Most notably perhaps, a team of researchers writing in the July 28, 2007 edition of the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet, boldly proclaimed that smoking cannabis could boost one’s risk of a psychotic episode by 40 percent or more.

Naturally, this alarmist rhetoric received wall-to-wall coverage by the mainstream press. Even more troubling, the supposed ‘pot-and-schizophrenia’ link was one of the primary reasons cited by British PM Gordon Brown, ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and others as the impetus for reclassifying cannabis (from a verbal warning to a criminal offense punishable by up to five years in jail) in the United Kingdom.

Of course, there was a fatal flaw with The Lancet‘s argument — one that, oddly enough, every single MSM outlet failed to mention. Empirical data did not support the investigators’ hypothesis that smoking marijuana was associated with increased rates of schizophrenia or other mental illnesses among the general public — a fact that even the authors begrudgingly admitted when they declared, “Projected trends for schizophrenia incidence have not paralleled trends in cannabis use over time.”

Which brings us to 2009.

Two years after The Lancet‘s dire predictions, a team of researchers at the Keele University Medical School have once and for all put the ‘pot-and-mental illness’ claims to the test. Writing in a forthcoming edition of the scientific journal Schizophrenia Research, they compare long-term trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia and/or psychoses in the United Kingdom. And what do they find?

“[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. … This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.”

Should we expect an apology — or even better, a change in policy — from the Gordon Brown regime any time soon? Or at the very least, will some sort of ‘correction’ be forthcoming from the mainstream news media?

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

In the months prior to the duo’s decision to call for the reclassification of cannabis — a move that increases the penalties for minor pot possession from a verbal warning to up to five years in jail — both politicians claimed that the potency of so-called British ‘skunk’ was skyrocketing out of control. Smith told the Commons that the strength of pot had increased “threefold” in recent years, while PM Brown told Reuters news wire, “[T]he cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality.”

Both implied that Parliament’s 2004 decision to downgrade pot possession to a verbal warning was responsible for the influx of supposed ‘triple-strength killer weed.’

Turns out Smith and Brown were full of it.

According to pot potency data collected by the UK’s Forensic Science Services and published by The Guardian newspaper, the average potency of THC in seized samples of British cannabis fell approximately 25 percent between 2004 and 2007.

Predictably, neither Smith nor Brown have issued any sort of public correction for their politically expedient, though thoroughly dishonest, remarks. Nor would one expect them to.

After all, for politicians, cops, and bureaucrats, lying about cannabis isn’t even considered lying — it’s simply viewed as part of the job. In fact, for the US Drug Czar, lying is actually mandated by law.

Of course, given the relative safety of adult cannabis use and given the utter failure of US criminal cannabis prohibition, it really can be no other way. Talking honestly about marijuana undermines federal drug policy so the only alternative for our elected officials is to lie — or say nothing at all. Troublingly, the leaders of both political parties have become adept at both.

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?

As always, the first casualty in war is truth — and nowhere is this more evident than in Great Britain, where Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears intent on recriminalizing cannabis over the vehement objections of his own scientific advisory panel of experts and even the police.

Hysteria Over Cannabis Getting In The Way Of Truth
via The Observer

First, cannabis remains the most commonly used illegal drug. But its use has been falling steadily since 2000, with no hint that this decline was affected by reclassification. Home Office statistics show that cannabis use by 16- to 24-year-olds has fallen by about 20 per cent since 2004. So, if we naively argue from correlations (the basis of so much of the evidence about harm), returning cannabis to B would be expected to increase its use.

Second, there is concern about the message that reclassification has sent. But there is no evidence that classification influences the attitude of young people to drugs. Amphetamines, cocaine and ecstasy are all runners-up to cannabis in the league table of popularity in this country – and they are all class A. Usage of cocaine has grown over the past eight years, as that of cannabis has declined.

Third, there is, quite rightly, a particular worry about young people. Yet the the government’s own figures show that only one 11-year-old in 150 has tried cannabis in the last year, while 4 per cent have sniffed glue and fully 21 per cent have drunk alcohol.

Read the full article here.

And speaking of hysteria, cannabis, and British PM Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister has recently begun claiming that pot is “lethal,” despite the well-known fact that a human overdose from weed is physically impossible.

Pot lethal?! Hardly.

Pot prohibition on the other hand…

Will Brown kowtow to this current (and really bizarre) epoch of British media Reefer Madness or respect the ACDM’s logical and pragmatic recommendation not to increase the penalties for cannabis? Why does the British Home Office (and apparently the opposition Tory leader David Cameron as well) continue to pretend The Netherlands–and their ongoing, 35-year positive experience with controlled cannabis sales–does not occur just 95 miles away?

Of course British law enforcement groups want the increase in penalties, and subsequent arrests therein.

Cameron, who certainly has primary experience with cannabis (his incident at Eton is instructive, as is his waffling on just how late in life he has used cocaine) sounds like a typical, hypocritical and pandering anti-‘drug’ politician when he tells The Daily Telegraph, “There are all sorts of cannabis on the streets today. Skunk and super skunk are incredibly powerful and can lead to people having all sorts of mental health problems.”

The Daily Telegraph (April 3, 2008)

Gordon Brown is facing a dilemma over whether to overrule his own panel of experts and increase the penalties for being caught in possession of cannabis.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs is understood to have decided at a private meeting that it will not recommend tightening the law on the drug.

The decision presents a potential embarrassment for the Prime Minister, who earlier this week said that he regarded cannabis use as not just illegal but also unacceptable.

It is understood that 20 out of the panel’s 23 experts decided on Wednesday that there was not sufficient new scientific evidence to justify a change.

If Mr. Brown decides to press ahead with reclassification, he will risk becoming only the second Prime Minister to over-rule the council, which is a statutory non-departmental public body dating from 1971.

The Conservatives said that the Government “need a long spell in rehab” over its apparent dithering over the whether to increase the penalties for possessing cannabis.

The Government reclassified cannabis as a Class C substance – dropping the penalty for possession from five to two years in jail – in 2004.

Since then it has reviewed the decision twice, in 2005 and 2008.

Critics say the decision to reclassify has unleashed a major public health problem with figures showing that abuse of cannabis putting 500 adults and children in hospital every week.

Conservative leader David Cameron said: “There are all sorts of cannabis on the streets today. Skunk and super skunk are incredibly powerful and can lead to people having all sorts of mental health problems.

“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.

“We need to have more treatment programmes, including residential programmes that take drug addicts and get them off drugs rather than giving them other opiates.”

Liberal Democrat Mayoral candidate Brian Paddick, who as police commander in Lambeth, south London urged officers to ignore cannabis possession in 2001, said the classification was irrelevant to young people.

He said: “No young person I know decides if they will smoke cannabis based on whether it’s a class B or class C drug. It’s time the Government stopped playing politics with cannabis and started preventing people from using it in the first place.”

The mental health charity Rethink, which gave evidence to the committee, said Mr. Brown should heed the committee’s advice.

Paul Corry, a spokesman, 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 per cent of users would consider stopping on the grounds of illegality.”

The Association of Chief Police Officers said it backed a reclassification of cannabis.

A spokesman said: “The ACPO position on cannabis has been well articulated. We stand by the recommendation made to the Advisory Council on Misuse of Drugs that cannabis should be restored to the category of Class B drug.”

Mr. Brown ordered the committee to carry out the review of the 2004 decision to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug in one of his first acts on becoming Prime Minister last year.

The committee is understood to have concluded there was no need re-classify after new research found no evidence that rising cannabis use in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s had led to increases in schizophrenia.

This is despite many reports pointing to a links between super-strength skunk cannabis, which accounts for 80 per cent of street cannabis, and mental illnesses such as schizoprenia and psychosis.

The Home Office spokesman said the Government would make a decision when it received the advisory council’s recommendations.

She said: “Our message has always been that cannabis is an illegal and harmful drug that should not be taken.

“While evidence shows that cannabis use is falling across all age ranges, we are concerned about stronger strains of the drug.

“That is why we asked the independent Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to undertake a review of cannabis classification.

“We tackle cannabis use through tough enforcement, education, prevention and treatment where necessary.”

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.