Gordon Brown And Jacqui Smith Are Liars
Posted: Wed 3rd Sep 2008 09:34 pm
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith are big fat liars.
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.
http://blog.norml.org/2008/09/03/gordon ... are-liars/
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.
http://blog.norml.org/2008/09/03/gordon ... are-liars/
