{"id":143006,"date":"2018-06-19T02:13:55","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T02:13:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/cannabis-war-comprehensively-lost-says-william-hague\/"},"modified":"2018-06-19T02:13:55","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T02:13:55","slug":"cannabis-war-comprehensively-lost-says-william-hague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/cannabis-war-comprehensively-lost-says-william-hague\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis war &#8216;comprehensively lost&#8217;, says William Hague"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"William Hague\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/145BD\/production\/_102098338_mediaitem102098334.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Reuters                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Former Conservative leader Lord Hague has called for a &quot;decisive change&quot; in the law on cannabis - suggesting that the Tories should consider legalising recreational use of the drug.<\/p>\n<p>Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said &quot;any war&quot; has been &quot;irreversibly lost&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>Lord Hague goes further than senior Tories who have suggested a law change after a boy with epilepsy was given a special licence to use cannabis oil.<\/p>\n<p>The government is creating an expert panel to look into individual cases.<\/p>\n<p>Last week officials at Heathrow Airport confiscated Billy Caldwell&#039;s cannabis oil, which the 12-year-old&#039;s mother Charlotte had been attempting to bring into the UK from Canada.<\/p>\n<p>The Home Office returned some of the medicine after protests from Ms Caldwell, and assurances from the medical team treating Billy that the treatment was necessary. <\/p>\n<p>Billy was discharged from hospital on Monday, but will continue to be treated with the oil.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Reality Check: Does UK export the most legal cannabis?<\/li>\n<li>Most UK cannabis &#039;super strength skunk&#039;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lord Hague said the episode &quot;provides one of those illuminating moments when a longstanding policy is revealed to be inappropriate, ineffective and utterly out of date&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>By returning the medicine, the Home Office had &quot;implicitly conceded that the law has become indefensible&quot;, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Hague said licensing cannabis for medical use would be a &quot;step forward&quot;, but also said the Conservatives should be as &quot;bold&quot; as Canada where state-regulated recreational consumption is being considered.<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Multi-billion pound black market&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>Currently, cannabis is a Class B drug, with penalties for possession of up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Hague&#039;s remarks mark a significant change of heart - as Tory leader between 1997 and 2001, he called for a tough approach to drug law enforcement.<\/p>\n<figure>                                                                                                       Image copyright                  Reuters<figcaption>Image caption                                      Lord Hague said Billy Caldwell&#039;s case was an &quot;illuminating moment&quot;                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>But, in a message to his party colleagues, he said: &quot;We are pragmatists, who change with society and revise our opinions when the facts change. On this issue, the facts have changed very seriously and clearly.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>&quot;As far as marijuana, or cannabis, is concerned, any war has been comprehensively and irreversibly lost,&quot; he said. <\/p>\n<p>It was &quot;nothing short of deluded&quot; to think the drug could be driven off the streets, and he compared ordering the police to crack down on its use to &quot;asking the army to recover the Empire. This battle is effectively over&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>He said the fact that cannabis was both illegal and widely available effectively permitted &quot;the worst of all worlds&quot; to arise: encouraging more potent and dangerous variants of the drug, with users reluctant to seek help. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;The overall result is the rise of a multi-billion pound black market for an unregulated and increasingly potent product, creating more addiction and mental health problems but without any enforceable policy to do something about it. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;The only beneficiaries are organised crime gangs. It is absolutely unacceptable to allow this situation to continue.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>In his article, Lord Hague said under successive governments it has been assumed that there has been little alternative to trying to win a war on drugs, cannabis included. <\/p>\n<p>He said: &quot;Taking an alternative view has been regarded as indicating a tendency to weird, irresponsible or crazily liberal opinions.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;It&#039;s time to acknowledge facts, and to embrace a decisive change that would be economically and socially beneficial, as well as rather liberating for Conservatives in showing sensible new opinions are welcome.&quot;<\/p>\n<h2>&#039;Useful medical properties&#039;<\/h2>\n<p>Many other countries, including much of the US, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, have legalised the use of medicinal cannabis.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Boy discharged after getting cannabis oil<\/li>\n<li>Epileptic boy gets cannabis oil back<\/li>\n<li>&#039;Law not right&#039; on medical cannabis use<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On Monday, asked about the Billy Caldwell case, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was obvious the government was not &quot;getting the law on this kind of thing right&quot; and suggested a review would take place &quot;as quickly as possible&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>The government is creating an expert panel to look into individual cases where the use of medicinal cannabis has been recommended.<\/p>\n<p>Asked later about the government&#039;s position, Prime Minister Theresa May said there was a &quot;very good reason&quot; for the current rules on cannabis - &quot;because of the impact that they have on people&#039;s lives&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>She said a system was already in place for medicinal use, and that government policy would be driven by &quot;what clinicians are saying&quot;.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06bfndy.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionCannabis oil row: Mother calls for drug to be legalised<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In suggesting the recreational use of cannabis should be made legal, Lord Hague has gone further than his fellow senior Conservatives who have called for a change in the law on the use of medicinal cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Sir Mike Penning, who chairs an all-party parliamentary group looking at medical cannabis,  said the Caldwell case proved the existing laws were &quot;bizarre and cruel&quot;, and added that &quot;fundamental reform of the system&quot; was needed.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow Conservative Crispin Blunt MP, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on drug policy reform, said the existing law was &quot;frankly absurd&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Ex-Tory health minister Dan Poulter said the current situation was &quot;ridiculous&quot; and pledged to push for a law change.<\/p>\n<p>Raising an urgent question on the issue in the Commons on Monday, Gower MP Tonia Antoniazzi said there were two children - aged six and one - in her constituency who have a serious life-limiting condition and could &quot;benefit hugely&quot; from medicinal cannabis.<\/p>\n<p>Other MPs also raised cases, while the shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the current system - even with the new expert panel announced - is &quot;simply not fit for purpose&quot; and called for the legalisation of cannabis oil for medical use.<\/p>\n<h2>Cannabis and the law<\/h2>\n<p>Cannabis is a Class B drug - it&#039;s illegal to possess, give away or sell, including for pain relief. <\/p>\n<p>The penalty for possession is up to five years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Supplying attracts a sentence of up to 14 years imprisonment and an unlimited fine. <\/p>\n<p>According to Home Office statistics, cannabis was the most commonly used drug in the UK in 2016-17, with 6.6% of adults aged 16 to 59 having used it. That&#039;s about 2.2 million people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Former Conservative leader Lord Hague has called for a &quot;decisive change&quot; in the law on cannabis - suggesting that the Tories should consider legalising recreational use of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143007,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}