In Britain, Penalties for Marijuana Set to Increase
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While support for marijuana legalization in the US is at an all-time high, conservative politicians in Britain are ignoring the advice of their own scientific panels and politicizing the debate by trying to impose even harsher sentences for marijuana use.
This despite the evidence that, as columnist Andrew Sullivan points out in this blog post, marijuana is safer than alcohol.
My London column today is on the dramatically shifting landscape for marijuana in the US, with growing acceptance of medical cannabis, growing numbers of states allowing it, California’s consideration of outright legalization and taxation, and the Obama Justice Department’s decision to let states govern themselves on the question, without federal interference. It comes after the Labour government has actually tried to increase penalties for pot - against the advice of its own chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD)…
They should. Alcohol is far more dangerous to the individual and to society than marijuana. Brits, of all people, should know this. If pubs served pot rather than beer, violent crime in Britain would plummet. Mercifully, the science establishment is fighting back against the firing of someone for telling the scientific truth. Two other scientific advisers have now quit in protest.
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