What are Cultural and Historical Reasons

This post was originally posted on Freedom4All, you can view the original in the Freedom4all archive

The Home Office have been known to justify the wide availability of alcohol as being for ‘Cultural and Historical reasons’. In fact, this seems to be their default response as to why alcohol is legal and cannabis is not. 

But what do they actually mean, is their position tenable? 

The simple translation is that “too many people do it to ban it”. Funnily enough, we saw this same position when the smoking ban was imposed, but when used to argue against the legalisation of Cannabis it’s nothing more than a red herring. 

Ask yourself this: you’re caught doing 36 in a 30MPH speed limit. Would a court accept your argument that it’s OK because so many people do it? Erm No. 

In fact, can you think of a single thing you could effectively defend by saying “well, loads of other people do it?”. Personally, I can’t. The argument seems to be reserved exclusively for the Home Office. 

Lets assume, for a minute, that it is an acceptable argument. So, it follows that if a lot of people smoke cannabis it should be decriminalized. Except, of course, the Government have thought of that. By attempting to enforce strict prohibition, the Government have ensured that not all users will be willing to stand and be counted. Although I’m open about my Cannabis use, I have to remain anonymous to protect my loved ones. I don’t doubt that many others feel the same way. 

So, while Cannabis remains illegal, it is impossible to know how many people actively use cannabis. The Government has deliberately blinded itself from this so that it does not need to reverse it’s prohibitionist stance.

What can be done? 

The only way to effect change is to ensure we can stand and be counted another way. Only by educating each individual MP as to the failure of the Governmets prohibition can we show that enough people support the decriminalization of cannabis. This is why I regularly call for you to write to your MP. The more letters they receive, the sooner the Government will recognise that we do not support their ‘war on drugs’ or the harm it has called. 

Isn’t it funny how we hear calls for referendums on the smallest thing, yet the Government doesn’t dare to ask the populace if we think their prohibition is working?