[namkha]

Legal high

Quietly, cannabis has in effect been decriminalised in Britain
http://www.economist..._medium=twitter

CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birmingham. The small shop, its windows filled with graffiti-style posters, also sells fertilisers with names like “Nirvana” and “Bud Candy”, alongside strong lights and giant rolls of tin foil to line greenhouses. In one corner, a couple of juicy-looking tomato plants grow in a demonstration set-up. But the youth behind the counter guesses that his customers are “not all growing tomatoes”.

Birmingham now has 58 hydroponics shops, up from 42 just a year ago. Whether aided by the latest plant-growing technology or not, cannabis production is soaring. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the number of cannabis factories detected each year increased from around 800 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2010. Birmingham is one of the most fertile areas; West Midlands Police, which set up a Cannabis Disposal Unit in 2010 to tackle the problem, dismantled more than 500 factories last year.

Your correspondent visited one recently closed by police; the gardener was a cocaine-addicted woman growing a few plants in a spare room in the hope of earning a cut. Other set-ups have been found in tents in the bedrooms of high-rise council flats and in the lofts of terraced family houses. Many growers are simply feeding their own habits. As one officer on the West Midlands Police drugs team says, “It’s becoming the most popular cottage industry in the country.”

Small growers are squeezing out both importers and the well-connected, often Vietnamese, gangs that once dominated domestic production. The big cannabis factories set up by the latter, with their telltale heat hazes, are fairly easy to spot. Smaller operations are often uncovered only when the electric lights start fires, or when local teenagers mount a burglary.

The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so. Last month the government published new sentencing guidelines that advised judges to treat small cultivators less strictly. Attitudes to smokers are softening, too. The reclassification of cannabis in 2009, from class C to the more stringent class B, was oddly accompanied by a more liberal approach to policing consumption. Users caught on the street are rarely arrested; rather, they are issued “cannabis cautions” (a reprimand which doesn’t appear on a criminal record) or fined.

In Brixton, a south London neighbourhood, an open-air cannabis market exists within ten minutes’ walk of the underground station. The dealers are frequently moved on but they soon regroup elsewhere. As one dealer admits, his competitors are a bigger hassle than the police. “They get to fightin’, over money and things,” he says in a deep Caribbean drawl. Violence is far more likely to get a dealer into legal trouble than business.

Strangely, this lackadaisical approach is not encouraging people to take up the reefer habit. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.

[Pot Luck]

namkha, on 23 March 2012 - 11:51 AM, said:

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.

Told ya so....

[chronic1]

The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so

Keep it up lads

OVERGROW THE U.K.

[namkha]

chronic1, on 23 March 2012 - 12:03 PM, said:

The police and the courts can neither keep up with the surge in small-scale production, nor are they desperately keen to do so

Keep it up lads

OVERGROW THE U.K.

Amen!

[Jameson666]

Yay we are moving in the right direction.

Almost tempted to start a grow of my own now

[SilC]

''Giant rolls of tinfoil'' . Oh for fuck sake
That report is contradictory to what other reporters say . Infact that same reporter might work for some other rag in the future and tell us something stupid like ,'' police are working zealously to end drug plants and say they're adamant to nip cultivation in the bud .''The laws are more lenient than in some other EU countries .
''effectively tolerated '' , my arse it is .If that were the case distraught members of uk420 from time to time wouldn't be in the Legal section looking for advice and new hinges for their front door.

This post has been edited by SilC: 23 March 2012 - 12:19 PM

[Arnold Layne]

Excellent! I've said for years that the way to break prohibition is to overload it. Let the over-laden courts and police start calling for an end to it, as they struggle to keep up. Which they must never be allowed to do.

OVERGROW PROHIBITION.
And be a real Activist! Clear enough?

[twigs]

dangerous reporting/story writing that..

[namkha]

Arnold Layne, on 23 March 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Excellent! I've said for years that the way to break prohibition is to overload it. Let the over-laden courts and police start calling for an end to it, as they struggle to keep up. Which they must never be allowed to do.

OVERGROW PROHIBITION.
And be a real Activist! Clear enough?

A-men, Brother!

wanking on about stuff on here with endless discussions - much as I love it - is not what makes the difference

Arnold, Cambium and many others have said it a thousands times before:

if you are serious about change, inform yourselves of the risks (and there are still plenty), and get growing!

the real way to bring down prohibition is to overload the system

grow cannabis, plant it everywhere -- (we need this stuff to be coming out of our ears - boycott cotton buds, plant the sacred herb in your lugholes!)

(facebook isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I give away free seeds on there the whole time if you want them)

This post has been edited by namkha: 23 March 2012 - 12:31 PM

[twigs]

Arnold Layne, on 23 March 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Excellent! I've said for years that the way to break prohibition is to overload it. Let the over-laden courts and police start calling for an end to it, as they struggle to keep up. Which they must never be allowed to do.

OVERGROW PROHIBITION.
And be a real Activist! Clear enough?

namkha, on 23 March 2012 - 12:28 PM, said:

Arnold Layne, on 23 March 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

Excellent! I've said for years that the way to break prohibition is to overload it. Let the over-laden courts and police start calling for an end to it, as they struggle to keep up. Which they must never be allowed to do.

OVERGROW PROHIBITION.
And be a real Activist! Clear enough?

A-men, Brother!

wanking on about stuff on here with endless discussions - much as I love it - is not what makes the difference

Arnold, Cambium and many others have said it a thousands times before:

if you are serious about change, inform yourselves of the risks (and there are still plenty), and get growing!

the real way to bring down prohibition is to overload the system

grow cannabis, plant it everywhere -- (we need this stuff to be coming out of our ears - boycott cotton buds, plant the sacred herb in your lugholes!)

(facebook isn't everybody's cup of tea, but I give away free seeds on there the whole time if you want them)

of course you are both correct..

but..

when peter shithead effectively said the same thing (about the decrim) a couple of months ago he was thrown to the wall about it

whats changed.?

This post has been edited by twigs: 23 March 2012 - 12:41 PM

[Eddiesilence]

'Quietly, cannabis has in effect been decriminalised in Britain' the Economist

Irresponsible gits at The Economist while Winston's in for 16 months.

[PureSmkr]

Just want to say thanks to all my fellow UK420 growers, we're getting there.

[landsker]

The article does have a fair bit of sense in it, and if nothing else, noting the connection between increasing amounts of urban grow shops, and decreasing amounts of "commercial farms" shows that there is a journalist capable of making a sensible appraisal of the facts.

[rorymullan]

SilC, on 23 March 2012 - 12:18 PM, said:

''Giant rolls of tinfoil'' . Oh for fuck sake
That report is contradictory to what other reporters say . Infact that same reporter might work for some other rag in the future and tell us something stupid like ,'' police are working zealously to end drug plants and say they're adamant to nip cultivation in the bud .''The laws are more lenient than in some other EU countries .
''effectively tolerated '' , my arse it is .If that were the case distraught members of uk420 from time to time wouldn't be in the Legal section looking for advice and new hinges for their front door.

Tio be fair the Economist isnt really a rag. It is usually fairly objective.

edit: Although this isnt true. Cannabis has not been decriminalised in any form.

This post has been edited by rorymullan: 23 March 2012 - 12:48 PM

[Cambium]

It's good to see that growing has exploded. Shame that it's via police stats showing that given half the chance they would deprive us all of our liberty.