Suspended sentence for Barnoldswick cannabis grower (From Lancashire Telegraph)

With the scientists in charge of the government's own licensed 'cannabis factory' now stating categorically that cannabis is safe and effective surely it is time to apply the Misuse of Drugs Act correctly and get cannabis properly controlled and taxed.

GW Pharma have said of their whole plant extract Sativex '...extensive studies have been conducted before satisfying the regulators of the safety,efficacy and quality of the medicine enough to issue us with marketing authorisation...'

At a conference at GW Pharmaceutical's headquarters in Porton Down, Wiltshire, Professor H.P. Hartung, Chair of Neurology at Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany announced that Sativex, the super strong, concentrated cannabis medicine has "…limited relevant adverse effects and – particularly reassuring – the drug does not appear to lead to withdrawal effects if patients suddenly stop using it."

Dr Geoffrey Guy, Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals is quoted as saying:
"My professional view of cannabis as a substance is that it appears to be a remarkably safe substance in comparison to most medicines prescribed today. The more I learn about this plant the more fascinated I become. It has through its various constituents multiple effects of therapeutic interest, many of which are now being validated by the enormous growth in basic cannabinoid research."

GWP are cultivating 20 tons of cannabis with the government's blessing whilst anyone else doing exactly the same thing gets a criminal record, and organised crime cashes in to feed the demand to the tune of £6billion pa. Madness.

As the realisation of the vast array of medical benefits of cannabis grows - then so does demand and, funny old thing, so does the spread of so-called cannabis factories.

Proper control can only happen with legalisation and, when this happens, and people can grow their own in safety, the era of the illegal cannabis factories will end. It's time for a new approach. CLEAR-UK.ORG

The more stories i read like this the more frustrated i get with the whole "drug prohibition" thing but especially in regards to cannabis. Up and down the country we are making cuts which affect the most vulnerable in society yet we can continue to spend millions upon millions every year prosecuting people for growing a plant that is not toxic enough to kill you and results on average in less than 1000 hospital admissions a year out of 3 million regular smokers and thats not to count in the other millions of casual smokers also. Alcohol gives us over 1 million hospital admissions a year so even if we say everyone in the country smoked cannabis and nobody drank alcohol we would have on average 975,000+ less hospital admissions a year than we currently have. That is just a simple way to show how much safer cannabis is when put against alcohol in terms of relative danger. These growers would be paying a fortune into our near dead economy, regulating would also create 1000's of new jobs which the whole country desperately needs. All this is before the saving of enforcement costs which if truth be told must run into billions each year. Police wages, cout costs, legal aid, prison costs etc etc the list just goes on. Things need to change and i think they are finally starting to do so albeit slowly, im not saying everyone needs to like cannabis as i wouldnt want to do that but i am saying we can no longer afford to keep up this current charade of a drugs policy.

According to the government white paper from 2006 which was a review of the Misuse of Drugs Act in 2004/5 the then Labour government spent £24 billion on the so called war on drugs.
After various rulings in the appeal courts we find most Cannabis growers being sent to Crown court, this costs approximately 10,000 a day and they last three days, generally.
I find it difficult, as a tax payer and father of four young boys to understand.
The only people doing well out of this are the organised criminal element, the police, the probation service and the various drug treatment 'charities'.
In this age of austerity the whole Misuse of Drugs Act needs to be applied properly so we can start saving lives, saving money and getting the country away from this nonsense of no control.

Why don't we try taking a completely new approach to this problem? Around three million people in Britain use cannabis regularly and whatever we do we're not going to stop them.

We waste billions every year on police, court and prison resources when a large proportion of society uses cannabis without any problem at all. In fact, the only real problem with cannabis is that it's illegal.

The risks to health are very small - much, much less than alcohol or tobacco. By a recent analysis of mortality, hospital admissions, toxicity and propensity to psychosis, cannabis is nearly 3000 times safer than alcohol. Why not introduce a tax and regulate system and realise the benefits?

That way we'd have a properly regulated supply chain with no criminals involved, no theft of electricity, no human trafficking, no destruction of property and disruption of neighbourhoods. Then there would be some control over this huge market. There would be thousands of new jobs, sales would be from licensed outlets to adults only with guaranteed quality and safety. Then our police could start going after some real wrongdoing instead of trying to fight a crime that exists only because of a misguided government policy.