cannabisnews.com: 'Legalise All Drugs' - Mowlam





'Legalise All Drugs' - Mowlam
Posted by FoM on April 28, 2002 at 09:28:19 PT
Mo Mowlam says many people support her view
Source: BBC News 
Former cabinet minister Mo Mowlam has called for the legalisation of all drugs - including ecstasy, heroin and cocaine. Dr Mowlam, once responsible for the government's anti-drugs policy, told the Independent on Sunday she would tax drugs and use the revenue to help reduce addiction. "You'd have the money from tax, which if it were ring-fenced for working with addicts whether cannabis, pills, barbiturates, coke or heroin you'd have a chance of beating it," she is quoted as saying. 
Her comments, made ahead of the launch of her autobiography next week, follow anti-drugs visits she made to Colombia. Dr Mowlam told the newspaper she had been struck when in Colombia by the money which drove the drugs market there. If the black market prices were removed by legalising the trade, she said, there would be less incentive behind it. Reclassification  "I think that is the most effective way because in the end I don't think you could ever stop it," she is quoted as saying. "Why not regulate it, take the tax from it and seriously deal with addiction which has been around since the 1900s?" Dr Mowlam, who stood down from politics at the last election, claimed there was support for her idea all over the world. "I don't think we can stop it, and there are a number of people in other countries and police and social workers who agree with me," she said. Earlier this week Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tongue said cocaine should be legalised and that heroin be made more available on the NHS. She said the drug should be "medicalised" in order to treat addicts. The government has signalled that it wants to re-classify cannabis from a class 'B' to a class 'C' drug. But Home Secretary David Blunkett has emphasised that although he wants to reclassify the drug, he does not intend to legalise or decriminalise it. Dr Mowlam's views on drugs are the latest outspoken comments which have arisen from her much-leaked autobiography Momentum, to be published on 2 May. Other allegations have included claims she was "knifed in the back" by the Labour party because of her popularity with voters. She also accuses Peter Mandelson of campaigning for the job of Northern Ireland Secretary while she was still in the post. Note: Calls have been made for heroin to be available on the NHS.Quote: We have to face up to the reality. -- Mo Mowlam Newshawk: CharlieSource: BBC News (UK Web)Published: Sunday, April 28, 2002Copyright: 2002 BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Contact: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/Related Articles:Drugs Uncovered: Observer Special http://freedomtoexhale.com/dc.htmLegalise All Drugs and Let Me Have a Quiet Lifehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread12658.shtmlCannabis Campaigners Call for More Reformhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11155.shtml
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Comment #13 posted by kaptinemo on April 29, 2002 at 09:55:23 PT:
This lady should be the Prime Minister over there
Not that insipid Klinton-clone, Blair. Simply because she has more guts and honesty in her little finger than whole friggin' Cabinet. She's been on the short, sharp and dirty end of the stick, medically; she had cancer, treated it successfully...while using cannabis. And she admitted it. Publicly. It cost her plenty, politically, when people like Jack Straw gave her a ration of brown, smelly stuff for being so honest. But now look at her...and even more importantly...look at her former 'superiors' (who weren't and aren't fit to lick the dust from her shoes). Who are being swept along by public demands to end the insanity of cannabis prohibition. Which people like Mowlam defended.When cannabis prohibition falls in Great Britain, it will do so with a lot of credit going to her.
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Comment #12 posted by qqqq on April 29, 2002 at 07:03:08 PT
Dankhank
..Right on.,,,,you are even cooler than I thought....Blue Oyster Cults first album is a mega-classic in my opinion.
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Comment #11 posted by Dankhank on April 29, 2002 at 06:48:12 PT:
I know ...
Blue Oyster Cult
Hemp N Stuff ...
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Comment #10 posted by qqqq on April 29, 2002 at 05:40:11 PT
nope
it was not Frank Zappa.....good guess though
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Comment #9 posted by SWAMPIE on April 29, 2002 at 05:25:48 PT
WHO DID THAT SONG?
 Frank Zappa"Call Any Vegetable" 
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Comment #8 posted by qqqq on April 29, 2002 at 03:35:18 PT
...awesome...
..I really like the canary thing p4me..A canary would probably not be harmed by a large bong hit,,in fact,the small bird would probably enjoy it.,,but if you gave the canary a bong hit of tobacco,,it would probably croak. ..Of course,,it takes alot of training to get canarys to take hits off a bong,, plus,,the tiny bongs that canarys and other small birds need ,are extremely rare,and quite expensive,,,and this is why canarys prefer vaporizers. .and they also like to eat the leftover seeds..
..Goneposthole,,I quite enjoyed your discourse on matters of spuds,and bovine truths...It reminded me of a question I've always had about anti-fur people,,,you know,,people who think that raising minks,or chinchillas for fur coats is totally unacceptable.......I guess I can kindof understand,,because no one likes to see a baby seal get clubbed,,or see a mink get beheaded and skinned,,but I think that they tend to overlook the fact that cows are animals too!....or are we to believe that cows are way stupider than minks of ferrets,and that cows dont really mind being slaughtered,,or maybe they thing cows and pigs dont mind being slaughtered and eaten,because they're used to it,,but minks and baby seals are not the same as cows and pigs...?.. Pigs are supposedly smarter than dogs.??..I find it all quite confusing...but I know that I would be quite pissed off if they started selling dogskin coats,and catskin hats.........just wait, soon they will discover that potatos feel pain,and that corn is kinda pissed off about being grown to be eaten,,and then,,we will all realize that Marijuana has been screaming as we scald and burn it for our own epicurian enjoyment!... I guess I'd have to say,,"too bad plants!,,I dont care about your supposed pain!,,I will eat ant smoke you,and use you however I want!" ,,,but I guess I would apologize to animals. .I would try to explain to the cow ,,why I was going to kill him,and eat him,yet, the horse would be spared because I liked to ride him....but then,,,I would feel bad,,because the cow would say;"heck,,I'll let you ride me if I can get out of getting killed and eaten."....??
...most peculiar....indeed.
..I'm on the lamb,,but I aint no sheep........... ....who did that song?
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Comment #7 posted by E_Johnson on April 29, 2002 at 01:41:02 PT
Off topic but relevant - I'm steamed!
I was just reading about a lawsuit where some parent is suing her local school district because her kid gets beaten up in school regularly. The parent says that her child gets beaten up when she doesn't defend herself, and suspended from school for fighting when she does.The school district is claiming they can't possibly protect kids from each other because they don't have the money or the resources.But these districts feel that they do have the money and resources to do urine testing?They'll spend money to find out who may have smoked a joint some time within the last month, but not to protect kids from being violently assaulted by other kids?It's not that hard to spot bullying in progress, for those who care. Teachers don't have to violate anyone's sexual privacy or do damage to the Bill of Rights to intervene in a bullying situation at school.
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Comment #6 posted by goneposthole on April 28, 2002 at 12:44:33 PT
potatoes and a questionable hypothesis
Do cattle depend upon us for their survival? We maintian a high population of cattle to be slaughtered and eaten. We are at the top of the food chain; tertiary producers. Do cattle seduce us into raising them to be eaten? Cowshit I know. That New York strip is not from New York, It comes from a cow or steer. Essentially, cattle are slaves to humans. If they were not fenced inside a pasture and held in bondage at a feed lot, you might hit one on the highway. It would be good roadkill if you survive the crash. Cattle are lucky though, they get about 5 acres each to graze on while they live. They never really hurt anybody unless you get too close to a cow's calf, then you may be in trouble. That is true in nature no matter what. On the other hand, some humans never really hurt anybody, but end up in a jail cell because they support the cause for a plant. Aa jail dell is less than 5 acres in size. So who is better off, a cow with a few good years to raise it for slaughter or a human who receives a jail sentence because he wants to use a plant? Does marijuana seduce a person into using it because it knows you can get arrested for using it? Do you become a slave to the power of marijuana's seduction?So then, does marijuana become a slave to us or us a slave to marijuana?  Are the prohibitionists the slaves and not the users, and those patients in need of marijuana?Does the sun rise every morning to seduce us to get out of bed or does it set to seduce us to go to bed? Does CO2 seduce a plant leaf into creating an aperture on the leaf surface so the plant can breathe the CO2 and release oxygen into the atmosphere? Life does not exist to worship us, sorry. Let's not get carried away here.
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Comment #5 posted by p4me on April 28, 2002 at 12:33:33 PT
governments love taxes
What she says makes sense to me. Insanity is not doing something different when it what you have been doing for thirty years has not worked.Working men and women know about buyers remorse. A couple of my friends have real buyers remorse about buying new cars last year. The children the prohibitionist propagandist used to call for sending their parents to jail will be paying for this WOD minus T&A their whole lives. The people that bought this WOD minus T&A might not feel the remorse but the taxpayers will hate this for the next 50 years as represented in our current 6 trillion dollar debt.If ever there is a dirty bomb gets dispersed in Warshington people will scream about wasting the money to arrest, try, and hassle people about marijuana.I just do not see why people do not feel a complete outrage about the present and past failed policies. Let's talk about poison. Say poison as in natural gas that is present in coal mining and potentially deadly if not catastrophic. I do not know when canaries were first put in mining shafts to help detect the deadly gas, but let us talk of a figurative canary outside the Caves of Busch, Ashcroft, and Huthchinson. (Has anybody noticed these initials would be B-A-H. Can a right wing Republican say BAH?)So we have our canary outside the Caves of our big, bad politicians dtecting the poisons of their idiotic marijuana policy. You take a hemp policy canary and it dies before the caves even come into sight. That would be because Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin and other founding fathers would have had hemp illegal in their day if they thought their was any sense to that. I doubt that the Federalist Papers mention anything about hemp because the idea of making a plant arrestable or making the land on which is growing seizable would have been thought crazy. I think that way now you tunnelvisioned BAH bastards.So how long would the MMJ canary live. Actually, it would start crying long before the poison became fatal. If a asshole prohibitionist tried to get the MMJ canary to the cave it would still die before reaching the entrance. I remember seeing a series that Burt Lancaster hosted about the Russians in WW2 called "The Forgotten War." People drank motor oil in Leningrad to stay alive. If the sick and dying are in want of motor oil or marijuana why should they be prosecuted?And common marijuana canary could not survive the poison of the Caves either. It will survive in a cage hung just outside the entrance. It too will cry. It can fight the poison by itself, but combined with encagement, this most popular canary among enthusiast often cries.The Observer in the UK came out with a 64 page magazine in their Sunday paper about UK drug policy. I have not read it. http://www.observer.co.uk/drugs/0,11908,686419,00.htmlStarve the economy and have a thrifty meal. VAAI
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Comment #4 posted by Jose Melendez on April 28, 2002 at 11:50:52 PT:
audio article
http://search1.npr.org/opt/collections/torched/fa/data_fa/seg_124039.htm
	Writer Michael Pollan's new book, The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (Random House) takes a look at four plants cultivated by humans: the apple, the tulip, potatoes and marijuana. Pollan demonstrates that plants and humans have developed a reciprocal, co-evolutionary relationship: do we plant potatoes, or do potatoes seduce us into planting them? Pollan questions the assumption that we are in charge of our agriculture.        
"The drug war is the acid soil in which marijuana has thrived."
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Comment #3 posted by Rainbow on April 28, 2002 at 11:02:10 PT
The problem? No, she was a catalyst for change
Actually while in office she spoke out in favor of legalization. That is one of the reasons she had to step down. She helped get the marijuana ball rolling and stopped the prohibitionist train for people to think. She was a very brave Britian when most politicians would not say or do anything.Sorry but I view her as one of the good guys all along. Her boss at the time though was trouble.I think you stand corrected.Tom
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Comment #2 posted by Dark Star on April 28, 2002 at 10:52:02 PT
Well, My My
Mo was seen as part of the problem just 2 years ago, and now appears to be part of the solution. British politicians, it seems, are capable of free and independent thought. In short, they are able to wise up.Why can't ours?
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Comment #1 posted by Robbie on April 28, 2002 at 10:00:50 PT
Yes!!!
I very much appreciate hearing Mme. Mowlam's statement. People in Britain will take her seriously, and it is another sizeable chip in the wall that is negativity towards re-legalization.However: "Why not regulate it, take the tax from it and seriously deal with addiction which has been around since the 1900s?"Mme. Mowlam has forgotten a bit of history, since it was Brittania itself that hooked the Chinese on opium well back in the 1700's.
This year's Cannabis March is Saturday!!!
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