Scotland
Joint demo to legalise cannabis
On July 28 the Scottish Legalise Cannabis Demonstration will be held in Glasgow. This demo, which last year attracted over 2,000 to an event and smoke in at George Square (no arrests) is being backed and built by the Scottish Socialist Party for the third year running.
Legalisation of dope was one of the 7 main slogans used by the SSP during the election campaign, and certainly the one which attracted most attention, particularly from the young.
The slogan was usually presented by megaphone as "Don’t criminalise 2 million of our youth - legalise cannabis!" (though the 2m figure may be an underestimate).
The position in favour of legalisation and for the prescription of heroin by doctors was arrived at after long discussion in the SSP and SSA. Heroin kills over 100 a year in Glasgow alone. The prisons are full of addicts, and sharing needles is rife, helping to spread the AIDS virus.
Police rarely catch major dealers, and randomly round up youth to keep convictions up. Kevin Williamson, an early member of the SSP, formed Scotland against Drug Hypocrisy in response to the main parties’ campaign "Scotland Against Drugs" (SAD).
This campaign showed (in similar terms to the Guardian more recently) that drug policy wasn’t working, and like prohibition was channelling profits to major criminals.
At a debate at the SSP summer school 2 years ago the chief inspector in charge of drug policy for Strathclyde seemed to agree with our analysis.
Since that time drugs and particular cannabis legalisation has been a prominent feature of SSP campaigning.
This has led to Tommy Sheridan being denounced as Working class Zero by the Daily Record – leading a circulation drive around its "Shop a Dealer" campaign – and ritual denunciation by members of the Scottish Executive who do know better.
Recently the tide has turned. The Scottish Executive has effectively demoted the "Just Say No" campaign to redirect funds towards harm reduction.
Most of the police and agencies involved now say the ‘War on Drugs’ is lost, and a new approach must be found.
We are left with the only thing standing against a policy change is Labour politicians’ hypocrisy and pride.
The SSP policy and campaigns have shown an alternative on drugs which will end the criminalisation of our young, allow effective treatment of addicts, end the significant waste of police, courts and health expenditure and also is electorally popular.