© Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters
The electronic petition, created by James Richard Owen, calls for the legalization of the production, sale and use of cannabis and currently has close to 135,000 signatures since being launched on Tuesday.
"Legalising cannabis could bring in £900m ($1,396m) in taxes every year, save £400m ($620m) on policing cannabis and create over 10,000 new jobs," the appeal on the government's website says.
The campaign also argues that the drug is "safer than alcohol," has been used by mankind for over 4,000 years, and was outlawed in the UK only in 1925.
Since the e-petition reached the required minimum of 100,000 signatures the MPs will now be forced to debate the declassification of the substance.
"There's roughly three million adult [cannabis] smokers in the UK and I don't think it's right for the government to be criminalising such a large section of society," Owen, an economics student at Aberystwyth University, told the Guardian.
Comment: A tax boost is just part of the picture. Note the effects of smoking pot:
- Distorted sense of time; short-term memory loss;
- Increased appetite (munchies);
- Paranoia;
- Delusions and magical or "random" thinking.
It seems to be another method the powers that be use to keep people completely oblivious to the world as it is and what is probably going to happen on this planet very soon.