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Cannabis Has Not Been
Decriminalised in the UK
by Jayelle Farmer
The UK Sentencing Council have recently published their document "Drug Offences: Definitive Guideline" along with another document "Drug Offences: Response to Consultation." These two documents explain the new sentencing guidelines which will be applicable in England and Wales commencing on February 27, 2012.
In his response to the above two documents, Peter Reynolds, the leader of CLEAR, has recently published an article on the CLEAR website entitled "Effectively, Growing Your Own Has Been Decriminalised. We Are FREE!"
In his article, Reynolds says:
"The important point about these sentencing guidelines is that penalties have been reduced to such a level that I doubt whether the CPS will be interested in pursuing such cases, particularly not against medicinal users. Therefore, the police won’t be interested. These remain offences but with a little common sense and discretion we can now be free of the fear of persecution for growing and using cannabis."
The above statement is totally incorrect.
CANNABIS HAS NOT BEEN DECRIMINALISED IN THE UK
This is a terrible conclusion on Mr Reynolds's part and is nothing more than his erring personal opinion. As leader of CLEAR, he has a responsibility to be accurate in the information that he publishes concerning UK cannabis law and not to promote his misguided opinion as fact.
WHAT MAKES MR. REYNOLDS BELIEVE THAT THE POLICE WILL NOT BE INTERESTED?
He puts forward no evidence whatsoever to support his opinion, concerning his perceived projected lack of law enforcement.
The police in the UK are well known for their law enforcement of cannabis law and anyone who is apprehended by the police will have their growing equipment confiscated, will still receive a criminal record for the offence upon conviction, along with any Proceeds of Crime Act measures that may be brought against the individual/s concerned.
Mr Reynolds even went so far as to comment on the recently published Release article "How do the new Sentencing Guidelines impact on cannabis offences":
"Thank you for this. I agree with your analysis except that I do think you underplay the significance of these guidelines" and his comments have drawn a mountain of comment replies from members of the UK cannabis community.
Mr Reynolds also claims on his Release comment that "The article in question was drafted in conjunction with a retired senior civil servant, a lawyer and a criminal barrister" and yet he neglects to name any these other parties. Is this a vain attempt by Peter Reynolds to involve non-existent parties in his article? As the author of his own article on the CLEAR web site, Mr Reynolds takes sole responsibility for the publication thereof. If there were other parties in consultation with the development of this article, then Reynolds should have mentioned them on his article, not as an afterthought on his comment on the Release article.
Furthermore, there are reports now filtering through that the CLEAR Admins on FaceBook are deleting all references and links to the Release article that are being posted there by people - such must be their embarrassment over Mr Reynolds's unfortunate follow-up comments on the Release article (one of which had 47 negative votes, at the last count.) Of course, the down-side to this, should CLEAR actually be suppressing links and commentary to the Release article, is that a lot of people in the UK are being deprived of a link to an accurate analysis of the Sentencing Guidelines, by Release, and this is most alarming, to say the least.
Another website is also repeating several of the grave errors of judgment that have been perpetrated by Mr Reynolds. This time at Cannabis Now magazine in their article "UK: Cannabis on the Political Agenda in 2012" which even goes as far as to display a map of Europe with all of the UK in blue, indicating the decriminalisation of cannabis on a complete national level - even though the Sentencing Guidelines are only applicable to England and Wales and do not include decriminalisation.
I know of dozens of people who have added a comment to the above Cannabis Now article since yesterday morning - and yet Cannabis Now Magazine is not adding any of the submitted comments to their article - NOW WHY IS THAT?
It should also be noticed that the majority part of the text on the above article has been directly copied from the Peter Reynolds article "What Does 2012 Hold for the Cannabis Campaign" which was published on the CLEAR website on January 8, 2012 without the use of any kind of quotation marks to indicate such copying. Please go check and see. The bulk of this article is nothing more than a reproduction of a previous article that was written by Mr Reynolds, without "Cannabis Now" referencing the source. One cannot help but ask oneself whether or not this was plagiarised with permission from Mr Reynolds.
So, non-publication of public comments after they have been invited and the republishing of old material from the CLEAR website without stated reference as such - it's time for an end to this kind of behaviour from within the UK cannabis campaign.
If the only consolation to Peter Reynolds is that his old arch-enemy Peter Hitchens agrees with him, then this is certainly not something at all to be proud about, as Peter Hitchens says: "How long before the groovy guys and girls of the Sentencing Council rule that anyone with a van-load of weed or a ten-acre cannabis farm isn’t worth prosecuting? Not long, according to my old adversary Peter Reynolds, the leader of the cannabis legalisation party CLEAR. He wrote to his supporters last week to say: ‘Effectively, growing your own [cannabis] has been decriminalised. We are free.’ He explained: ‘The important point about these sentencing guidelines is that penalties have been reduced to such a level that I doubt whether the CPS will be interested in pursuing such cases.’ For once, I agree with him."
PETER REYNOLDS - YOU ARE DOING GREAT DAMAGE TO THE UK CANNABIS CAMPAIGN AND HAVE YET AGAIN PROVEN YOURSELF TO BE UNFIT TO BE THE LEADER OF CLEAR - PLEASE RESIGN
For an excellent analytical commentary on the up-coming implementation of the new England and Wales sentencing guidelines for cannabis please read the web page of Release, along with the many interesting pages of comments that follow the main article:
"How do the new Sentencing Guidelines impact on cannabis offences"
http://www.release.org.uk/comment/375-sentencing-guidelines-for-cannabis-offences
There are telephone contact numbers on the Release page, should anyone have further queries regarding the new Sentencing Guidelines, so please feel free to call Release for an accurate and up-to-date report of the current situation in the UK.
Please share this article with all of your friends in the United Kingdom. Thank you.
Jayelle Farmer
Monday January 30, 2012
