Jonathan Calder has a good post here on the Lib Dem policy for a regulated market in cannabis. It’s worth repeating in full:
The Liberal Democrat call for a regulated market in cannabis this week has attracted more media interest than out policies normally do.
You can read the evidence behind this policy in the report A framework for a regulated market for cannabis in the UK: Recommendations from an expert panel.
That expert panel was made up of:
Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation (Chair)
Mike Barton, Chief Constable, Durham Constabulary
Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director, Release
Tom Lloyd, Chair of the National Cannabis Coalition and former Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police
Professor Fiona Measham, Professor of Criminology, Durham University
Professor David Nutt, Founder of DrugScience and former Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs
Professor Harry Sumnall, Professor of Substance Use, Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University
To give you a taste of the report:
The prohibition on cannabis production and supply:
Creates opportunities for criminal entrepreneurs, fuelling a vast and socially corrosive criminal market, associated with violence, people trafficking and slavery, including of children
Ensures that people who use cannabis have little or no information about the potency of the product they are consuming
Ensures people who use cannabis buy from potentially risky illicit markets that put them in contact with dealers of other more harmful drugs
Has progressively tilted the market towards more risky products (with higher THC and lower CBD) that are more profitable to the criminal entrepreneurs who control the trade
Has led to the rapid expansion of markets for more risky synthetic cannabis analogues (e.g. ‘spice’)
If we wake up on June 9th and either Corbonkers or Tiny Tim is in power we will all need weed….and lots of it.
A very controversial policy but good to have the arguments explained. Not sure about long time mental health issues and would like to see the consideration the panel gave to this.