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Response to Blunkett

On 10th July 2002, the UK Home Secretary, David Blunkett, announced his intention to downgrade cannabis from a class B to a class C drug in 2003. This would mean, in principle, that the police would no longer prosecute people for possession of small amounts for "personal use" (though they would still be cautioned, and the cannabis confiscated). However, this good news for the smoker was tempered by a parallel announcement that the potential maximum penalty for dealing in cannabis was to be increased to 14 years, placing it in line with penalties for dealing in other drugs such as ecstacy and heroin. This page is my personal analysis of this double-headed news.

First of all, it has to be said that Blunkett's public statements of the reasons for the downgrading are to be applauded, in themselves. On Newsnight, in conversation with Jeremy Paxman (notorious savager of politicians, but on this occasion, rather sardonically approving), Blunkett said, amongst other things, that downgrading cannabis would send a clearer message to "the youth of Britain" that there were differences between it and harder drugs. He's dead right. I cover the arguments against prohibition on this page, and on this one Blunkett and I are in agreement. Fact is that most people (young and old) who want to smoke cannabis already do, they know where to get it, and they know its classification as class B is frankly ridiculous. For once, a politician has declared his intention of bringing policy in line with public opinion - rather than, as usually happens, the other way round.

So why the increase in penalties for dealing? Here, unfortunately, lies the serious flaw in the plans. This is a government paranoid about doing too much to upset "the right", and its marauding standard-bearers, the right-wing tabloids such as the Daily Express and Daily Mail (a paper that once led with the headline, "Possible 'Gay Gene' Brings Abortion Hope", just in case you've forgotten). The big banner to be held up as appeasement is this:

no coffeeshops!!

The government have always tried to be all things to all sides, a policy that always runs the risk of ending up offering neither to either. In this case, the obvious fear was that a simple, sensible and justified downgrading of cannabis would result in no remaining obstacles in the path of Dutch-style coffeeshops (see this page) opening across the UK. Some pioneers have already done this, in Stockport and Bournemouth amongst other places: but it's all too easy for newspaper editors with chips on their shoulders to tar these with the "drug den" brush, asking in shocked terms, "would you want your child to enter these places?" (Allow me to return to that point later on.) So the government are saying, "We don't mind if you possess cannabis but we want to make it harder and riskier for anyone to sell it to you."

I know I have a tendency to ramble so I'll try and keep the key points of my response succinct:

1. The effects of prohibition are simply being pushed further away from the public.

It's already at the stage where prohibition doesn't really have a noticeable impact on the smoking "general public". They buy their weed from friends rather than "dealers", they smoke at home on a relatively occasional and social basis. In common with their stance on many other issues, they are relatively apathetic politically, and avoid "rocking the boat". That's sensible, and I'm not knocking it. But when you aggregate this, it means that the four million plus dope-smokers in the UK make for a relatively weak lobby. (Compare it to the "hunting lobby" which musters probably less than 1% of these numbers.)

Blunkett is simply offering these people what they want. It's a great vote-winner. But at the same time (for potential reasons detailed in point 2 below), he is not removing the risks involved in lines of cannabis supply, but displacing them. The trouble with prohibition is that precisely because most smokers don't really face its realities, they don't have to face some of its trickier questions. Where does your fifteen quid for that eighth eventually end up? If you're lucky, it's to an old hippy couple with a greenhouse full of plants and the back of their comfy Hebden Bridge cottage. On the other hand it might be wend its way to the pockets of would-be terrorists, the leaders of prostitution gangs, and so on. You just don't know. You don't need or want to know. And now you've been told that no-one really cares about the weed once it's in your possession, you are even less interested in where it actually came from, and what risks are being run by those in the front line of the prohibition which still exists. Prohibition has been pushed onto the shoulders of those involved in production; that leads into point 2, which is...

2. The ground has been prepared for commercialisation - or, an even harsher prohibition regime in the future.

Potential UK cannabis entrepreneurs - and by that I mean individuals, not corporations itching to move into a potential legal, profitable market in cannabis supply - are a small group but they're becoming vocal. (See the article reproduced on this page.) Because of the nature of their interest, however, they're also easily marginalised. Comparisons are inevitably being made with the Dutch model at the moment - hell, I make plenty myself - but one thing worth remembering is that the UK is, politically, enormously less tolerant and inclusive than the Netherlands, which has always had a far more consensual mode of government. This decision wasn't taken in consultation with anyone at a democratic level, except maybe the police (and probably not them). It certainly wasn't done to legitimise cannabis entrepreneurs. In fact, quite the opposite.

Look, I know predictions like this can sometimes read as a conspiracy theory and that's not what I'm about here. But realise that the UK government has always looked for guidance towards global capital and corporate leaders rather than "the people", whoever the hell they are. I believe the ground has been prepared - perhaps not explicitly, but certainly implicitly - for the imposition of a harsh licensing regime, and through that, corporate commercialisation should the political fall-out from this decision be light. Will small growers be able to apply for these licenses? Probably not - they won't be explicitly refused, but there'll be so many conditions around "security conditions" (for instance), and so much expensive legal process required to be allowed to grow that no-one without massive financial backing could afford to apply successfully. Think I'm wrong? I hope I am. But I doubt it.

On the other hand, what if the political fall-out from this decision is heavy? Blunkett needn't worry. He hasn't downgraded yet. But you can bet that if, for whatever reason, political and media pressure results in the proposed downgrading not taking place next year, that the increased penalties for dealing will certainly remain. In any case they are there for any future Conservative administration to build on - surely a carrot which has helped hold back any real reaction from a currently moribund "opposition".

3. What's so bad about coffeeshops anyway?

Would I want any child of mine to go into a coffeeshop? Not before they were 16, no. Would I want them to enter a coffeeshop in preference to a pub? DEFINITELY. It's so ironic that the sort of newspapers who demonise the "drug den" will use other front pages of theirs to bemoan the alcohol-related violence that erupts - or is on the edge of erupting - in pretty much every city and small town in the country on a Friday night. How many people die of alcohol and nicotine poisoning every year? How many from accidental or deliberate overdoses of prescription drugs? How many are run down by drunk drivers?

God, I can spout these arguments all bloody day but they are simply not heard by an anti-cannabis lobby whose favoured mode of debate is to clap their hands over their ears and go "nyah nyah nyah, can't hear you". And what's the result of their deafness? A legislative regime that now makes it more likely that those dealing in cannabis will also deal in harder drugs! Why not, after all? The penalties are the same. Might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. Even when the lamb tastes better and does you more good.

Find that illogical? Good, so do I, but that's what this new law potentially means. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If in doubt, visit the Netherlands. Is that a society wracked by drug-related problems? Hardly. It might be national characteristics, and I think there's some truth in that, but then again, have you been near the Dutch-German border when the two countries meet at football? At least partly it has to be down to tolerant drug laws. If only Blunkett could see that as well as tolerance to users, you have to be more tolerant to dealers in cannabis - only that way will the link between weed and genuinely dangerous "hard" drugs be broken. AS IT HAS IN THE NETHERLANDS.

4. It is good news - but the fight goes on. GROW YOUR OWN!!

That sums my position up. I have concentrated on the contradictions and problems within Blunkett's announcement, but let it be clear - I'm still glad he made it. Symbolically, it's a massive step, being virtually the first liberalisation in drug laws in 30 years (not including those which relate to that nice, taxable drug - alcohol). It's a crack in the dyke of prohibition. What Blunkett has done, as I've said, is compensate for it by bolstering the dyke higher up. Trouble is, as any engineer knows, it's the foundations that count - strength at the bottom, not the top. There's more vulnerability if you support only the top.

What smokers can't do now is be complacent, for reasons I've tried to suggest above. the dyke has cracked so let's increase the strength of our blows. Challenge the increased penalties for dealing. Most effectively of all, in my opinion, start growing your own for personal use. The more that do that - an activity which has implicitly become tolerated, at least when and if the downgrading happens - the more people will realise that you can break the links between your smoking and your inability to know where your money is going.

Let's keep at it.

Thanks to posters on uk.rec.drugs.cannabis for helping me work out my feelings about this. Also to David Crane for similar. If you have any comments you can e-mail me by clicking here.

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