Today's cannabis is a lot stronger than in Cameron's day...

Asked this afternoon about the increased power of cannabis the Tory leader spoke about the time he recently attended the arrest of some young men in possession of drugs...

"Before the bag was even open, the smell... unbelievably strong. Grown in greenhouses this skunk is unbelievably powerful.  And it is completely different to... [laughter]... I think I'll stop there." 

Comments

[Jennifer Wells]

:-)

[GS]

A neat self-deprecating joke. Cameron's a likeable man, who'll play well against the thuggish Scot.

[Alan S]

Quite. Self-depracation disarms all but the most implacable of critics.

[James]

Yep very good answer and very true.

[Afleitch]

I have a horrible feeling the anti-Cameron, anti-Tory lot in the media will seize upon this joke and turn it into a media driven non story.

Cue Gordon Brown: 'I don't even know what one looks like' (more than likely true!)

[Traditional Tory]

I have a horrible feeling the anti-Cameron, anti-Tory lot in the media will seize upon this joke and turn it into a media driven non story.

Really?

It's a non-story already.

[David Bodden]

Given the standard of the policies that the Conservatives are coming out with, I think most of his advisers have an extensive personal experience of modern day cannabis.

[John]

Good to see a leader of a responsible political party thinks the consumption of illegal drugs, including his own, is a laughing matter.

Try cracking a joke about drugs on a sink estate to a parent of a child addicted to drugs, a victim of a crime committed by a drug addict or a parent of a deceased child that was addicted to drugs.

Very clever Mr Cameron. Very clever.

[Jacob]

I agree 100% and I'm a supposedly 'Soho Tory.'

I have seen first hand what this 'Class C' drug can do to people. Drug classification is a farce. Ecstasy as a Class A drug, and cannabis as a Class C drug is mad. You can't educate children properly on drug use when you have something like Ecstasy (more deaths from peanut allergies) as the same classification as heroin and cocaine. Most people die from Ecstasy by drinking too much water, over heating, or mixing excessively with other drugs.

I'd like to see the statistics for the correlation between cannabis and suicide, cannabis and mental breakdowns, chronic depression etc etc.

Crack / Cocaine / Heroin / GHB / Crystal Meth = Class A
Cannabis / LSD = Class B
Ecstasy = Class C

[Oberon Houston]

It is important to think about drug policy and how to deal with it, however, I sometimes feel that we are trying to speak to the wrong auduence, i.e. those that don't 'do' drugs and have contempt for those who do.

I suspect that the way out of a drug problem in our society starts at the new users and the underlying reasons for, usually, youths who should have the most to look forward to in life but feel locked in an existence of welfare, boredom and despair. We should be concentrating on raising the living prospects for children and teenagers who have not progressed into this nightmare and give them potential ways to opt out. Lets talk about doing the best we can to get addicts rehabilitated. Talking about cannabis strength is, well, okay talk about it, but surely there are more pressing issues?

What about helping youth organisations such as the cadets, scouts, brownies, guides, etc. to attract more kids from deprived backgrounds to participate? What about offering addict convicts in jail options to do secure voluntary work? The option to do basic military training instead of jail? Or options to work in environments far away from those that lead them to drugs and may lead to a new future such as overseas voluntary work funded under the overseas development budget which is supplimented for the prison costs giving overseas agencies the incentive to to two good things at once and be rewarded? Who knows, but I'd rather talk about that than reclassifying cannabis.

[Yet Another Anon]

Before the bag was even open, the smell
I and others have said the same thing about things that came out of my father's flat - he died recently from a heart attack and chronic obstructive airways disease, but he was smoking high tar cigarettes with only tobacco in them. What about glue and the dangers of glue sniffing, lots of things are dangerous - are kitchen knives going to be banned, what about chainsaws and other garden cutting equipment, axes?, what about gambling indeed - I hear no calls to ban these things and yet gambling is possibly one of the worst of vices - completely without purpose and drains the money of many families who can't afford it to a much greater extent than many of the chemical based vices.

You can't protect people from themselves and policing drug seizures diverts vast amounts of manpower and costs a fortune - the answer is to put it on the same regulatory footing as alcohol - charge revenue on sales, have minimum ages, vigorously police black market activity around it - perhaps even executing those operating outside the regulatory framework. The sort of half hearted approach there has been in the 20th century is doomed to failure - either you accept that a certain amount is inevitable and work to integrate that into a tax & criminal justice framework or a crackdown on a scale not seen in the western world has to be implemented. There were opium dens in the 19th century, the current prohibitionist line is one that developed in the 20th century, in past centuries people were left to their own devices to take all manner of substances.

[Clapham Janktion]

What a load of bollocks from Cameron.

Whiskey is stronger than beer, but tramps still drink cider. If pot is stronger today, its primarily because a) users don't want to carry as much with them and b) don't want to inhale more burning plant matter to get the same high.

Set and setting - how the drug is taken, where, and for what reasons matter far more than the concentration is comes in. Alcohol, remember, is the same drug for a cider drinking bum as at a west-end wine tasting. From such a point of view - ask any drug counselor - Cameron's experience was far more damaging than, for example, a City professional unwinding from a day at the office with the assistance of a spliff.

Indeed, pot didn't seem to hurt DC. I'm sure he'd be defiling Mrs. Thatcher's (PBUH) legacy even if he were never to have touched a drug.

[Paul Oakley]

There is often a sense that politicians and others are banging their heads against a brick wall when it comes to warnings about abusing drugs or alcohol.

Perhaps however all is not lost. I get the feeling that many people are simply becoming bored with getting mashed up off their t*ts on any substance. It may well be the case that we will see something akin to the spread of Methodism in the 19th century which followed the excesses of the Georgian period. Pendulums swing both ways of course.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it's just a thought.

[Oberon Houston]

Possibly Paul, you may have a point, but surely you meant "Methadone"... No, but seriously, the reaction t the Georgian period (which I quite like) was the Victorian (which I like too)... but not too keen on 'Victorian Dad's' running the show in the21st century...

(I know I haven't replied to you on the Postal Voting thing - been rushed off my feet and need to do research - sorry)

[TaxCutter]

Its funny that Skunk was a lot weaker when Cameron was a student, because by contrast, Tory leaders were a lot stronger.

[Michael Davidson]

Hilarious Mr. Cameron - let's make light amusement of a drug that seriously damages the health of hundreds of thousands in this country.

What's the point of IDS pushing to reclassify the drug if Cameron just treats it like one big joke.

There's nothing impressive whatsoever about the fact that he smoked it in his younger days and Cameron needs to understand that.

[Ashton]

i think a lot of people are taking this far too seriously. he wasn't actually joking about using the drug and it's effects, it was self-deprecation about how he politically defused the issue

[Henry Mayhew - ukipper]

Decriminalise drugs. Prohibition will always fund crime and damage society. Look at Iran - death penalty for drug dealing but 1 million heroin addicts. Come on DC, you have bought the stuff yourself (or cadged it). You have personally funded or associated with the funding of crime and the glamorisation of the whole business. Enough of your hypocrisy already (and not just on this matter).

[Tim]

" Good to see a leader of a responsible political party thinks the consumption of illegal drugs, including his own, is a laughing matter.

Try cracking a joke about drugs on a sink estate to a parent of a child addicted to drugs, a victim of a crime committed by a drug addict or a parent of a deceased child that was addicted to drugs.

Very clever Mr Cameron. Very clever. "

Well said, i couldn't agree more !

[Freddie]

What about fags? Far more deadly than any other drugs you nutters.

[Champagne Charlie]

"Before the bag was even open, the smell... unbelievably strong. Grown in greenhouses this skunk is unbelievably powerful. And it is completely different to.."

The cocaine he snorted at uni, I think he means. I assume that was the press story he was referring to.

It's good to see Cameron having a laugh and admitting that he likes a toot or two. Perhaps he'll do the right thing and downgrade charlie too.

So much more fun than the dour IDS and his crusaders.

[Traditional Tory]

The cocaine he snorted at uni, I think he means. I assume that was the press story he was referring to.

Perhaps in that case Cameron will specifically confirm or deny whether he has ever taken hard drugs.

If 'nobody cares' about such things nowadays he has nothing to lose and a great deal to gain by being honest about the matter.

That is the case, isn't it?

[ceidwadwyr]

When Conservatives talk about drugs they appear incredibly reactionary and out of touch.

[Traditional Tory]

When Conservatives talk about drugs they appear incredibly reactionary and out of touch.

What? Unlike people who take them, you mean?

[Steve Horgan]

David Cameron made the key point, that a drug considered 'soft' by many opinion-formers is not, and that those opinions are formed by experiences with a drug that was much weaker than that available today. He did it in a disarming way, but the point was made and good for him. Cannabis destroys lives in terms of an individual's potential, and it also can have very serious health effects. In can also fuel the worst kind of criminality, especially when combined with alcohol, as it often is. The idea that we should sell it over the counter from some of the commentators here is absurd.

[Editor]

Well said Steve.

[Mark Fulford]

It can also fuel the worst kind of criminality, especially when combined with alcohol, as it often is.

Is puking the worst criminal offence then?

[James Maskell]

One thing that came out of the IDS report was the lack of real information about drugs. It was good to see them go through all the advertising and point out all the inaccuracies in the FRANK campaign for example.

Pity Cameron thinks its something he can make a joke about...

[George Hinton]

So, why has possession and dealing been virtually de-criminalsed?

DC needs to get tough. He can't have IDS proposing to levy additional taxes on legal drinkers to fund the druggies.

IDS should be proposing mandatory de-tox for every criminal banged, up whether they like or not. Also, longer prison sentences plus hard labour for recidivists. Jail should not be an easy option OR A DRAIN on the taxpayers.

[James Maskell]

What the report argues very well is that alcohol consumption is very much related to price and that by increasing the price, it will force younger people, with less disposable income to drink to excess.

Im still undecided over it but the argument was rather well explained in the report.

[Yet Another Anon]

So, why has possession and dealing been virtually de-criminalsed?
De-criminalisation is the worst of all, the hippies and dealers and miscellaneous junkies want de-criminalisation because they will be left to do their stuff on a black market basis without paying any tax on it, the advantage of legalisation on a regulated framework is that criminal elements can be filtered out and the content and where and how it is sold controlled and revenue can be raised both from tax on the sale of the drugs and also on the income earned by those selling it.

[Steve Rolles]

the problem with cannabis is that it is impossible to generalise as there are a range of products on the market of varying strengths, as there always have been. It is easy to compare the weak varieties with the past with the strong varieties of today and make spurious conclusions, in the same way the reverse would be possible. Cannabis is probably getting stronger on average but this is a slow and marginal increase rather than the dramatic leap that some recent panic news coverag has suggested.

we also need to be careful of translating new and better understandings about potential harms of cannabis to a small minority of younger heavy users into a blanket criminalisation of around 5 million users (the majority of whom use occassionally, moderately and do not experience problems), a policy that is incredibly expensive, ineffective and hard to justify on criminal justice or public health grounds. It is the most vulnerable and excluded members of society who tend to be on the recieving end of this enforecement effort and it hard to see how a criminal record helps them, or a criminal threat has dettered the, all the evidence suggest otherwise.

If we want to send out messages about making responsible healthy life choices, a heavy handed criminal justice approach is not the way to do it as the past 40 years surely demonstrate, with literally millions of arrests combined with steadily increasing use. We should use the familiar tools of public education: schools, families, and the media - not the blunt and ineffective instrument of criminal law.