[foxylady]

So has anyone else stumbled across this?
I just noticed it and thought it made for an interesting read:
[quote]
A new cannabis political party has been launched in the UK in the hope to push reform of laws prohibiting sales and possession of the class B substance.
Cista, which stands for Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol, wants to legalise weed as it believes that the so-called “war on drugs” has only benefited criminals by driving production and distribution underground.
The legalisation of medicinal-use cannabis in the US of state Colorado last year has become a successful model in collecting revenue through authorised sales with $40 million raised in taxes so far, the party says.
Cannabis is also legal in the US states of Alaska, Oregon and Washington.
Around £900 million could be raised from sales of legalised, regulated and taxed cannabis and could cut the national deficit by £1.25 billion, the draft manifesto for Cista claims.
The party, which was launched this week, states: “Decades of criminalising use of cannabis have failed on every front. Across the world, countries are properly redrafting laws relating to cannabis use with benefits for the economy, public health and levels of crime.
“Cista exists to replicate this success. Our candidates during the 2015 Elections will be campaigning for a Royal Commission to review Britain’s drug laws.”
The overall score of harm from the use of cannabis is significantly lower than that of alcohol, particularly in physical injuries and economic costs, graphs collated by the party show.
Deaths from drinking are illustrated for alcohol, however none are recorded for cannabis in the graphs.
The claims echo those of former Home Office minister Norman Baker, who said in November that alcohol poses a greater risk than cannabis to the public’s health and safety
Cista are currently fielding candidates in time for the election.[quote]

I don't really know anything else about this group, other than the aforementioned..
I am just curious as to what are the thoughts of other UK residents on legislation?
I definitely 1000% agree that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol,
How do you feel on the subject? Are you for or against legislation in general in the UK?

Anyway, muchos respectos amigos and thanks for taking the time to read..
Peace,

[foxylady]

Furthermore:
[quote]When you think of the smell of cannabis, as familiar to some London streets as sirens and the night bus, you don't really think of Tottenham Court Road. For all its alternative religion and dodgy electronics shops, TCR is still part of the culturally bankrupt tourist heart of London. But it's here, in a back alley behind the Burger King-Boots megacomplex, that CISTA, a new political party dedicated to the legalisation of cannabis in the UK, is holding its launch event.

The party is in glass-half-full flow when I arrive. "Eighty people signed up on Eventbrite," one of their organisers tells me, "but we'd be happy with half of that." The venue, CrowdShed, is full of little pockets of men sipping Peronis and, presumably, talking about weed. There are four women in the room, including a journalist from the Evening Standard. The mood of the gathering is like a free drinks event at a Silicon Roundabout startup, but with the pre-hipster millennials discussing Westminster policy rather than apps.
CISTA's logic is increasingly common: they want to legalise cannabis because they believe the War on Drugs has failed and that new strategies need to be employed. CISTA's draft manifesto declares that people "no longer wish to criminalise social and medicinal users of cannabis, fund organised crime or divert police and criminal justice resources from more pressing local needs". With only 80-or-so days before the 2015 General Election, they're joining the race unfashionably late, but – with their ambitiously bourgeois launch event – they're definitely taking it seriously.

Paul Birch is both the brains and financial brawn behind CISTA. A tech start-up guru and brother of Bebo founder Michael Birch (it is said, in whispered tones, that he has "Bebo millions"), Birch is a rangier, middle-aged Zuckerberg. "I've been working on this since December," he tells me, when I corner him and his PR agent (who looks like Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction) downstairs. It's a recurring theme: when I ask people how long they've been involved with CISTA, their answers range from "last week" to "Thursday". Tarik, who gave the final speech at the launch event, bundles onto stage, declaring that he didn't know he'd be giving a speech having only heard about CISTA a few days earlier.
But all these men (and it's hard to ignore a gender imbalance that would make the UKIP chairman blush) share a common belief. "It's a simple argument, there is only really one side to the argument," says Birch, before delving into the wild world of metaphor, "When you've got that much of a one-way street it needs to change as quickly as possible.

"There is no drug policy related political party here in the UK. That's why we started it. If it was already there, we wouldn't need to." Birch even talks fondly of the Lib Dems and it would be hard to believe that he's a politician, in any sense of the word. He just seems like a peppy kid with a new toy, albeit the Action Man of Social Change. He started CISTA because he's a) an entrepreneur, and b) he wants to free the weed.

“ "We're looking for 100 candidates," Birch announced in his earlier speech to the congregation, "at the moment, we have about five."
”

The name of the party, CISTA, stands for Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol, which seems to set two of the nation's favourite drugs in direct opposition to each other. As the free booze flows, I ask Birch whether CISTA is anti-alcohol. "I used to have a few drinks," he says, "but the data is clear that alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis." His PR guy tries to interject with the citation that heroin actually makes people more healthy if it's pure enough, but Birch looks uncomfortable, sinking into his seat like a toddler being warned off gummy bears. "I didn't know that," he says, and then steers conversation back to cannabis and CISTA's electoral plans.

"We're looking for 100 candidates," Birch announced in his earlier speech to the congregation, "at the moment, we have about five." One hundred candidates is a pretty optimistic target for any minor party, not to mention the 500 quid deposit you have to set down just to run (you don't get it back unless you get 5 percent of the vote and CISTA are only hoping for 1 percent). So who's going to shell out £50,000 to put up these candidates? "We're hoping to crowdfund," Birch tells me, but I can't help wondering about those mysterious "Bebo millions" I'd heard tell of. How much will he personally put up? "I'd be willing to put in about £100,000."
Birch himself is planning to stand, although he hasn't decided where yet. He thinks it'll be Hackney South and Shoreditch, which, in the last election, saw thre independents and a Communist League candidate in the field. Labour won it with a 14,288-vote lead over the Lib Dems in second. Who knows how the introduction of CISTA will shake up Shoreditch's cosmopolitan cocktail?

Reaching that fabled 100-seat target remains but a glint in Birch's eye, but his team have already started to amass an army of activists. CISTA's few already-committed candidates run a small gamut of collared-shirted respectability. There is nothing of the Kevin Smith stoner tradition here, just intelligent leftists who smell like a Denver Broncos jersey. In fact, Colorado is something of an inspiration for CISTA. When the Rocky mountain state legalised marijuana, back at the start of 2014, they saw a tangible economic and social boom. It was such an explosion that "Colorado cannabis" became the top Google result for the state, temporarily fogging our minds to its recent history of spree killings.


At the event, I had a chat with Tom, one of the few candidates who has committed to standing. He has a sort of cherubic Gary Barlow vibe and looks like he's come straight from work. "I got involved after giving an impassioned speech in a pub on drugs policy," he tells me, "and then, over brunch, they asked me to stand."

Tom will be going up against Chuka Umunna in Streatham this May and I ask him whether this is a way of flirting with the Labour man about reforming the party's drug policy. "No, it's to challenge him." Tom is obviously passionate about the issue and he's not alone. The room is a complete choir to CISTA's preacher, but the UK is reaching the point, along with the US, where reform to cannabis laws are a matter of when, not if. "No politicians will tell me they're against reform," Birch says, "I think we could realistically see a change of policy in the next parliament."

Ed Miliband, one of the country's Prime Ministers in waiting, has already come out against that idea. "I haven't taken drugs," he said. "I'm not in favour of decriminalisation, for example, of cannabis, because of my reading about it – and I have read about it." What Miliband has been reading is anyone's guess, but a YouGov poll commissioned by CISTA (which is expensive, and the sort of thing real political parties do) states that public perception of cannabis places its safety somewhere between the dangers of tobacco and the light-hearted frivolity of booze.

Legalisation of cannabis is one of the complete no-brainers to most people (or most people who will make up the electorate in, say, 20 years, at least). But only the Lib Dems have committed to a Royal Commission on the issue, and, let's face it, if the Lid Dems get any real power in May, we've all lost. So reform on this issue continues to require the efforts of single-issue groups like CISTA, and mugging media clowns like Russell Brand, to force the arm of the men and women with real power: the lawmakers who have "never tried", "never experimented" and "never taken" the drugs in question [quote]

[944s2]

thanks for that foxy,,,,,
makes me wonder why they had the meeting off t/court rd and bang in the middle of all the heroin and crack dealers,,,,
sadly it smells of yet another total "breadhead" trying to find a way in to increase there already hefty bank acconts,,,,
fuck them all,,,,,greedy lot of bastards,,,,,
they want to be taken seriously and have the first meet in soho!,,,,,,fucks sake,,,wheres the next meet? somewhere in knightsbridge???? lol,,,,,
wish pricks like this would stay the fuck out of our thing!,,,,,,s2

[foxylady]

Hahaha! Bang in the middle of the crack dealers, I never thought of that
And I agree too many greedy fuckers in this industry, mother nature was the original bearer, share the love

It's just all the people being imprisoned, it seems appropriate that someone takes some action, I mean, it's already has some recognition of having medicinal values with the 'sativex' crap and whatnot
that should be just cause enough to deserve downgrading if not decriminalisation in itself,
Lets hope someone has a better idea..

[ChaosCatalunya]

Publicity in the media is pretty much free, but running a political campaign costs proper money. Running a one subject party is not really a goer in the UK political system, sorry to say. Their time and efforts would be far more effectively spent running a pressure group, use viral videos, doorstepping politicians and generally causing fuss.

The country is teetering out of recession, the quicker and faster it recovers the better. If someone did a projection of the price of enforcement, court, prison and social cost of Cannabis prohibition and also calculated the financial benefits of Colorado style legalisation with tax, roughly like Alcohol is. I bet that it might actually make a difference of say 1% of GDP, that figure and the significance of it to the economy could well be the ultimate political hot potato, the sinal straw for the camel's back.

[Blimey]

Aren't the Greens already pro-legalization? Seems a better place to put your vote, as they have a better chance of winning one or more seats (they have 1 atm), than these guys who will come somewhere near the bottom wherever they run.

If people want to get serious about legalization, they need to convince the editor of the Daily Mail. Whoever wins won't do shit without the DM's blessing, especially not the Tories.

["HEMPEROR"]

well they would,nt get my vote! not yet anyway!

1. for obvious reasons
2. if they do the goverment will tax the fuck out of it!
3. they will still outlaw growing your own but the sentences will be much stiffer as your breaking the law as we do now but also will be doin the queen out of revenue which is a whole other ball game, the tax man wont fuck about lol nrr leave it as it is, it works just fine (for me) anyway lol......... , but i spoze yeh legalise possession or smoking it! thats cool
would any of you guys be happy not to grow anymore and go get bud from the shop where it will probly be priced higher than it is on the street! i like growing weed! gives me sumert to do lol

[foxylady]

Originally Posted by ChaosCatalunya

Publicity in the media is pretty much free, but running a political campaign costs proper money. Running a one subject party is not really a goer in the UK political system, sorry to say. Their time and efforts would be far more effectively spent running a pressure group, use viral videos, doorstepping politicians and generally causing fuss.

The country is teetering out of recession, the quicker and faster it recovers the better. If someone did a projection of the price of enforcement, court, prison and social cost of Cannabis prohibition and also calculated the financial benefits of Colorado style legalisation with tax, roughly like Alcohol is. I bet that it might actually make a difference of say 1% of GDP, that figure and the significance of it to the economy could well be the ultimate political hot potato, the sinal straw for the camel's back.

Indeed it does,, it seems people have this general consensus that alcohol is safer, which in one way, at least they are getting a message out there of some kind.

You are certainly correct on the prices of the aforementioned being incredibly high, with more people continually being dragged into the legal system for the sake of a plant, it's atrocious, understanding the amounts spent on these ridiculous imprisonments would surely accrue for much of the money spent and therefore be a good reason to look at dealing with it more efficiently.

Originally Posted by Blimey

Aren't the Greens already pro-legalization? Seems a better place to put your vote, as they have a better chance of winning one or more seats (they have 1 atm), than these guys who will come somewhere near the bottom wherever they run.

If people want to get serious about legalization, they need to convince the editor of the Daily Mail. Whoever wins won't do
shit without the DM's blessing, especially not the Tories.

Yeah, I heard that, most stoners don't vote and it'd be a good incentive to get down there if it was on the agenda.
You are most correct, the DM seem to be stuck in a time warp, it would be great if someone could get concrete evidence of the medicinal benefits and sway their judgement
Peace,
Foxy

[ChaosCatalunya]

Originally Posted by Blimey

Aren't the Greens already pro-legalization? Seems a better place to put your vote, as they have a better chance of winning one or more seats (they have 1 atm), than these guys who will come somewhere near the bottom wherever they run.

If people want to get serious about legalization, they need to convince the editor of the Daily Mail. Whoever wins won't do shit without the DM's blessing, especially not the Tories.

Yes, but if you read up on the other policies of the greens, you realise that their economic policies are utterly deranged horseshit, they want to collapse the economy "so we can all be equal" . if you do not really understand anything about economics this might appear to be a nice idealistic dream, but the reality is a crude black hole. Have a read what Chavez has"achieved" in Oil rich Venezuela https://www.economist.com/news/americ...s-and-rhetoric

[Blimey]

Originally Posted by ChaosCatalunya

Yes, but if you read up on the other policies of the greens, you realise that their economic policies are utterly deranged horseshit, they want to collapse the economy "so we can all be equal" . if you do not really understand anything about economics this might appear to be a nice idealistic dream, but the reality is a crude black hole. Have a read what Chavez has"achieved" in Oil rich Venezuela https://www.economist.com/news/americ...s-and-rhetoric

Yeah, I'd heard they were neo-Marxist in their economic thinking, but it's not as if they are going to be setting economic policy.

What I'd like to see is an MP or two in the Commons who is willing to argue the pro-legalization case in debates, and I feel the Greens can do that. I imagine there are sitting MPs in other parties who are pro-, but won't rock the boat because they might want to get a promotion one day.

Maybe if the LibDems are not in a coalition post-election, a few of them might pipe up (no pun intended) on the subject, Norman Baker for example.