United Nations' Threat To Britain And Canada: Keep Arresting Minor Marijuana Offenders Or Risk "Worldwide Repercussions" February 27, 2003 - Vienna, Austria Vienna, Austria: Pending policy changes in Britain and Canada that would prohibit the criminal arrest of minor marijuana offenders will seriously undermine global anti-drug efforts, according to the United Nations' annual Report of the International Narcotics Control Board. The report alleges that British plans to reclassify marijuana from a Class B to a Class C controlled substance "sends the wrong signal" to the global community and will likely have "worldwide repercussions," such as increasing the amount of marijuana grown in the UK and exported around the globe. NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre called the U.N.'s comments pure hyperbole, noting that the UK's pending pot law change would only apply to the possession of up to three grams of marijuana, and have no legal impact on marijuana cultivation. "To those who blindly support US-styled 'Do drugs; do time' policies, any variance - no matter how minor - is seen as a threat to their longstanding blanket prohibition," he said. The report also criticizes a pending Canadian proposal to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, falsely alleging that doing so may violate international treaties. The U.N. additionally denounced recently enacted laws in Canada and the Netherlands authorizing the use of medicinal cannabis to qualified patients. "It is important that consensus prevails in international drug control," the U.N. said. "No government should take unilateral measures without considering the impact of its actions and ultimately the consequences for an entire system that took governments almost a century to establish." Their report made no mention of recent European drug policy changes in Belgium, Portugal and elsewhere decriminalizing the use of marijuana and certain other drugs. Authors also note that drug abuse remains prevalent in both America and Canada, and that "a higher percentage of teenagers surveyed in the United States found cannabis easier to buy than both cigarettes and beer." The U.N. also reported that federally funded US anti-drug ads have "had no discernable impact" on youth attitudes or use of drugs, particularly marijuana. For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation, at (202) 483-8751. For a nation by nation summary of European drug policies, please see NORML's report, "European Drug Policy: 2002 Legislative Update," available online. The INCB report is available online at: http://www.incb.org http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=5569
Why don't we just tell them that.... If they don't do what we say we'll bomb the hell out of them!!!!! When are these power hungry mongruls going to learn. Push comes to shove....Shove comes to retaliate.... retaliate comes to bombs!!!!!!