Prospects For The Lca

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LEGALISE CANNABIS ALLIANCE- PROSPECTS

Legalise Cannabis Alliance is different from most other political parties and this gives the LCA an opportunity to win over the votes of those huge numbers of voters who are currently disillusioned with the mainstream, established parties in this country.

It is important that the LCA wins votes. It is important because, if the LCA were to win a substantial number of votes at the next general election, this would put massive, perhaps unstoppable, pressure on the next government to legalise cannabis. There is a strong possibility that the LCA could win a substantial number of votes.

The main, established parties, are now more unpopular than they have ever been. In recent years, as the figures show, all three main parties have experienced a substantial decline in their support.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest losers have been the Conservatives whose support has fallen from just over 14 million votes in 1992, to just over 8 million in 2001. The other major parties have also lost support. The Liberal Democrat vote has fallen a fifth since 1992. Most surprising though, is the fact that despite winning a landslide victory and a huge majority in the House of Commons, New Labour actually got substantially fewer votes in 2001 than it got in 1992 when it lost.

Increasingly, the time when the vast majority of voters would say “I always vote Labour” or “I always vote Conservative” are ending. This gives new, alternative parties, such as the LCA, a chance to win substantial support.

The LCA does have a chance of winning substantial support next time; it has the chance because it is different to the discredited, established main parties and because the cause it advances, the legalisation of cannabis, is a popular cause.

Voters are fed up with the established parties who seem to put a wish to get into power before principle. The LCA is different.

The LCA campaigns for a principle, the legalisation of cannabis, rather than on a wish to get power for itself. The LCA is ready to work with individuals from other parties who share our principles. Some of the speakers this afternoon are from other parties.

Where single-issue parties advance a popular cause and can connect with the voters they can win substantial numbers of votes and even occasionally seats.

Perhaps the most remarkable result at the last general election was in the Wyre Forest constituency, where a Dr Richard Taylor, standing on the single issue of reopening Kidderminster Hospital’s accident and emergency department won the seat on one of the highest turnouts in the country, with one of the biggest majorities in the country.

The legalisation of cannabis is a popular cause. The estimates for the number of cannabis consumers in this country vary but they tend to put the figure in the millions at about 4 to 5 million. That is 4 to 5 million individuals who are currently criminalised and who, even after the reclassification of cannabis, still face potential prosecution and even imprisonment. Each of those 4 to 5 million individuals has an interest in supporting the LCA.

However, potential LCA supporters are not limited to cannabis consumers alone. There are many more voters who do not themselves consume cannabis but who do support cannabis legalisation.

The Economic and Social Research Council has conducted research over the last twenty years into the public’s attitudes towards drugs. The tide of public opinion is flowing in favour of cannabis legalisation.

When their research was first conducted in 1983 they found that only 12% of those questioned supported cannabis legalisation. In the twenty years since then support for cannabis legalisation has more than tripled and stands, in 2003, at 41%.

If their research is accurate, then that 41% is the equivalent of over 17 million members of the electorate supporting cannabis legalisation. When you consider that the current Labour government won its massive majority with fewer than 11 million votes, then it shows that the potential vote for cannabis legalisation is huge.

This doesn’t mean that all these voters who support cannabis legalisation are necessarily going to vote LCA, but if even a fraction of those voters were to vote LCA it would mean the LCA winning hundreds of thousands or millions of votes.

The LCA is a different kind of political party because it campaigns for a principle rather than for power, for the LCA to consider the next general election a victory doesn’t mean the LCA winning a majority of seats in the House of Commons and forming the next government… although we would welcome the opportunity.

It was Mo Mowlam, the former Labour Cabinet Minister, who stated recently that the real reason the Labour government wasn’t prepared to legalise cannabis was because it was scared that if it legalised cannabis it would lose votes.

Well, it must be our task to show the New Labour government that it will lose votes if it doesn’t legalise cannabis.

If the LCA manages to stand candidates in as many constituencies as possible at the next general election, in order to give as many voters as possible the chance to vote LCA, then we can win a substantial number of votes.

Our message to those millions of voters who support individual freedom of choice - our message to those millions of voters who consume cannabis - our message to those many millions more voters who don’t consume cannabis but who do support cannabis legalisation - is that your votes are one of the most powerful opportunities to make this important change.

If you vote LCA you won’t have wasted your vote, you shall have cast a very valuable vote, a valuable vote because every single vote that LCA candidates get will show that there is support for legalisation of cannabis in this country and the more votes the LCA gets the more pressure it can put on the next government to legalise cannabis.

If the LCA can manage to win a huge number of votes at the next general election the impact such a vote would have would set in motion an unstoppable momentum for cannabis legalisation in this country, a momentum for legalisation that even the most ignorant government couldn’t ignore.

by Michael Mullaney