Cannabis Law Changes

[grace]

Cannabis Law Changes

Jan 28th 2009 will go down as a dark day in the British drugs debate, as the worlds safest illicit drug is dragged kicking & screaming back into the days of "Reefer Madness", when it is reclassified as a class B drug.

 

This new class B status brings with it the threat of a 5 year prison term just for simple possession, (up from 2 years at class C), and a 14 year prison term for supplying cannabis, (Unchanged from class C), and at face value that all seems fair and square. Lets face it, no one is overly keen on drug dealers. They simply serve a purpose right? Fulfill a community need which the government turned their back on decades ago.

 

But is the law black & white or does it leave lots of dark corners in which remain a lot of unanswered questions?

 

Supplying the Demand

Its all down to this term "Supply" which the courts and the police seem so keen to bring into every single cannabis court case.

 

If you try to paint a mental image of what the average drug dealer looks like, images of hoody-wearing spotty oiks spring to mind standing outside railway stations or night clubs, selling cannabis, cocaine and heroin which has been adulterated with who knows what dangerous chemicals in a bid to bulk-up the weight.

 

This is I'm sure, what the supply charge which comes under the Misuse of Drugs act 1971, is meant to try to stamp out.

 

But then we are presented with the case of cannabis campaigner Stuart Wyatt.

 

Wyatt was convicted on January 16th 2009, to 8 months prison for producing cannabis, and 12 months prison for supplying cannabis - an 18 month sentence which is to run concurrently, and for what?

 

Wyatt had told police he used the drugs purely for medicinal purposes, often turning it into a paste which he applied to his body to ease the pain he suffered. He also admitted he supplied the paste to other people who also suffered painful conditions, who in turn passed it on to more people in similar circumstances.

 

Is this what you and I see as drug-dealing? No, I thought not. So why is a Judge acting on behalf of you and I in the eyes of the law, when its not in fact the outcome we would wish to see?

 

Wyatt's advocate Ali Rafati had said that the 36-year-old's "use of cannabis was ongoing" to mitigate the pain he constantly suffered, to which the judge answered "Well thats his misfortune then isn't it?"

 

During sentencing at Plymouth Crown Court, Judge Francis Gilbert made it clear to Stuart Wyatt – who wants to see cannabis legalised for use in pain relief – that he was not above the law.

 

Judge Gilbert said to Wyatt: "You must understand cannabis is an illegal drug, It's not your privilege to choose whether what you do is lawful or illegal. There is no excuse. You're subject to the law like any other person."

 

A spokesman for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said: "Although the Judge may have considered the suspension of the prison sentences as "mercy", in fact it leaves Wyatt in the unenviable position of having to choose between intense pain and the risk of prison.

 

He continued "Is this really what the Misuse of Drugs act was designed for?

 

Date: 20 January 2009

Author: Red Dragon

Source: Canna Zine Cannabis News

http://pr.cannazine.co.uk/content/view/813/27/

[Nooby]

"It's not your privilege to choose whether what you do is lawful or illegal. There is no excuse. You're subject to the law like any other person."

 

Sounds reminiscent of some German judges back in the Nazi days. But then where does that leave us when the LAW becomes unjust?

 

I also read something the other day about common law (or common sense) that states for a crime to have been perpetrated their must be a victim.