It's official. The British government is reclassifying marijuana to make possession a more serious offense. Use has been declining since they reduced penalties in 2004. However, instances of morons claiming marijuana can kill you have increased dramatically. Looks like the morons won this round:

Smith's expected announcement (Watch the video here.) comes just days after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown — who has been afflicted with a severe case of 'Reefer Madness' since taking office last June — raved that consuming cannabis can be fatal, and that strict penalties on pot are necessary in order to "send a message" to young people that marijuana smoking is "unacceptable."

Ironically, the Home Secretary’s formal announcement contradicts the official recommendations of Britain’s Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs, which released its own report today finding that pot lacks the potential health risks of most other illicit drugs, and that its use is unlikely to trigger mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia. [NORML]

As people around the world continue to die from everything except marijuana, one begins to realize how destructive it really is to go around making such a spectacular fuss about it. The time and resources spent pretending marijuana is so dangerous + the time and resources spent pretending to protect us from it with laws that don't even work = a whole mess of actual bad things that could be dealt with more effectively. There will never be one minute of a police officer's time or one dollar of a nation's crime control budget that is best spent combatting marijuana use. Not ever.

Marijuana has been failing to hurt people for thousands of years. If only the same could be said for police, politicians, and the press.