If people are caught in possession of cannabis now, the maximum sentence is 2 years in jail, whereby as a class B drug, its users could be locked up for 5 years. Interestingly, the maximum supply tariff of class C drugs now increases to 14 years, in Scotland at least, when it used to be 5 years.

The Metropolitan Police in London are going to be less heavy-handed in dealing with anyone found in possession of cannabis. But possession could still get you arrested north of the border, and the message coming from the police is that you can still expect to be targeted if you have dope on you. I’m not going into a ‘Scots-are-treated-worse-than-the-English’ rant, but it doesn’t seem very fair to me.
Regardless, in England, police are even banned from taking an offender into custody if the stash is for the offenders’ own use!

David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, says that the “current classification of cannabis is disproportionate in relation to the harm that it causes” and defends this change in the law as necessary so that priorities can be focused on Class A drug trafficking. And I believe this is a step in the right direction.

Apparently, up to one million Scots use marijuana recreationally every week. It is safe to assume most of them aren’t on the road to drug addiction, but they use it to relax after a hard day’s work, as others do, perfectly legally, with alcohol.

Opponents to the legalisation (or reclassification) of cannabis have a number of arguments rolled nicely and stuck behind their ear for use should anyone challenge them. I feel so confidently that legalisation is the best option that I shall try and waft some of the more nonsensical arguments aside like smoke.

- Cannabis is not safe! - This is a potent point. Anything that enters the bloodstream through the lungs is harmful (except air). For example, tobacco is responsible for the deaths of 30,000 Scots every year, with another 90,000 dying due to tobacco in England, Wales and Northern Ireland combined. And if a user of cannabis has underlying mental problems, they could be “unlocked” by long-term cannabis use. So I agree – cannabis is not safe. But it is not as harmful as alcohol or tobacco, and they are legal – and endorsed by the Government, who take in millions from taxation.

- If legalised, cannabis use will go through the roof! - Already, 32% of all Scots have admitted to ever using illegal drugs (14% of them having used them in the past year), with the percentage of 16-24 year olds who have ever used drugs rising to 58%. Fifty-eight per cent - that is a majority, if you haven’t noticed. In Holland, where cannabis is sold under license, no significant increase in use has happened in the past quarter of a century. Also, in Portugal, all drugs were decriminalised by the socialist government three years ago, and the law remains, even though Portugal is now governed by a centre-right party. Users that are caught do not go to jail – they have to attend a “dissuasion commission”. Drug use has not risen dramatically in Portugal. Another statistic that is surprising is that 70% of all 15 and 16 year olds in Scotland know at least one dealer. Legalisation will hardly make cannabis more accessible.

- It is unfair to make another drug available legally to our children! - As proved above, dope is already available in every scheme and suburb in Scotland. But if cannabis does increase in popularity upon its legalisation, teenagers might abandon alcohol and embrace cannabis, which can only mean less violence on the streets (I have never seen two stoned people fight), perhaps lower teenage pregnancy rates (I suspect that cannabis actually has a contraceptive quality, unlike alcohol, as tests have shown that it lowers men’s sperm count…) and vast profits for producers of foodstuffs such as crisps, sweets and biscuits, because of more people having the “munchies”. I’m joking, of course, but on a serious note, for the sake of those that come after us, I think that an age restriction on purchasing cannabis could be a sensible choice.


- Cancer is one of Scotland’s biggest killers, so it is wrong for a government to condone something that is smoked, as smoking is a cause of cancer. - True, cancer is a huge problem in Scotland, due to unhealthy eating, lack of exercise and smoking, but as well as smoking it, cannabis can be added to foods as diverse as soup, stews and spaghetti, so unless there is an undiscovered health risk in eating pot, even the most staunch non-smoker can get high to their heart’s content.

A supporter of eating cannabis-laced food is Biz Ivol, a Multiple Sclerosis suffer from the Orkney Isles who made chocolates containing cannabis and sent them to fellow sufferers of MS. She was taken to court on for using cannabis as a medicine and helping others to obtain cannabis as a medicine, and her case gained nationwide attention, with members of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance even camping in a tent in her back garden. Another man, Colin Davies, was jailed just because he wanted to help people who felt that cannabis helped ease their pain, and so opened a cannabis coffee shop in Stockport. No one could possibly say that people who suffer from a debilitating illness should not smoke cannabis, if it eases their pain and makes them feel happier, as it is proven to do. I’d like to meet a politician who would tell Biz, Colin and people like them that what they are doing is wrong.

As any clued-up user of cannabis knows, it can be grown both indoors and outdoors, here in the UK! Even while it is illegal, specialists can legally sell all the gear a potential grower needs: high-intensity lamps, fertilisers, even super-skunk seeds if so desired, as well as implements to use the pot with when it is harvested: bongs, pipes and vapourisers, such as the Blue Meanie, which claims to remove all carcinogens from smoke!
There are a number of advantages to people growing their own cannabis. For one, it takes people’s money out of the hands of the drugs syndicates that also peddle harder, more harmful drugs (and make desperate people miserable – what else can you call people who carry drugs into this country in their various orifices? Or junkies that steal from their own mothers to pay for their next fixes?) and into the coffers of British businesses (if economics is all that concerns you… and frankly, they shouldn’t!). Secondly, it helps to resurrect the good old hobby of gardening. Thirdly, it gives people something to do on Sundays. Hey, it’s quieter than a Black and Decker drill!

On a serious note, if you are sensible and want to be healthy, then use no drugs and smoke nothing. But there is a significant number of people in Scotland (and Britain as a whole, too) that use cannabis. Reclassification is merely a small step towards the best option – legalisation. And as long as otherwise-innocent people are arrested and sometimes jailed for just wanting to get high, then people will get criminal records for using cannabis. People will get wasted for being wasted. And that really is criminal.