As the rest of the country comes to terms with the fact that the Conservative Party has trashed pretty much everything in the UK, policy-aware cannabis consumers already knew this. Having watched Tory led think tanks and then the Tories themselves destroy any hope of a socially-just form of regulation, we despaired as private equity moved in to control the market and dominate the narrative.
“We gave you legal cannabis” the Tories cry. Well, millions of cannabis consumers would seriously dispute that. They have enabled a tiny proportion of the population who can both qualify AND afford to go private, to be able to access a legal prescription for expensive and in many cases, poor quality, unnecessarily irradiated cannabis.
What about everyone else? Kids with severe epilepsy – how many prescriptions on the NHS? 6 or 7 years on and that figure is still shamefully in single digits. Five in fact, versus some 90,000 privately (Over 89,000 private cannabis prescriptions, fewer than five NHS. But don’t be surprised, that is all absolutely by design. There is no profit in cannabis for these finance firms once legal consumption starts to increase – no profit for large vertically integrated business models at least. Quality will speak for itself and in our experience so far, the accountants and consultants dominating the current market grow crap weed.
It’s also by design that we don’t have any forward progress in the wider reform of drug laws in the UK. And the conference circuit of hot air production is making an absolute killing as a result. Quite literally in fact.
Reading back through our blogs it’s fair to say that once you get to about 7, they get repetitive, reflective of the fact that policy hasn’t gone anywhere in the UK for about 70 years. The things that need to be addressed are the same things that needed to be addressed 30, 40, 50 years ago. Tony Blair’s government came closest when they reclassified it into Class C, then Gordon Brown listened to all the nonsense and put it back to class B status. Medical cannabis got the green light under extremely punitive conditions and guess what – raids on grows actually increased.
Then we’ve had to endure 14 years of being gas-lighted, stigmatised and marginalised by successive Tory Home Secretaries who have used cannabis consumers as the cannon fodder in their increasingly inhumane attacks on marginalised groups in society. We know you all already know all this, but this is the point of this article. What, if anything, are Labour going to do differently?
Addressing prison overpopulation
Our ears pricked up when it became clear that the government would have to release low risk prisoners early in order to avoid a “prisons full” scenario thanks to 14 years of mismanagement by the previous government. Quite a shocking state of affairs for the 6th largest economy in the world….. of the 97,000 current inmates in UK jails, approximately 1,000 are in there for crimes relating to cannabis – this is despite home office sentencing guidelines which on the face of it effectively decriminalise cannabis for personal use – except the police do still prosecute, and judges still sentence. Will we see a change with upcoming cannabis court cases? We’re about to find out.
The Home Office Guidelines (Drug Offences | The Crown Prosecution Service (cps.gov.uk)) currently state that:
The mitigating factors for the possession of a small amount of cannabis for personal use include:
- No previous record of a Cannabis Warning /a PND being issued.
- No previous related convictions.
- Compliance with investigation.
- Evidence demonstrating the cannabis is being used to alleviate symptoms associated with a chronic medical condition.
Home Office Circular 018 2018 provides further detail about the re-scheduling of cannabis-based products for medicinal use in humans.
It’s clear that the majority of the 1,000 people currently locked up for cannabis related offences shouldn’t be in jail costing us £42,670 a year for each one inside (that’s £42 million saving on cannabis offenders alone). It’s clear that jail isn’t the place for anyone consuming or growing cannabis for their own use, or for helping others for that matter. If you are growing as part of an organised crime gang and robbing electricity off the grid then you are fair game in my view, but OCGs could so easily be removed from the whole scene simply by regulating universal adult access in a sensible fashion. Also, many of those cannabis “offenders” will be exposed to far more dangerous drugs within the prison environment and many prisoners have gone into prison and left with a healthy heroin habit. What kind of penal system is that?!!
And even though with prisons full, it is increasingly unlikely that anyone is going to be sent to jail or even reach court for personal possession, those removing themselves from the black market with say a modest 9 plant home grow, still stand at risk of years imprisonment for running a “cannabis factory”. Terrific.
7 million people on NHS waiting lists
The Tories have put a great deal of energy into breaking the NHS with staggering success. 7 million people waiting for treatment is a massive number (forget Covid, it was rising way before then). Many of these people will be waiting in pain, with inflammation, getting depressed an anxious, increasing their cocktail of pharmaceuticals at significant cost to the taxpayer. Let’s be clear, whilst we evangelise about cannabis, we do know it is not a miracle cure for everyone. It does however (for a great many people) have miraculous therapeutic benefit and can give a quality of life back where pharmaceuticals have previously robbed people of their independence. I’ve seen it myself, having helped people with cancer, neuropathic pain, severe arthritis, neuralgia, menopause symptoms to name a few. It has given people their appetites back and provided a decent night’s sleep. Those two things on their own help individuals live some kind of normality and be better equipped to deal with their health conditions.
Cannabis could, and should be universally available as a herbal medicine. Trying to regulate it as a pharmaceutical was ill advised – look where it’s got us. There are far more sensible routes that we could have used – like the herbal medicines advisory committee of the MHRA (Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Whilst cannabis won’t solve the waiting list alone – it will almost certainly remove tens of thousands from it, and it will help a great deal more at substantially lower cost than pharmeceuticals whilst they wait for their treatment.
The Global Optics On Cannabis
As Starmer stands at the NATO conference rubbing shoulders with the leaders of the USA; Germany; Spain; The Netherlands; Luxembourg; Belgium; Czech Republic; Spain; Austria and Italy ,he is now the outsider in terms of cannabis law reform. At some point he will no doubt, also meet commonwealth leaders from South Africa and the Caribbean/West Indies. All those countries have chosen either fully regulated universal adult access, or at least have fully decriminalised personal use and allow a social club model with provision for personal home grow. Does he have the backbone to swiftly look at the evidence, look at the harms caused by the UK’s current legal framework and make some simple and decisive changes?
It has been refreshing to see experts being appointed over a ministerial brief in which they are considered to be expert (Vallance in science and Timpson on prisons). A succession of previous governments have flatly ignored expert advisers – remember the famous sacking of Professor David Nutt? So there is some faint hope that Starmer will be a transformative reformer and will follow the evidence (as his legal training would have taught him to do so). This is Starmer’s opportunity to stand up to Tory led think tanks, and do the right thing. Plaid Cymru, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party are all forward thinking progressives in this policy space and no doubt many of the new Labour MPs have a more modern way of thinking on this one. It is almost certain that a fair proportion of the current throng of MPs are also cannabis consumers themselves. Steven Kinnock is one outwardly honest MP about his cannabis use as a young man. Didn’t prevent him getting into government did it? And with half the previous government famed for cocaine use, this really is a last standing area of political hypocrisy as well as being a policy relic.
Right To Grow The Economy
IF growth is really the Holy Grail for this new Labour Government, then cannabis DEFINITELY has a role to play. Regulating the UK market, enabling small boutique growers and extractors to emerge, paying tax and providing jobs, saving at least a £billion in enforcement and prison costs, raising massive tax revenues and generating opportunities in a new industry – let alone incidental societal costs by squeezing organised crime out of the market and ending the destruction of young lives by the handing out of a criminal record.
Forget vertically integrated supply chains, a modest boutique grow under say 80 lights would provide around a dozen direct jobs, spend significant money in the horticultural sector (substrates, feed, containers, watering rigs, light etc), provide wider ancillary growth in service industries (they’ll all need an accountant, and a website, and marketing, and offices, cleaners, couriers, fire extinguishers, packaging etc). Vape lounges would compete with the alcohol industry and probably match it at the very least. All Kier is ignoring at the moment is a substantial revenue opportunity, a contribution to prison reform and addressing long overdue social justice for us. It would almost certainly eradicate large cannabis farms stealing electricity from the grid and trafficking vulnerable people AND it would help remove kids from exposure to the criminal underworld. What’s not to like?
So there it is Kier. All there for the taking for you, save my final summary of usual cynicism. Throughout my 35 years of regular cannabis use, all I have heard is “legal in 5 years’ time”. The reality is, it hasn’t really changed in those 35 years and now it is time to fix this mess. The arguments against are increasingly shown elsewhere in the world to be baseless, and the arguments ‘for’ become increasingly stronger. I often joke that the UK will have a trans prime minister before it has legal cannabis, and it will probably be that trans prime minister that changes the law for us.
Starmer has a reputation as a steely reformer, not afraid to do what is right in the face of criticism. Labour policy on this has historically mirrored the Conservatives. The need politically to be seen to be tough on crime means cannabis consumers are usually on the receiving end of punitive, regressive drug laws. He needn’t fear that regulating cannabis will lead to a “free for all” either. The free for all is already happening, organised crime stealing electricity and young kids exposed to county lines and people who don’t have their welfare at heart. I know the system I’d want my kids and grandkids growing up in, and it isn’t this one. Over to you Kier.
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