Yesterday’s mid-term elections in the United States saw the whole of the House of Representatives, one third of the Senate, and various state legislatures up at the polls. The big story has been the Republicans taking control of the House, and a number of high profile victories for the crazy far-right conspiracy theorists that make up the Tea Party. Elsewhere, the Democrats have retained slim control of the Senate. Widespread disillusionment with Obama’s failure to deliver the ‘chaaaange’ he’d promised, alongside a radicalisation of the Republican grassroots through the Tea Party, is largely being blamed.

The exception to this right-wing tide sweeping America seems to have been California, where the Democrats held onto both their Senate seats, and gained the Governorship back from the GOP (The Governator RIP). In California, however, there was another election going on which has been the subject of much attention over the past few months, since it qualified to get on the ballot back in March. This was Proposition 19, a proposal to legalise, tax and regulate the manufacture and use of cannabis.

Unfortunately, Prop 19 fell yesterday, but it was a close run battle, with 46.3% -- nearly 3.3 million -- voters favouring legalisation, and 53.8% against. The bill had attracted widespread support, backed by a number of high profile former police chiefs, medical professionals, district attorneys, trade unions, politicians from all ends of the spectrum, and even the guy who invented Gmail. But lining up on the other side was an equally high number of police chiefs, politicians, big business, nearly every newspaper in the state, and Arnie himself. The state attorney general had also vowed to use the full force of federal authority to crack down on the legalisation.

The opposition to Prop 19 ran a ridiculous scaremongering campaign, claiming that if it passed that the state’s entire workforce, from school bus drivers to teachers, would suddenly be incapacitated by pot, that streets would be flooded with ‘marijuana advertisements’ and that the proposals are a ‘jumbled, legal nightmare’. Much unlike current drugs laws then!

Although the vote was lost, Prop 19 campaigners are heartened by the huge support that they did gain, and have succeeded in bringing arguments against drug prohibition into the mainstream. Cannabis use is already a huge grey area in the state, where there’s a thriving medical marijuana business. But there’s still tens of thousands of arrests relating to cannabis every year -- 78,000 in 2008. It’s particularly notable that the legalise campaign received big support from black civil rights organisations like the NAACP -- drug prohibition is a civil rights issue, with the arrest figures speaking for themselves: in LA, 10% of the population is black, but are 30% of cannabis-related arrests.

California borders on part of Mexico, where the drug war continues to bring daily death and destruction to millions of peoples lives. A new approach is needed, and although the proposition fell, it was nonetheless an important step forward in the fight to bring an end to the madness of global drugs prohibition.

California: where retired police officers do TV adverts for legalising weed

Monday morning's headlines after SSY's legalise cannabis march

Every human society since we first evolved has experimented with drugs, pyschoactive substances, and altered states of consciousness.

Many leading psychologists and anthropologists believe that this is a normal part of human life, and experimenting with substances like cannabis or magic mushrooms has actually played a role in the evolution of modern, intelligent humans.

But in the last 200 years human society has changed dramatically. With the arrival of capitalism came the rise of modern states, with their borders, armies and police forces. As the technology to control their own people developed, states have had an ever increasing urge to monitor and discipline their populations.

One of the ways they have done this is implement a worldwide system of prohibition of drugs. While the two biggest drug killers, alcohol and tobacco, remain legal billion pound industries, relatively harmless drugs like cannabis and ecstasy remain the target of expensive police operations, and users are turned into criminals who can face imprisonment for doing nothing but experimenting with their own bodies.

The drugs laws we have in Britain and throughout the developed world have never borne any relation to real medical or scientific information, but instead have been shaped by the prejudices and scapegoats created by elites to divide and control the people. One of the main ways they have done this is to use racism, associating certain substances with foreigners or ethnic minorities.

Now, in the 21st century, many countries around the world are finally beginning to wake up to the fact that prohibition has been a costly disaster that has caused untold misery across the planet. The time has at last come to begin treating drugs as a health and social issue, not a criminal one, and base our drugs policies on real scientific evidence, not prejudice and racism.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to free the weed clap your hands.. CLAP CLAP.

Yesterday saw the SSY organised Legalise Cannabis – End the War on Drugs demo take to the streets of the west end of Glasgow, with between 300-350 mostly young people turning out for the biggest march of its kind Scotland has seen for a number of years.

The demo left University Avenue in the west end of the city at around 1pm with a small police escort, before marching via Byres Road and Dumbarton Road to Kelvingrove Park. Indeed, the marchers then proceeded to er, legalise cannabis, with the police adopting a very welcome non-interference approach to anyone lighting up in the park!

Across the world, the tide is beginning to turn against blanket drugs prohibition. An ever increasing number of countries are opting to decriminalise possession and start treating drugs as a social and health issue, rather than a criminal one, with harm reduction at the fore. This couldn’t be further from the truth in the UK, however. None of the big four parties are willing to go anywhere near a policy of relaxing our backwards drugs laws – displayed all too recently in the rush to ban mephedrone, or m-cat, flying against the advice of top scientists and even the government’s own drugs advisory board, several of whom resigned in protest, but happily going along with the agenda of right-wing tabloids.

This is why we felt it especially important to take the message to the streets again this summer that there is a real alternative to the madness of drugs prohibition – to legalise, regulate and control drug use, rather than pushing the whole industry underground and into the arms global crime syndicates.

Saturday’s demo got a great reception from passers-by – afternoon shoppers on Byres Road applauded the march as it passed, while groups of young people charged over the street to join it as it went by. The fact is, most people know that cannabis is not a dangerous drug, and if the reception SSY have got on the streets over the past few weeks is anything to by, most people know it should legalised too.

For as long as the UK government continues on their ridiculous and, ultimately, flawed approach of criminalising young people who smoke the occasional joint, forcing heroin addicts into a life of crime and prostitution, and wasting vast amounts of police time and resources on a pointless “war on drugs” that fuels conflict across the world, SSY will continue to campaign for sweeping reform to the drugs laws. See youse all next year.

M-CAT NOT FAT CATS! The march sets off from Uni Avenue

When I say LEGALISE, you say.. CANNABIS!

The PA system that totally worked the whole time and that there was absolutely no problems with. Uhuh

It’s the start of the summer holidays, and in Scotland, that can mean only one thing: rain, and lots of it.
Okay, two things actually, and as the holidays arrive in a (literal) hailstorm of erm, rain and rain, SSY is pleased to make an announcement which will more than make up for any dreich weather the past couple of days: it’s the return of our annual Legalise Cannabis march!

The next two months are shaping up to be a bumper summer for SSY, with the long-awaited return of Camp Secret Squirrel at the beginning of August, and various other shenanigans before then, including our World Cup party, tomorrow’s conference, as well as all the usual stuff. Well you can now add more event to your diary… pencil in Saturday 24 July for the annual Legalise Cannabis demo!

This year, it’s been decided to take a more broad approach to the demo, given the full-blown, hysterical media-driven moral panic we saw earlier in the year over ‘psycho-killer-drug’ mephedrone and it’s subsequent kneejerk banning. What this proved once and for all is that when it comes to drug policy in the UK, the agenda isn’t being driven by scientific evidence or experts on the matter, but by right-wing tabloid newspapers acting on self-appointed moral crusades.

It’s easy in the current climate to view the ‘war on drugs’ as something that’s unworthy of attention. But what needs to be realised is that the disastrous consequences of the ‘War on Drugs’ are implicated in numerous deep-seated problems within our society, from crime to prostitution to poverty, and are central to conflicts being played out across the globe, from Mexico to Afghanistan. It’s an issue that isn’t going to disappear; only last week it was revealed that Scotland has among the highest proportion of heroin and cocaine users on the planet.

Legalise Cannabis marches take place in hundreds of towns and cities across the world every year, and SSY is proud to organise one of very few such events which take place in the UK. The movement in favour of legalisation is one with a growing sense of momentum, particularly with ongoing developments in the US. Earlier this year, huge rallies in favour of marijuana legalisation took place across North America, in part due to the Proposition 19 referendum which is taking place in California this November. If passed, this would decriminalise cannabis possession for those aged over 21, and control and tax its production and sale. This could be a pivotal moment in the movement to legalise cannabis globally, and the outcome will be watched with interest across the world. The sudden move towards this has in no small part been prompted by the deep financial crisis that the state California has found itself in – the idea now being that it can recoup at least some of this debt from taxing marijuana!

So listen up Cameron, Clegg and Osborne – if you’re all so desperate to cut down on the deficit, how about following the example of California?

LEGALISE CANNABIS – END THE WAR ON DRUGS NOW!
March assembles 12.30pm, University Avenue (at Glasgow Uni main gate), Glasgow
followed by music, DJs, speakers & more at Kelvingrove Park

15,000 attend a Legalise Cannabis demo in Colorado, April 2010

The Daily Mirror have continued in their fine tradition of providing us with important information about celebrities as a public service. This time, they’ve broken the news that Daniel Radcliffe, who plays teen wizard Harry Potter in some famous films, might have been caught smoking a joint.

According to other party-goers, he was staggering around saying “I love weed.” and let a girl draw a comedy beard on his face. Hilarious!

He has come out and categorically denied it, though. Aww. We were going to invite him to be keynote speaker at our next Legalise Cannabis event, but it looks like we’ll have to make do with this slightly less famous Harry Potter actor.

The Governments chief scientific advisor, shortly before enjoying a ketamine sundae

Chief drugs advisor to the Government David Nutt has been sacked from his post, after a string of “controversial statements” – the most recent being that LSD and Cannabis were less harmful than alcohol.

He’s already enraged the Government and Tory Tabloids by saying that Ecstasy was less dangerous than horse riding, and argued that Cannabis should not be upgraded to a class B drug.

The Government clearly are no longer interested in having scientists independent of party politics take part in an informed discussion about drug use in the UK. Ecstasy and LSD like all drugs are harmful, but they are not Heroin or Cocaine.

Most people who use Ecstasy or LSD do so recreationally, and the deaths caused by these drugs and the harm caused to families could be reduced if the Government supported a harm reduction strategy instead of a “just say no” policy which simply has no effect on most users.

Cannabis itself is clearly less harmful than Alcohol or Tobacco and it’s a disgrace that someone is fired for expressing the feelings of what the majority of Police, NHS workers and the general public know – that the abuse of Alcohol and Tobacco is much more widespread and damaging than that of Cannabis.

Leftfield isn’t “pro-drugs”, we are pro-recognising reality – people throughout Scotland and the UK use drugs regularly. Many of them have no intention of stopping because they don’t feel that drug use negatively impacts on their lifes.

Any drugs policy enacted by the Government should take alcohol into account and recognise that folk will take drugs, and do everything they can to reduce the harm it can do to people who do use them. The exception to this rule is Heroin, which is virtually impossible to take recreationally, and should be provided in a pure, safe form to addicts so they don’t die of overdoses and so they don’t commit crime to feed their habit.

Alongside that the Government should start considering why people abuse drugs – in Scotland, especially alcohol – as part of a strategy for people to have healthier lives.

SSY candidate for Drugs Tsar

The Venezuelan government has attempted to ban Family Guy because they think it promotes Marijuana use. Cable TV stations which don’t stop airing the show will be given hefty fines.

Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said the programme should be pulled from the airwaves after being outraged by a recent episode in which the show’s characters started a campaign to legalise the drug. You can see the episode in question here.

Venezuela’s radical government has a lot of support amongst socialists, but there’s a lot of controversy about TV.  Cable television stations are used as a front to undermine the government and their radical policies, leading to attempts to ban the cable TV companies altogether and set up state-owned TV. It’s a question of priorities – should people or companies with offensive views still have a right to freedom of speech?

(In November last year, a revolutionary Venezuelan band called La Redonda visited Scotland and were keen to meet other young socialists – several SSY members met up with the band to discuss various issues, and the whole meeting was filmed on shown on Avila TV, Venezuela’s radical stated owned TV station.)

Anyway, I’m sure you all know that Leftfield is definitely in favour of freeing the weed and supports Family Guy in the struggle.

If Family Guy should be banned for anything, it should be for its treatment of domestic violence and rape – they make so many ‘jokes’ about violence against women that they’re practically promoting it.

As part of our cunning plan to gradually infiltrate and corrupt the mainstream media/take over the world with our nasty red politics, our Legalise campaign is totally, like, ALL OVER the Herald’s letter page today.  Sort of. Okay, I had one letter published. It’s a start isn’t it?
Give us three months and Fox news will be nothing but 24 hour rolling SSY propaganda. No joke.

After the Government made its humiliating and stupid u-turn last year, making cannabis a Class B drug, up from a Class C drug* SSY had a successful march/minor jog (thanks strathy police) in Glasgow, from George Square to Kelvingrove Park.

A lot of the opposition to legalising cannabis comes from concerns about mental health, and tries to back it up with science. But the reality is that the governments scientific panel of advisers on drugs didn’t want the law toughened up on cannabis.

The government ignored them so they could look tough on drugs, regardless of what the facts are.

The reality is that most mental health problems caused by cannabis inflame pre-existing disorders, or are caused by “skunk” – super strong cannabis. If weed was legal we could stick warnings on the packets and regulate the content the same way we do with tobacco.

Even though cannabis causes social harm in terms of mental health in some cases, these aren’t being prevented cos the drug is kept criminalised. No one can seriously say that cannabis – even if ALL the stories on it are true, which they aren’t – does more harm to society than alcohol, tobacco, or deep fried king ribs in rolls but we don’t ban them.

We don’t ban them because we know it doesn’t work. People don’t take stuff which is always healthy for them, have taken drugs and will always take drugs.

This hasn’t stopped the media scare campaign though, with the Daily Mail running a story that folk who had injected (!!!) THC had “transient psychotic symptoms” – ie paranoia.

Wow, folk who get stoned get paranoid for a wee bit, shock horror. The Daily Mail also covered a story saying 40% of teenagers knew someone who had been damaged by cannabis.

Lets get them to do the same survey about alcohol – if it’s not 100% and includes themselves, they’re lying bastards.

It’s about time we had a worked out drug policy in Scotland that dealt with ALL drug abuse in an adult manner, took cannabis out the hands of drug dealers and stop criminalising folk for smoking a drug that is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.

If you want to show your opposition to hypocritical drug laws, there is only one place to be,

LEGALISE CANNABIS MARCH

AUGUST 22nd
ASSEMBLE GEORGE SQUARE 12pm
MARCH TO KELVINGROVE PARK                                                           FOR  DJ’s AND BANDS!

* A class B drug is a drug which is treated more harshly by the law than a class C drug, and class A is treated harsher than class B. Has no relation to actual quality of drug itself.