Cannabis made more illegal

Our illustrious Prime Minster has examined the advice given to him by the professionally-varied expert panel and agreed with them to put cannabis back up to a Class B drug... wait what do you mean they recommended it stay where it was in C; but that would mean Brown ignored his own experts he must have some good reason for doing so surely?

Appearing on GMTV he told the sofa sitters that he was doing this because of 'skunk'. That's right cannabis is now so strong it's at lethal dosage he's just protecting the kids; wow how did the experts miss that? Well they didn't they just placed the risk at minimal if any.

Right I've dealt with a lot of this before, but this is getting beyond a joke; so far every case they've wheeled out as evidence that cannabis is dangerous deals with prolonged and highly active use. Hmm a substance that causes problems if used too much and over a prolonged time frame, that would describe tobacco, alcohol, or various types of medication wouldn't it?

Ah but it's the strength that Brown is worried about, so um why are we getting stronger stuff? Well imagine I have a 1kg bag of (arbitrary) strength 1 cannabis, to sell it I split it into thirty-three 30g bags and sell them at £30 each that equals £990. Now imagine I have the same quantity but in strength 2 I split it into sixty-six bags of 15g and still sell it at £30 that's double the money at £1,980 for transporting the same weight and size of drug. Legally the old, old phrase "might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat" comes into play so I might as well bring in as strong a stuff that I can.

So that's what we call economics Mr Brown, being a former Chancellor you should know this type of thing.

So what could be done to limit the strength of cannabis, which seems to be the basis of Mr Brown's decision to put it back into Class B? We could legalise and regulate it just like we already do for tobacco and alcohol. Sell it in regulated strengths and measures, stick warnings on the containers, and tax it; again just like we already do for tobacco and alcohol.

Are there risks associated with taking cannabis - yes; I won't say there aren't, but the self-harm risks are the same as for legal drugs (although some reports suggest subtle effects such as memory loss), and the other-harm risks match the drunken brawls we already see.

So why isn't it legalised, because it's bad and dangerous and oh won't somebody please think of the children!

[Update - gotta love Daily Mash]
[Update 2 - more links Obsolete, Flat Earth News]