Cannabis crackdown across the North West ‘waste of money and police resources’, says Manchester activist

If growing weed was legal in small amounts 5 - 10 plants per person then hard working people like myself wouldent have to put myself in a situation were I have to meet dealers and put money in there pockets. That way I can get on with my life without putting myself in stupid situations. I live a perfectly good life work hard and get high even harder. peace

to quote: "People who grow cannabis often have a total disregard for the safety of others, frequently endangering the lives of those in neighboring properties by tampering with electricity supplies and leaving live electrical cables exposed, increasing the risk of fire," nothing is mentioned about the harm of the drug itself, because there's nothing to mention - all the above side effects of growing cannabis is caused by its illegality, a simple problem to solve!!

Are the police really this stupid? They create a problem by gifting a huge multi million pound trade to organised crime by ensuring no responsible person can take part in the trade and then use the mess they've created to justify more of the madness.

Every point made by the police above is the result of prohibition and has been caused by the police and their equally stupid political masters.

Sarah McCulloch is wrong when she says it's all a waste of money, it's way, way more than that. The crackdown on cannabis will only make violence worse, it will only destroy more lives and wreck more communities.

The more violence and repression the police create, the better the trade will protect itself. The way out of this isn't to crack down, it's to ease up.

The crack down on cannabis is investing in failure.

Cannabis should be legalised and the trade in it properly controlled and regulated.

If cannabis were legal, who would pay the wages of the police officers, judges and solicitors for the court cases? We would have to make something else illegal instead.
I have a few suggestions. Watching Jeremy Kyle (surely this should already be illegal), growing your own tomatoes (thus depriving the gov't of income tax and VAT. Paying TV licence (whom call themselves an authority when they clearly aren't (surely illegal) and also charging for services not rendered (who watches BBC?)

"People who grow cannabis often have a total disregard for the safety of others, frequently endangering the lives of those in neighbouring properties by tampering with electricity supplies and leaving live electrical cables exposed, increasing the risk of fire," Mr Lyons said.

If growers could hire the services of an electrician to sort their wiring then this wouldn't happen or at least not as much. They don't because of the fear of getting caught.

The problems "caused" by Cannabis are mostly the result of prohibition not the drug itself which is safer than many pharmaceuticals, over the counter medicines and regulated legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco.

“An increasing number of people who grow cannabis are directly funding dangerous, organised criminal gangs. These gangs are often responsible for gun crime, violence and intimidation across the North West."

"People who grow cannabis often have a total disregard for the safety of others, frequently endangering the lives of those in neighbouring properties by tampering with electricity supplies and leaving live electrical cables exposed, increasing the risk of fire,"

G W Pharmaceuticals grows tonnes of cannabis legally. Are they responsible for any of the above?

Legalise, regulate and provide quality-controlled cannabis for sale in licensed premises to over-18s only. Problem solved.

and this is why we have a HUGE problem with crack and heroin, focus on hard drugs PLEASE !!!

www.LEAP.cc

Police are always stupid. Tipical situation. What familys do when they have a stupid, bully kid? send him to the police academy and give him a gun.... the smart goes to college...
This not the rule but is the most%...

Is it not time to bring an end to this madness and stop criminalising people for growing and using a plant?
Legalise it....normalise it and take away the black market and the gang behaviour associated. Let people have assured purity...Use the money saved to educate people properly instead of perpetuating myth and lies around the subject.
Let otherwise law abiding folk get on with their lives without the fear of having their door booted down, a possible prison sentance and loss of job/house etc.
How can that be right?? Perfectly normal, upstanding and productive people criminalised for using a god given plant. Surely this costs society more in the long run??

Sarah is absolutely right in her condemnation of the actions of the police regarding their uses of money,resources etc in their ridiculous war on people,as that is what it is.A plant wont face prosecution, jail,,etc It is often ill people who grow for medicinal use that end up in a cell,It is not right to jail ill people for cannabis,or any people for that matter.It is a non toxic plant that has been used for medicine and recreation for thousands of years.But due to politicians lies and govt propaganda it is illegal.When will they get the message..PROHIBITION does not work.Or is it ...they know this but are in the pay of the pharmaceutical and alcohol industries which would undoubtedly suffer a loss in their profits were such a move ever to happen..I mean... THEY CANNOT PATENT A PLANT...NO PATENT=NO PROFIT

So little money yet the govt are wasting millions on this?
REALLY????
It's an outrage that Cannabis hasnt been legal since the 60's, yet alone in the 21st Century this kind of prohibitionist idiocy still goes on.
Legalise it and all the "criminal gang" problems instantly vanish

Cannabis in Runcorn is contaminated with PCP

Hemp is absolutely one of the most valuable resources yet waiting to be fully developed!

* Hemp can provide us with most of our needs; clean burning bio-fuels (due to the rapid growth cycle, requiring less land than corn); Hemp foods (arguably the most nutritious food-source on the planet and presently one of the hottest health food trends in North America); clothing fibers; healthy cooking oils; paper; building materials (from a musical instrument to the body of a stealth bomber) It's even stronger than cement at one sixth the weight. - You don't need fertilizers or chemicals to grow hemp. And there is absolutely no part of the hemp plant that cannot be easily utilized.

* While the United States is one of the few industrialized nations on the planet to prohibit it's farmers from growing Hemp, China has become the world’s largest producer (75% of world production) and the biggest exporter of hemp derived textile and paper products.

* World trade for hemp seed, hemp oil, hemp fiber, textiles and other products of this amazing resource are rapidly expanding. The United States, as a consumer but not a producer of hemp, is one of the very few nations not profiting - similar to what happened in soviet Russia, the apparatchiks of the DEA are dictating to US farmers what they may, or may not, grow.

“It is impolitic. The fact well established in the system of agriculture is that the best hemp and the best tobacco grow on the same kind of soil. The former article is of first necessity to the commerce and marine, in other words to the wealth and protection of the country. The latter, never useful and sometimes pernicious, derives its estimation from caprice, and its value from the taxes to which it was formerly exposed. The preference to be given will result from a comparison of them: Hemp employs in its rudest state more labor than tobacco, but being a material for manufactures of various sorts, becomes afterwards the means of support to numbers of people, hence it is to be preferred in a populous country."
— Thomas Jefferson, Farm Journal (16 March 1791)

“What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.”
— George Washington, Writings of Washington, Vol. 35, pg. 72

* Until the 1880s, 80% of all textiles and fabrics used for clothing, tents, bed sheets, rugs, drapes, quilts, towels, diapers, etc., and even the flag, "Old Glory," were principally made from hemp fibers. Additionally, hemp, due to its extreme durability and color-fastness, was used for 80% of all paper in the world, including Bibles, newspapers, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, etc.

* The paintings of Van Gogh, Gainsborough, Rembrandt, etc., were primarily painted on hemp canvas, as were practically all canvas paintings of that period.

* In one year alone (1935), 116 million pounds (58,000 tons*) of hempseed were used in America just for paint and varnish.

* Until 1937 an estimated 80% of all rope, twine, and cordage was made from hemp.

* All American farmers were legally bound to grow hemp during the Colonial Era and Early Republic.

*** At the cusp of an impending Hemp renaissance, the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 - which effectively made the cultivation of hemp illegal - was due largely to the efforts of the following businessmen/entities:

Andrew Mellon - As chairman of the Mellon Bank he was Dupont's primary investor and treasurer (1921-1932). He was also responsible for the appointment, in 1930, of his future nephew-in-law, Harry J. Anslinger, as head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).

William Randolph Hearst - Competition from hemp was a threat to Hearst's paper-manufacturing company, and he believed that hemp's renaissance would also significantly lower the value of his land (enormous timber acreage in both California and Mexico, and best suited for conventional pulp). He used his publishing empire (28 newspapers in 18 key American cities with an estimated 20 million readers) to run stories claiming that marijuana was responsible for everything from murder to loose morality.

The DuPont family - In 1935, two years before the prohibitive hemp tax act, DuPont developed a new synthetic fiber, nylon, a direct competitor to hemp in the textile and cordage industries. DuPont was also in the process of patenting a new sulfuric acid process for producing wood-pulp paper. According to the company's own records, wood-pulp products accounted for more than 80% of all DuPont's railroad car loadings for the next 50 years.

For their billion dollar dynasties to remain intact, these unconscionable tycoons decided that hemp had to go. Taking an obscure Mexican slang word, “marihuana,” they vehemently tarnished the good image and phenomenal history of one of God's most loving gifts to humanity. Undoubtably, one of their most effective tools was the use of Goebel-esque cinematography - Films like ‘Marihuana: Assassin of Youth’ (1935) ‘Marihuana: The Devil’s Weed’ (1936) and ‘Reefer Madness’ (1936). Using such underhanded tactics, these industrialists were able to swoon an unsuspecting American public into helping them completely kill off the competition.

"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days : Hashish goads users to bloodlust."
— Hearst newspapers, nationwide, circa 1936.

Hearst's company slogan, BTW, was: Truth, Justice, and Public Service!

Let's put our foolish reefer-madness behind us; let's make commercial hemp, once again, the greatest economic engine of the human race!