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.

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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…