Lest anyone think that science or reason guide modern cannabis policy, I present to you today’s announcement from British Home Secretary (and former pot smoker) Jacqui Smith calling on Parliament to increase pot penalties from a verbal warning — the current policy — to up to five years in jail.

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.

It is the third time in six years that the Panel has demanded that legislators classify cannabis as a Class C ‘soft’ drug, with minor, if any, criminal penalties. Unlike Smith or Brown, the Advisory Panel consists of experts commissioned to evaluate and determine British drug policies — hence it’s hardly surprising that their findings would be totally disregarded by British bureaucrats.

For those readers who have not closely followed Britain’s ongoing pot policy debate, here’s a brief history lesson:

In January 2004, Parliament downgraded the legal classification of cannabis from a Class B drug (such as amphetamines or barbiturates) to a Class C drug (such as anabolic steroids) — thus allowing police to issue verbal warnings to minor pot offenders in lieu of arresting them. Since then, the following events have occurred:

One-third fewer Britons have been arrested for pot offenses;

Marijuana use by those age 16 to 20 years of age has fallen by 20 percent;

Fewer than ten percent of Britons now report using cannabis — the lowest percentage ever recorded.

In fact, the current policy has worked so well that the British Association of Chief Police Officers has announced that they will refuse to waste their time and resources arresting minor pot offenders — regardless of what Parliament decides.

So let’s review shall we. Gordon Brown wants to jail pot users to keep them from dying at the hands of weed — a stance so absurd that even the cops won’t go along with it. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith wants to jail pot users to keep them from losing their minds even though she herself smoked pot and is now one of the most powerful women in British politics. (Whether she is of sound mind remains debatable, I suppose.) The British Advisory Panel on the Misuse of Drugs thinks that Brown and Smith’s calls for reclassification are based on tabloid headlines in the Daily Mail rather than actual science, so they are dismissed as ‘know-nothings’ by the very same people who, quite literally, know nothing.

And that, my friends, is how we decide cannabis policy in 2008.

Any questions?

Just last week, NORML reported on a BBC television reporter’s absurd ‘documentary’ that purportedly showed the “dramatic” and “unpleasant” effects of marijuana by injecting herself with pure THC on film-a manner of administering cannabis that no recreational user would ever engage in.

With this in mind, we were hardly surprised to see this recent headline from across the Atlantic: Cannabis-smoking mum stabbed herself to death. Never mind that she was on meth and thought her dog was talking to her.

Excerpts after the jump.

A mother driven insane by cannabis stabbed herself repeatedly through the chest with a carving knife after claiming she was spoken to by a dog.

Julie Cross told friends the animal was “trying to tell her something” before picking up the 5in blade and ramming it at least five times into her chest and abdomen.

An inquest was told the former receptionist, from Goring, used speed and cannabis on a daily basis and in the weeks running up to her death had slashed her wrists and smeared her blood across a crucifix and also hung a noose from her attic.

Katie Leason, spokeswoman for mental health charity Rethink, said the case further proved that cannabis causes severe mental illness. “We don’t believe there is any doubt about it now. There is a proven link between the drug and psychosis,” said Ms Leason….

It had led to her spending much of her last year in and out of the Mill View psychiatric hospital. The inquest heard that during what was described as a “very difficult life” Miss Cross had made repeated attempts on her own life, starting at the age of 14.

So here we have a woman who regularly heard voices, had a history of suicide attempts since childhood, who was using methamphetamine regularly (mentioned only ONCE in the article), and who finally, tragically, killed herself. To the British press, this scenario is clear evidence that marijuana will make you commit suicide!

And these are not the only ‘pot will make you nuts’ headlines coming from the UK. Note these other recent headlines and leads, the first of which is from the same publication as the above story:

Cannabis drove Brighton man to kill himself
The Argus (UK), February 22, 2008
“A web designer killed himself after being driven mad by cannabis.”

Cannabis users risk their sanity
Oxford Mail (UK), March 5, 2008
“Oxfordshire’s top drugs officer said the county is on the verge of a mental
health epidemic unless more is done to tackle cannabis abuse.”

Children as young as 10 on cannabis
Daily Post (UK), February 9, 2008

Hmm, so pot will drive us mad, target our children, and make us kill ourselves. Where have I heard this before?

For readers on this side of the pond who have not followed this story, “skunk” is the slang term British prohibitionists have chosen in their attempt to rebrand cannabis as this millennium’s most dangerous drug. (US authorities executed a similar game plan in the early 1900s when they successfully outlawed hemp by rebranding it “marijuana”.) For years now, British police and news reporters have blamed everything from psychosis and suicide to criminal acts like rape and murder on the after-effects of smoking “skunk,” aka allegedly super-potent pot.

Never mind that a recent study reported that so-called “skunk” only comprises a minute fraction of the UK’s marijuana market.

Never mind that teen use of cannabis in Great Britain recently fell to a record low.

Never mind that a legal pill containing 100 percent THC is available by a doctor’s prescription and that its side-effects do not include psychosis, suicide, rape, or murder.

And, most importantly, never mind that — to date — nobody in Britain or anywhere else on the planet is actually “injecting” the “main ingredient” in “skunk” (which, of course, is THC). Let’s not let facts get in the way of a good horror tale.

Of course, this pseudo-documentary — along with the recent rash of alarmist headlines — is all part of a concerted effort to push through PM Gordon Brown’s ill-conceived plan to recriminalize minor pot possession. And there’s no chance of government officials letting truth get in the way of that.