Don't talk silly. David 'identity cards for all' Blunkett hasn't decide to take the rational path for rational reasons. As an ex-long term twice-busted toker, I've no opposition to freeing up the herb - all for it in some ways. But I feel the real reason for it happening at this moment is to divert attention away from what's really going on, and to subsume a lot of potential opposition in a haze of paranoia-free dope smoke.

or it could be the 'jo moore' stance. I think secretly quite a few governments have thought it would be a good idea to decriminalise smoke, but middle England and the right wing press would give them a very hard time over it. Doing it now, it can slip out while people's concerns are about more important things, and once on the statute books, it will be 'fait accompli'. Unless millions of dope smokers suddenly start getting violent or committing crimes to get their next fix, the papers won't have anything to rant about:)

I've said it before, but maybe the war on drugs is about to come to an end. The cold war was replaced with the war on drugs. Now we have another invisible enemy: terrorism.
The governments of the UK and US will only sort this crap out if it is advantageous for them, or simply not advantageous to carry on with it, such as booze in the thirties US.
If you want a good option try the Netherlands, or Spain, or Portugal, Italy, Switzerland or any other progressive, non-nanny state in Europe, but this one will only change when the Yankee masters do likewise.

the UK is awash with dodgy hash and weed. The quality of hash in the UK is dusgusting. It is supposed to be morrocan comes in black (soap) bars. I have heard different stories as to what it contains. Instant coffee and horse tranks is the basix. 20 years ago it was possible to buy so many different types of hash in the UK.Afghannie, was one of my favourites !
But there has been a war against hash, while at the same time
herion and cocaine have been flooding in, along with the mafia manufactured hash. The cops and customs officials have busted vast quantities of this stuff, strange how they never
set the alarm off. While in holland the cops try to protect
young kids and other vunerable people, the cops in the UK protect the organized crime bosses, Private eye calls the freemasons head office in Dukes Sq "Coke House".
Ashcroft, (tory treasury) was fingered for laundering drugs monies, the british have been running drugs for hundreds of years, Opium War in China. Anyone who lived in a squatting community during the 70's and 80's will remember how the cops allowed the smak dealers to deal with impunity, only wheeling them in for a weekend break down at the cop shop, when they wanted info on the local dope dealers or anarchists.

puff...

I do see your point on trying to cover things up, but at the same time i don't really think it's going to make that much of an impact. I don't think there will be many people who now rush out to get stoned and forget about conflicts etc now, those who really care that little about the world i'm sure are already doing it.
At the same time, I think just because there are many other extremely important things going on in the world at the moment we should dismiss this as unimportant - it is truely unjust that we are missing out on a fantastic natural resource with the potential to dramatically reduce pollution and provide 3rd world countries with an easy to grow, well balanced staple food. Then of course, there are people like a friend of mine, wheelchair bound with MS, who after a spliff - ok, they can't walk a distance, but they can get up and cross a room, hug their children, and, say get into a car without assistance.
I think the jo whassherface theory is more likely - that they knew there would be a backlash and perhaps this is a better time to announce it. Still, there was some fairly unbalanced reporting on newsnight lastnight..

I do think that they are coming to the end of the 'war on drugs' - there are simply too many people opposed to it, who are seeing straight through it. the very fact that a hollywood film summed up a lot of the 'noone wins' situation was quite a landmark, i reckon (though it was a well cheesy film) It does seriously worry me though that this war on terrorism is using exactly the same techniques of confiscation, slow whittling of human rights whilst claiming it's for the common good etc and i agree it's of the utmost importance that we all stay vigilant. Still, this shouldn't stop us from celebrating the small victories along the way.

And finally, the last comment about the quality of hash is spot on. Although I haven't personally come accross more than an eight or two of contaminated buds, i avoid hash like the plague because there's no longer any way of knowing.
The University of Leeds bought 6 kilos of soap bar about a year or two ago and tested the contents. I don't want to quote an exact figure here as i can't remeber, but AFAIR the %age of actual hash in the soap bar was between 10-20%
The rest was, as you say, made up from barbituates, anti depressants, chewing gum, old tyres, melted down records - you name it, it had it.. and of course there was a large proportion of gack that they simply could not identify.
Keep off the soap.. :)

Cheers for putting me off my puff chaps. But the only thing I'd like to add to this string is the emphasis that should be placed upon 'pressure from above'. When Holland de-criminalised weed in the 70s, they originally wanted the new law to be far more liberal than it ended up.
It is also true that due to [ahem] 'international' pressure, they struck a deal with the US who were allowed to send in a great deal of CIA agents to Amsterdam, which was the hub of the worldwide drugs market. This was in return for Holland to be granted these more relaxed drug laws. That is why coffee shops are not allowed to buy their supply from abroad and home growers are keenly encouraged.

Excuse my biases and slight inaccuracies, but this is my understanding of events been and gone.