Amputee's Plea to Legalise Medical Marijuana

A WAR hero who lost both legs in an Afghan bomb blast is forced to break the law to get cannabis to ease his pain.

Lance Corporal Callum Brown is now leading calls to legalise the drug for medical use. He wants to see cannabis made available to patients like him who suffer agonising pain 24 hours a day.

Callum, 28, also shattered his pelvis in the huge explosion after he stepped on a boobytrap bomb while on patrol in Helmand five years ago. Speaking exclusively to the Record, he said: "As well as my other injuries, I have no skin on my backside it's just thin scar tissue so the nerve damage and the phantom pains are the main reason for smoking.

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THE 'WAR on drugs" has failed in terms of public health and drug use should be decriminalised, two leading organisations have said.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the Faculty of Public Health (FPH) said the personal possession and use of all illegal drugs should no longer be considered a criminal offence.

While the bodies still support criminal charges for people who deal drugs, they said users should instead be referred for treatment and help.

The recommendation is made in a new UK-wide report, Taking a New Line on Drugs, which has the backing of several charities and law enforcement officials.

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Britain's two leading public health bodies, representing thousands of doctors and other professionals, are making an unprecedented call for the personal possession and use of drugs to be decriminalised.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and the Faculty of Public Health say the war on drugs has done more harm than good. They believe drug misuse should be a health issue and not a matter for the courts and prisons.

"We have taken the view that it is time for endorsing a different approach," said Shirley Cramer, chief executive of the RSPH. "We have gone to our stakeholders and asked the public, and tried to gain some consensus from our community and the public." The RSPH commissioned a poll of more than 2,000 British adults and found 56% agreed drug users in their local area should be referred for treatment, rather than charged with an offence. Fewer than a quarter (23%) disagreed.

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Experts: Jail Bad for Addicts

PERSONAL possession and use of all drugs should be decriminalised, public health experts will say today.

Users need help not punishment, they say, and 56% of adults in a poll of 2,000 agree.

Drug use has fallen in the last decade but related harm including death continues to rise.

Jailing users makes things worse, says a report by the Faculty of Public Health and Royal Society for Public Health.

But both groups insist dealers must still be prosecuted. Shirley Cramer, of RSPH, said: "The war on drugs has failed... It's time for a new approach, where we recognise those who misuse drugs are in need of treatment not criminals in need of punishment." The report was "very much welcomed" by Parliament's Drug Policy Reform group. Prof David Nutt, of Imperial College London, backed it and Prof Peter Anderson, of Newcastle University, said: "It's the way to go." The Home Office said we must "support people dependent on drugs" and also "tackle organised crime behind the drugs trade".

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Ron Hogg Said the War on Drugs Has Failed and the UK's Drug Policy Is 'Unsustainable' As He Called on Colleagues to Back His Views

Cannabis should be made legal and used for medicinal purposes, Durham's Police and Crime Commissioner has said.

In a letter to the country's 40 PCCs, Ron Hogg said the "war on drugs" has failed and the UK's present approach is "unsustainable".

Mr Hogg highlighted the "genuine body of evidence" that cannabis brings pain and symptom relief to sufferers of various conditions.

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The ban on legal highs will not lead to the disappearance of spice and other synthetic cannabis-like drugs because they are so profitable to dealers, a senior government drugs adviser has warned.

Prof Harry Sumnall, a member of the Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, said the economics of producing the substances - often collectively dubbed "spice" - versus that of growing traditional cannabis made them an appealing proposition.

Sumnall said the ingredients were easily available online. "We were making some in the lab the other day. Very, very easy to do, pretty much shake and bake. Really easy to make, highly profitable, these drugs aren't going anywhere."

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Everyone from the chief inspector of prisons to prisoners themselves is now expressing concerns about the impact that new psychoactive substances are having on prisoners, prison officers and the efficacy of the prison system (Prisoners reveal regular 'spice' habit has tripled, 1 June). Current approaches to addressing their use are not working, and the situation is getting worse.

HMP Forest Bank, however, is taking a fresh approach. Using the principles of restorative justice, it is encouraging those prisoners who are using spice and other so-called "legal highs" to face up to the impact of their behaviour on their fellow prisoners and on prison staff.

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Prison should not be regarded as a punishment (Letters, 2 June). It is place of restraint where those who are incorrigibly violent - such as terrorists and incurable psychopaths - must be kept.

Punishment is a consequence of this restraint, but it should not be its aim. Punishment can be achieved by much more effective means, eg ill-gotten gains can be sequestered and subsequent earnings mulcted. The aim must be restitution, reform and rehabilitation, not one-size-fits-all punishment.

Magistrates, who can only award useless short sentences, should have this power removed completely. Crown court judges should have their sentencing audited, and where it has proved ineffective they should be held to account. If all drugs were legally regulated imprisonment would reduce by about 65%.

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This Act Drives Users Back Towards Illegal Drugs and Alcohol, the Most Dangerous Substance of Them All

With the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016, ministers last week banned the sale or procurement of any substance that has psychoactive activity, regardless of whether it is harmless or even useful. The sole exceptions are alcohol, nicotine products and caffeine.

The main justification for this draconian piece of legislation is to make it easy for the police and local authorities to close down "head shops", or at least to stop them selling so-called legal highs: drugs such as nitrous oxide; some synthetic cannabinoids, salvia, and some weak stimulants known as bubbles or sparkle. The act is based on the false premise that legal highs are responsible for up to 100 deaths a year, when in fact the true number is fewer than 10. Media hysteria about the use of nitrous oxide by a few footballers and a dislike of young people doing something different from their parents has also played a part.

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THE trumpeted 'ban on legal highs' is a fiction, like the rest of our drug laws. The new Act imposes no penalties at all for possessing these dangerous poisons - except for people who are already in jail.

This is an amazing giveaway of the Government's real drugs policy, which is to look the other way while pretending to be 'tough'.

In fact, simple possession of cannabis, heroin or cocaine is now hardly punished at all, even though it is illegal.

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The new law (Legal high ban risks creating fresh crisis, 28 May), which criminalises the selling of so-called legal highs, but crucially does not criminalise the user, is the right thing to do. It came out of an independent study into these substances which I set up when drugs minister.

A wide range of experts produced a unanimous report and that forms the basis of the law. I was clear that so-called legal highs presented more of a danger to users than many long-prohibited drugs, especially cannabis.

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Critics of Law Say Trade Will Simply Shift Underground

Whipped Cream Chargers May Come Under Suspicion

The blanket ban on the trade in legal highs which comes into force today is expected to end their sale through high street "head shops" and UK-based websites almost overnight, police and trading standards officers have said.

But there are fears that the trade in new psychoactive substances (NPS) as they are officially known will move underground to illegal street markets and the darknet, the network of untraceable and hidden websites.

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I AGREE wholeheartedly with David J Crawford in his exhortation to government it should decriminalise cannabis (Letters, May 23).

What did the war on drugs achieve? In the US the prison population has increased by 500 per cent in the last 30 years due almost entirely to drug convictions. In the UK a large number of people now have a criminal record for merely possessing a very small amount of the drug. Vast amounts of money and violence have been the result as the criminal element took control of the supply chain.

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Critics Say Antisocial Behaviour Powers Are Already Criminalising Vulnerable People, Ahead of All-Out Ban

It's just before 11.30am on a Friday morning and I'm standing in Lincoln's city square. With me are police officers Andy Balding and Joel Dowse, an antisocial behaviour officer at Lincoln council. We're on the lookout for socalled legal highs synthetic substances that have similar effects to illegal drugs but have not yet been banned by legislation.

We scan the square for anything suspicious. Everything looks in order, but I'm assured it hasn't always been this way. Balding points to a line of benches overlooking the river. "Along here used to be really bad," he tells me. I hear stories about groups of people on legal highs terrorising shopkeepers and falling unconscious in the street. Right now, all I can see is an elderly man peacefully contemplating the river.

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Lib Dem's Norman Lamb Urges MPs to Pass the Bill to Create a Regulated Market for the Drug

Parliament will be failing in its duty to reflect the will of the people if it continues to resist calls to introduce a regulated cannabis market, a former coalition minister has warned.

A 10-minute rule bill proposing the introduction of a legal cannabis market in the UK, something that would constitute the biggest shakeup of the drugs laws in the past half-century, will end its passage through the Commons on Friday. It was tabled by Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, and supported by MPs from all parties, as well as experts including a serving chief constable.

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First Minister Makes Controversial Health Announcement As She Confirms Dundee Will Get Its Own Trauma Centre

Nicola Sturgeon would back decriminalising cannabis for medicinal use.

The First Minister said there was a "specific case" for relaxing laws to treat people with conditions such as multiple sclerosis but reaction to her announcement split the audience of around 150 activists in Dundee's Queen's Hotel.

A wide range of topics were covered in the hour long question and answer session, with the SNP leader committing to building a trauma centre in Dundee and said she would "love" to implement Frank's Law but stopped short of committing herself to a fairer care system.

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Synthetic Cannabis Has 'Devastating Impact' On Jails, Says Chief Inspector

Synthetic cannabis is having a "devastating impact" in British prisons and making it difficult for normal life to continue in some facilities, the chief inspector of prisons has warned.

Sold as "spice" and "black mamba", synthetic cannabis has been blamed for deaths, serious illness and episodes of self-harm among prisoners. Some prison officers have reported falling ill from exposure to the fumes.

High demand for the compound has fuelled more severe problems in the prison system than officers have faced from any other drug, with prisoners racking up greater debts and suffering worse bullying and violence, Peter Clarke told the Guardian. "Prison staff have told me that the effect on individuals and prisons as a whole is unlike anything they have seen before," said Clarke, who took up the post in February.

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SOME things are unsayable in British politics. One such is the truth that cannabis has been, for many years, a decriminalised drug. The police, the CPS and the courts have given up any serious effort to arrest and prosecute users, just as evidence starts to pour in that it is extremely dangerous.

Instead our elite moan about 'prohibition', which does not exist, and the cruel 'criminalisation' of dope-smokers, which would be their own fault if it happened, but actually doesn't. Arrests for this offence are rarer every week, and some police forces openly say they don't do it any more.

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Laws on Tobacco Smoking Should Extend to Marijuana

It's time to legalise marijuana, then ban it again. Here's why. The Canadian government chose April 20 to make the announcement that cannabis will be legalised next spring, in the latest progressive move by the new Liberal government. The news had been coming for a while, because it was an election pledge last year but the date was significant because it was "4-20", when weed enthusiasts get together to call for changes in the law. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government beat them to it with a morning announcement.

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Nick Clegg has accused the home secretary, Theresa May, of attempting to delete sentences from a Whitehall report after it concluded that there was no link between tough laws and levels of illegal drug use.

The former deputy prime minister also said senior Conservatives, such as David Cameron and George Osborne, have failed to act on drug reform because they see the issue as a "naughty recreational secret" at Notting Hill dinner parties instead of a public health crisis.

In an interview with the Guardian before a major UN conference on the global drug problem, Clegg said the Tories were failing to listen to warnings that the war on drugs had failed.

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