Legal issues of cannabis
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- This article has a focus on the law and enforcement aspects of growing, transporting, selling and using cannabis. For other aspects, see cannabis.
Many countries have laws regarding the cultivation, possession, supply or use of cannabis (hemp). Non-drug cannabis products (eg fibre and seed) are legal in many countries, and these countries may license cultivation for these purposes. The herb is a controlled substance in most, though its use is condoned in some locales for medicinal purposes. In some countries, such as Portugal, cannabis drug material is legal for personal use, though restrictions may apply to its sale, distribution or consumption. In Germany, the consumption of cannabis is legal, although it is illegal to posses, sell or distribute it. If the amount of cannabis a person possessed is considered as "minor", a law suit may be dropped. In the U.S.A (nationwide, in 2004) a person is arrested on "marijuana charges" every 42 seconds.
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Criminalization
Cannabis was criminalized across most of the world in the early parts of the 20th century. The reasons for and approaches to criminalization vary from country to country. At a 1925 conference to amend the International Opium Convention, Egypt and other nations complained of abuse problems with hashish and proposed requiring Parties to prohibit non-medical, non-scientific use of the drug. India and others, citing traditional uses of the drug and its prevalance as a wild-growing plant, successfully watered down the provision to only ban export of cannabis to countries whose domestic laws prohibited its use[1] (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/bulletin/bulletin_1962-01-01_4_page005.html). In the United Kingdom, cultivation and use of cannabis was generally outlawed in 1928. In the United States, the significant legislation was the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, a federal culmination of many separate state laws that had been enacted in the previous years. Some claim that the U.S. laws may have been in response to lobbying by makers of synthetic fibers that competed with hemp.
The 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs finally did prohibit all non-medical, non-scientific cannabis use. However, tincture of cannabis remained available in the UK as a prescription only drug (POM) until it was banned in 1971 under the then new Misuse of Drugs Act. The international restrictions on recreational use of cannabis were further strengthened by the 1988 United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.
Laws usually govern distribution, cultivation, and possession for personal use. Enforcement of the law varies from country to country. Large-scale domestic marijuana growing operations, or grow-ops, are frequently targeted by police in raids to discourage the spread and marketing of the drug.
Decriminalization campaign in United States
Main article: Cannabis rescheduling in the United States
After 1969, a time categorized by widespread use of cannabis as a recreational drug, a wave of legislation in America sought to reduce the penalties for the simple possession of marijuana, making it punishable by confiscation and/or a fine rather than imprisonment. Decriminalization is a drug supply-side control strategy that discourages users, but largely removes them from the criminal justice system, while imposing stiff penalties on those who traffic and sell the drug on the black market. Some of the first examples of this adjustment in drug policy were found in Alabama, when state judges decided to no longer impose five year mandatory minimum sentences for small possession (one marijuana cigarette); Missouri, when their legislature reformed statutes that made second possession offences no longer punishable by life in prison; and in Georgia, when that state revised second sale offences to minors no longer punishable by death.
Soon after these developments, an official decriminalization movement was started in 1973 with Oregon prompting other states, like Colorado, Alaska, Ohio, and California, to follow suit in 1975. By 1978, Mississippi, North Carolina, New York, and Nebraska also had some form of marijuana decriminalization. In 2001, Nevada reduced marijuana possession from a felony offence to a misdemeanor. [2] (http://www.sfbg.com/News/35/36/legis.html)
Regardless of these states' rights, decriminalization was never adopted as a national affair, principally because U.S. Congress disagrees with passing a version of legislation on the federal level. However, several petitions for cannabis rescheduling in the United States have been filed to remove marijuana from the "Schedule I" category of tightly-restricted drugs that have no medical use. The Controlled Substance Act allows the executive branch to legalize medical and recreational use of marijuana without any action by Congress; however, such an initiative would depend on the findings of the Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services on certain scientific and medical issues specified by the Act. [3] (http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.com/mmm1_047.htm)
Issues regarding the Constitutional guarantee of the right to Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness have at times been raised in the debate, arguing that those imprisoned for cannabis use are de facto political prisoners.[4] (http://www.iahushua.com/T-L-J/poc.html)
Decriminalization campaign in the United Kingdom
Main article: Cannabis reclassification in the United Kingdom
Use of capital punishment against the drugs trade
Several countries have either carried out or legislated capital punishment for cannabis use or trafficking.
| Country | Status | Notes |
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| Malaysia | Has been used | Mustaffa Kamal Abdul Aziz, 38 years old, and Mohd Radi Abdul Majid, 53 years old, were executed at dawn on January 17, 1996, for the trafficking of 1.2 kilograms of cannabis. [5] (http://www.amnesty.it/news/1996/32800196.htm) |
| Philippines | Available | The Philippines introduced stronger anti-drug laws, including the death penalty, in 2002. [6] (http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/241/philippines.shtml) |
| Thailand | Available | Death penalty is possible for drug offences under Thai law |
| Singapore | Available | Death penalty is possible for drug offences under Singapore law |
| Republic of China | Available | Death penalty is possible for drug offences under Chinese law |
| Taiwan | Available | Death penalty is possible for drug offences under Taiwanese law |
| United States | Available | Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1996 proposed to introduce a mandatory death penalty for a second offense of smuggling 50 grams of marijuana into the United States, in the proposed law H.R. 4170.
The proposal failed. Under the 1994 Crime Act, the threshold for sentencing a death penalty in relation to marijuana is the involvement with the cultivation or distribution of 60,000 marijuana plants (or seedlings) or 60,000 kilograms of marijuana. The death penalty is also possible for running a continuing criminal enterprise that distributes marijuana and receives more than $20 million in proceeds in one year, regardless of the weight of marijuana involved. |
Cannabis for non-drug purposes
Main articles: Hemp for use as fibres, and Cannabis sativa for use as herb
Hemp is the common name for cannabis and the name most used (in English) when this annual herb is grown for non drug purposes. These include the industrial purposes for which cultivation licences may be issued in the European Union (EU). When grown for industrial purposes hemp is called, often, industrial hemp, and a common product is fibre for use in a variety of different ways. Fuel is often a by-product of hemp cultivation.
Hemp may be grown also for food (the seed) but in the UK at least (and probably in other EU countries) cultivation licences are not available for this purpose. Within Defra (the UK's Department for the Environment, Food and the Rural Affairs) hemp is treated as purely a non-food crop, despite the fact that seed can and does appear on the UK market as a perfectly legal food product.
In the UK, at least, the seed and fibre have been always perfectly legal products. Cultivation for non drug purposes was however completely prohibited from 1928 until circa 1998, when Home Office industrial-purpose licences became available under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act.
If industrial strains of the herb are intended for legal use within the EU then they are bred to be compliant with regulations which limit potential THC content to 0.3%. (THC content is a measure of the herb's drug potential and can reach 20% or more in drug strains). In Canada the THC limit is 1%.
Millennia of selective breeding have resulted in varieties that look quite different. Also, breeding since circa 1930 has focussed quite specifically on producing strains which would perform very poorly as sources of drug material.
Hemp grown for fibre is planted closely, resulting in tall, slender plants with long fibers. Ideally, according to Defra in 2004, the herb should be harvested before it flowers. This early cropping is because fibre quality begins to decline as flowering starts and, incidentally, this cropping also pre-empts the herb’s maturity as potentially a source of drug material. UK licence conditions actually oblige farmers, however, to allow some flowering so that flower material can be tested for its drug potential.
See also
- Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party
- Cannabis: Health issues
- Cannabis: legalise and utilise
- Cannabis reform at the international level
- Drug policy of the Netherlands
- Grow-op
- Jack Herer
- Legalise Cannabis Alliance
- Medical marijuana
- Promena
- Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs
- Soap bar
- War on Drugs
- National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
- Marijuana Policy Project
References
- The cannabis problem: A note on the problem and the history of international action (http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/bulletin/bulletin_1962-01-01_4_page005.html), Bulletin on Narcotics, 1962.
External links
(note that the following sites may express opinions for or against cannabis, and you are urged to visit more than one of the following for balance)
- Unofficial Cannapedia (http://www.homegrownhomes.co.za/wiki)
- Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base (http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/)
- A Brief History of the War on Drugs (http://civilliberty.about.com/library/content/blDrugWarIssues.htm)
- How Marijuana Became Illegal (http://smokedot.org/story/2001/7/2/35918/10894) Smokedot.org's on the history of criminalisation.
- The Emperor Wears No Clothes (http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html) Jack Herer's book, partially online.
- National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) (http://www.norml.org)
- Drug information about marijuana (http://theantidrug.com/drug_info/drugs_marijuana.html) from the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy
- War on Drugs FAQ (http://www.drugwarfaq.com/)
- Marijuana Policy Project (http://www.mpp.org/)
- Canadian Foundation for Drug Policy: Senate hearing on cannabis. (http://www.cfdp.ca/ap2596.html)
- Vote Hemp (http://www.votehemp.com/)
- Should Governments Legalize and Tax Marijuana? (http://economics.about.com/od/incometaxestaxcuts/a/marijuana.htm)
- North American Industrial Hemp council (http://www.naihc.org/)
- alt.hemp FAQ (http://www.cannabis.com/faqs/)
- A history (http://www.mikuriya.com/s6_1.pdf) of the Marihuana Tax Act (http://altereduniv.com/USC/tax%20act-1937.html)
- Kentucky Hemp Outfitters' Library (http://www.kentuckyhemp.com/library/)
- Jack Herer and The Emperor Wears No Clothes (http://jackherer.com/)
- Hemp For Victory (http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=feature_films&collectionid=Hemp_For_Victory&from=BA), (a 1942 US government propaganda movie, urging farmers to grow hemp "for the war effort")
- Reefer Madness (http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=feature_films&collectionid=reefer_madness1938) (The archetypal sensationalized anti-drug movie. This 1938 propaganda film dramatizes the "violent narcotic's ... soul destroying" effects on unwary teens, and their hedonistic exploits enroute to the bottom)
- Science and the End of Marijuana Prohibition (http://www.millionmarijuanamarch.com/mmm1_047.htm), John Gettman, May 13, 1999.
- What No One Wants to Know About Marijuana (http://deoxy.org/pdfa/marijuana.htm) from The Natural Mind by: Dr. Andrew Weil