British PM Ignores Experts, Set to Increase Penalties for Pot Smokers

Editor's Note: Shane G. Trejo is an intern at StoptheDrugWar.org. His bio is in our "staff" section.

As touched upon in Friday’s edition of the Drug War Chronicle, United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to reclassify marijuana as a Class B drug. This would restore its pre-2004 classification and change the penalties of marijuana possession from an already draconian two year maximum sentence to five years:

Gordon Brown said: "I believe that if we're sending out a signal, particularly to teenagers – and particular those at the most vulnerable age, young teenagers – that in any way we find cannabis acceptable, given all we know about the way that cannabis is being sold in this country, that that is not the right thing to do. "There's a stronger case now for sending out a signal that cannabis is not only illegal, it's unacceptable."

What is with all these politicians wanting to send a message to youth that certain activities are bad? It shouldn’t be the government’s job to act like the mommy and daddy of its citizens. And as always, the push for increased toughness has been sparked for no good reason and without any rationality:

The mental health charity Rethink said Mr. Brown should heed the committee's advice. The charity spokesman Paul Corry said: "Gordon Brown should put aside his personal views on cannabis and accept the fact that it does not make sense to reclassify. "Use of the drug has gone down since it was downgraded in 2004 and research by Rethink shows that only 3% of users would consider stopping on the grounds of illegality." … Steve Rolles, of the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told the Today programme reclassification was not the most effective way to alert people to the dangers associated with cannabis. He said: "Class C is still illegal. No one is saying it's harmless. I don't think increasing the prison sentence from two years to five years for possession is necessarily the way to do it. I think if we want to send out messages to young people, rather than mass criminalisation of millions of young people, I think the way to do it would be in effective, targeted public health education."

This message-sending nonsense is not only disgusting, it is ineffective. It should be common sense to know that while young people mature, some of them tend to rebel against authority. Taking a hard-line stance on marijuana is only going to make it seem cool and increase its usage amongst young people. In Switzerland, medicalization and harm reduction strategies related to heroin not only reduced crime, reduced usage and allowed addicts to be able to live functional lives but also managed to make the drug less cool to youth. From Issue #439 of the Drug War Chronicle:

And the Swiss may have succeeded in making heroin boring, the researchers suggested. "As the Swiss population supported this drug policy, this medicalization of opiate dependence changed the image of heroin use as a rebellious act to an illness that needs therapy," Drs. Nordt and Stohler wrote. "Finally," they add, "heroin seems to have become a 'loser drug,' with its attractiveness fading for young people."

You’d think politicians in general would try to become informed on the issues that they are deciding. But they often don’t, and some of them actually pride themselves on being uninformed. Here is a very telling quote from Conservative Party leader David Cameron:

"The Conservative party has a very clear view that it should be class B. People have had enough of reviews and the prime minister should stop dithering and get on and make a decision."

I am continuously shocked by the attitudes of people like these. Wouldn’t you want to wait for reviews and studies to happen before making a decision? This is a decision that will potentially put otherwise law-abiding citizens who happen to smoke pot in jail for up to five years. Wouldn’t you want to be as informed as possible before making a decision that could destroy lives and waste precious law enforcement dollars?

A disturbing trend amongst some politicians is the belief in state-enforced morality. This misguided belief keeps them from thinking rationally. Out of the issues he could possibly be worried about, PM Brown is worried about pot smokers? His moral grandstanding has made him seemingly oblivious to the fact that the result of marijuana reclassification will be potentially three more years in prison for a completely nonviolent personal act.

State-enforced morality is based on the faulty premise that the law needs to protect a societal purity. That is why that in spite of it being obvious that the war on drugs is a failure, it still continues to rage on. The message must be sent at any cost.