for the "government to maintain that cannabis has no medical uses, at the same time as licensing the world's biggest government approved medical cannabis production and export market." He added that UK patients are either denied access and suffering unnecessarily or are forced to buy cannabis from the criminal market.
Estimates suggest as many as 1 million people who use cannabis for medical purposes are put at risk from buying cannabis on the criminal market. Rolles says it is "profoundly unethical" and "a violation of the fundamental right to health" to deny people access to medicine.
"The government must relax restrictions that grant a monopoly for a single product to a single company. It must allow access to cannabis-based medicines that serve patients need - what they don't need is the government's cruel and misguided war on people who use drugs," he said.
Comment: Just another day of corrupt business dealings for the UK; criminalising the use of a plant, presiding over a monopoly for its distribution, while some nefarious groups benefit from the profits made off of the black market:
Tory MP tasked with regulating drugs has husband that grows 45 acres of cannabisAlso See:
A Tory MP and drugs minister has been accused of "deception" by a pro-legalization pressure group after it was found her husband has a 45-acre cannabis farm.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Vulnerability, Safeguarding and Countering Extremism, Victoria Atkins MP, has come under fire over the revelations about her husband.
Campaign group Clear has revealed how the drugs minister, who fights against calls for the legalization and decriminalization of substances, is married to the managing director of British Sugar, Paul Kenward. One of British Sugar's undertakings is growing cannabis seedlings for medicine.
Kenward's company is in partnership with GW Pharmaceuticals, a UK biotech firm, which is developing an experimental treatment called Epidiolex, in order to treat severe forms of childhood epilepsy. However, his wife is strictly against drug use and a process of legalization and regulation in the UK. At least, in Parliament she is.
As is often the case, it's the children who suffer:
Atkins previously rallied against drug consumption rooms (DCR) - or 'shooting rooms' - where addicts can safely abuse substances. In a drugs policy debate in summer 2017, she said: "We are talking about gun-toting criminals, who think nothing of shooting each other and the people who carry their drugs for them. What on Earth does my Honorable Friend think their reaction will be to the idea of drugs being regulated? Does he really think that these awful people are suddenly going to become law-abiding citizens? I do not share the optimism of others about tackling the problem through regulation."
This woman is out of touch with reality. Which is understandable considering how it would harm her husbands investments: Portugal's radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn't the rest of the world copied it?
Peter Reynolds, the author of the exposé and president of Clear, wrote on its website: "Aside from the usual, hysterical and evidence-free claims that so-called 'skunk' cannabis is causing an enormous increase in mental illness, which she trots out repeatedly, she rejects any idea of regulation in drugs policy as a means of reducing harm.
"However, in what must be the most blatant hypocrisy ever from a government minister, Ms Atkins benefits directly from regulation of drugs. With this latest scandal the shameful truth about UK drugs policy and the corrupt nature of this Conservative government is highlighted once again.
"It is difficult to believe this bare-faced dishonesty can prevail in a country that was once held up as an example of honour and decency but as with so much that Theresa May has been responsible for since she entered government in 2010, we are disgraced, shamed and the electorate is treated with absolute contempt."
- Employers are foregoing drug tests due to tight job markets and legalized pot
- San Francisco to expunge thousands of marijuana convictions which will "right so many wrongs"
Reader Comments
They only represent the corporate world. In other words they only do things for money
However the people tend to ignore unjust rules and crooked judges, knowing that the Westminster parasite is not of this country, Corporate world has no national loyalty.
A parliament of people ,not parties which are corporations anyway, is needed now.
No where in sight at present.
Whether it has medical properties or not is just a distraction ... criminalising people for smoking a natural plant is just plain wrong