UK's Leading Pharmacological Expert on Cannabis To Call for Legalization

Financial Times

Roger Pertwee, professor of neuropharmacology at Aberdeen University, will on Tuesday tell the British Science Festival in Birmingham that making cannabis available from licensed outlets would reduce drug-related crime and cut the risk of users moving on to more dangerous drugs.

“At the moment cannabis is in the hands of criminals,” he will say. “We are allowed to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. Cannabis, if it is handled properly, is not going to be more dangerous.”

Although research has shown cannabis may increase the risk of developing schizophrenia in particularly vulnerable individuals, this danger does not apply to the general population, he will say. The risk could be reduced by setting a minimum age of 21 for consuming cannabis or requiring individuals to obtain a licence to buy it.

The article is very short - but behind a free registration wall.

Pertwee was involved in the development of Sativex for MS patients - so he has a pretty good idea of the way in which cannabinoids function - and an understanding of the medical uses of cannabis extracts.

The First Post

Pertwee's recommendation to "license" cannabis users (does the UK "license" beer drinkers?)...

comes almost a year after the Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson fired Professor David Nutt, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) and the government's top drugs advisor, after he suggested that drugs such as cannabis and LSD were less harmful than alcohol.

Prior to that, the Labour government had upgraded cannabis from a Class C to a Class B drug against the advice of the ACMD. So it was no surprise when another seven members of the ACMD resigned after Nutt's dismissal - either citing Nutt's shoddy treatment or the government's prohibitionist attitude towards drugs.

Edited to add Pertwee on the BBC

Personally, I find the idea of an individual "license" to be ridiculous - just another indication of how irrational people are about the issue of cannabis. Liquor stores require licenses. They are required to abide by the law and not sell to minors. They are not required to screen all customers for signs of mental illness - because the idea is ludicrous - just as it is for cannabis.

A Unique Chance to Rethink Drug(s) Policy

Guardian UK

If the purpose of drug policy is to make toxic substances available to anyone who wants them in a flourishing market economy controlled by murderous criminal gangs, the current arrangements are working well.

If, however, the goal is to reduce the amount of drugs being consumed and limit the harm associated with addiction, it is surely time to tear up the current policy. It has failed.

Few nations are untouched by what is, after all, a multibillion pound global industry. Importing countries, such as Britain, must cope with the social effects of addiction and end up squandering the state's resources on a Sisyphean policing task.

But that suffering is mild compared to the destructive forces unleashed on exporting countries.

The article goes on to note that the current and former Presidents of Mexico have called for a debate on current drug policies. Other former Latin American heads of state have called for legalization to stop the flow of money to drug cartels and to decrease violence.

Why did violence subside after the end of prohibition? People who were making and delivering alcohol illegally were able to do so without bribes. They could avail themselves of the legal system to settle disputes, rather than the rough justice of criminality. Makers of alcoholic beverages from other nations were allowed to export their product to formerly closed markets. Those who chose to be criminals, rather than beverage producers, found other areas of criminality to exploit and law enforcement officials were able to focus on other criminal activities.

...The unthinkable is creeping into the realm of the plausible. In the US, several states have relaxed cannabis law, a trend driven by a loose coalition of hard right libertarians and soft left baby-boomers. American society is slowly coming to terms with the fact that drugs are part of its everyday reality and that control might be more effective if use was allowed within the law, not forced outside it.

Politicians have generally shown little courage in confronting inconvenient truths about drugs. And the longer a government is in office, the more it feels bound to defend the status quo; to do otherwise would be admitting complicity in an expensive failure.

Prohibition entails a double dishonesty. First, there is the pretence that the supply and demand can be managed by force. But anyone who has experienced addiction knows that banning a substance restricts neither access nor desire. Usually, it makes matters worse, bringing otherwise law-abiding people into contact with professional criminals. Most addicts, meanwhile, say their problems start with the need to annihilate feelings of despair or memories of trauma. Prosecuting them for those problems solves nothing.

Cannabis Gave Her Back Her Life

Independent (UK)

Within minutes of taking a small amount of cannabis there was not an inch of my body in pain, and my tremors had stopped. My body felt at peace, and I don't think I can ever convey the enormity of that to anyone. Nothing hurt or felt wrong. I was still weak, but I could move with as much ease and grace as I used to. Yes, I was intoxicated, but it was not how I remembered it from my teenage years. Perhaps it was the smaller amount I used, just enough to free my body from its prison. I felt I was smiling more than usual, but this truly seemed to be because the mantle of agony I am normally covered in had been lifted. I certainly wasn't hearing or saying unusual things. Nevertheless, the "high" period was brief yet the health effects remained for a full 24 hours. It seemed to be a miracle. I tried to imagine the warning label if this was manufactured by a pharmaceutical company: "Will induce slight giddiness and loss of any concept of time for approximately two hours. Full beneficial effects will continue for 24 hours." An acceptable trade-off?

I had two weeks of this beautiful cure, and every day of those two weeks I became stronger. I was able to take up activities long abandoned and sorely missed. The excitement my husband and I felt was palpable. If I took it slowly, I was nearly normal and every minute my brain was taken out of its loop it was being allowed to recover. Personally, this is a joy, but in the bigger picture it could be an economic blessing. If the sick and disabled can benefit from cannabis the benefits would be felt by relieving the strain on the NHS and allowing some patients or carers to return to the workforce.

Sadly I don't know how reliably I'll be able to find cannabis. After years of searching I found something that can make my life bearable, even productive, but it's just out of reach. I have every intention of continuing to seek it out, but I don't know how achievable it will be. If you've been touched by cancer, HIV, MS, fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis you are among many who could possibly benefit from cannabis, but I would advise each person to fully research for themselves and speak to a trusted medical professional.

...Of course medicinal cannabis doesn't have the same scope for making large pharmaceutical companies big profits that drugs such as Olanzapine or Lorazepam do. After all, how would you patent a daffodil? This would not be a deterrent for law-making in a civilised society, but in ours, perhaps. It's time that we collectively grew up, and realised that the longer this issue remains unresolved we are throwing lives, money and progress down the drain.