Independent Panel To Assess Potential Of Legalised Cannabis Market

An independent panel of experts is to examine how a legalised market for cannabis would work in the UK.

The panel has been established by the Liberal Democrats ahead of a parliamentary debate on legislation of the production, sale and use of cannabis, which is also the result of a petition to parliament that had more than 220,000 signatures.

The panel will examine evidence from Colorado and Washington State in the US and Uruguay, where cannabis has been legalised.

According to the Liberal Democrats, early evidence from Colorado indicates:

• Any rise in cannabis use has been broadly in line with changes seen elsewhere in the US.

• No increase in road fatalities.

• 59% of the recreational market has now been legalised, regulated, and taxed, which represents a significant contraction in the untaxed criminal market.

• The state has collected a cumulative revenue total of $73.5mn for the first seven months of 2015.

While in Washington:

• Retail marijuana sales have generated over $80 million in tax revenues.

• Violent crime rates have declined.

• State wide rates of youth use and traffic fatalities have remained stable.

The panel will be chaired by Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst of Transform Drug Policy and will also include: Professor David Nutt, Founder of DrugScience; Tom Lloyd, a former Chief Constable in Cambridgeshire and Chair of the National Cannabis Coalition; Niamh Eastwood, Executive Director of Release.

They will also approach international experts who have been involved in developing the models being used in the United States.

Commenting on the issue, the Lib Dem's Norman Lamb said: "I share people's concerns about the health impacts of any drug – legal or illegal. But we can better manage that harm by taking the money that's currently spent on policing the illegal cannabis market and spending it on public health education and restrictions at the point of sale. That's the approach we've taken with cigarettes and it's led to dramatic reductions in smoking in recent years.

"With successful legal cannabis markets emerging in different parts of the world, the onus is now on the supporters of prohibition to explain why we shouldn't do the same things here in the UK.

"We must end the hypocrisy of senior politicians admitting to using cannabis in younger years - and describing it as 'youthful indiscretions' - whilst condemning tens of thousands of their less fortunate fellow countrymen and women to criminal records for precisely the same thing, blighting their careers."

(MH)