# 1 Rosie Boycott, Independent on Sunday, 28 Sept 1997 “If alcohol is a tiger, cannabis is merely a mouse”

# 2 Jon Owen Jones, UK MP “We have tried the prohibition route for 30 years and it obviously, patently isn’t working.”

# 3 Judge James Grey, Orange County Superior Court, Santa Ana, CA, at the DPF Conference, November 1996: “If we continue as we have for the past 20 years in California, in the year 2020, everybody in the State will either be in prison or running one”

# 4 President Jimmy Carter: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself”

# 5 The Economist March 28th 1992: “Medicines often produce side effects. Sometimes they are physically unpleasant. Cannabis too has discomforting side effects, but these are not physical they are political”

# 6 Volney Brown Jr., Federal Magistrate-Judge,(retired)., Los Angeles. At the DPF Conference, November 1996: “There is only one thing wrong with drug law enforcement, just one - it doesn’t work. And when I tell you this I want you to believe me because I have done it”

# 7 Detective Chief Inspector Ron Clarke, former member of Greater Manchester Police Drugs Squad: “I got tired of seeing otherwise innocent young kids from all walks of life getting criminal records for, in effect, doing nothing more than millions of other people in society were doing with alcohol”

# 8 Sir Paul McCartney, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997: “I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into criminals is wrong. It’s when you’re in jail you really become a criminal.”

# 9 Ontario Justice John McCart, 1997, (R. v Clay)”Cannabis is not an addictive substance; does not cause a motivational syndrome; and health related costs of cannabis use are negligible when compared to the costs attributable to tobacco and alcohol consumption.”

# 10 Professor Lester Grinspoon, Harvard Medical School, USA: “Marijuana is one of the least toxic substances in the whole pharmacopoeia”

# 11 Edward Ellison, former Head of Scotland Yard’s Antidrug Squad ”I say legalize drugs because I want to see less drug abuse, not more. And I say legalize drugs because I want to see the criminals put out of business.”

# 12 Judge James Pickles, UK: “Cannabis never killed anybody and it’s use is widespread. You can’t stop it. The law defeats itself because all the efforts to stop drugs coming in only drives up the prices and then gangsters move in to push the drugs. If they legalised there wouldn’t be gangsters and huge profits…The police are gradually decriminalising the possession of cannabis because they realise there’s not much point prosecuting”

# 13 Sir Richard Branson, Independent on Sunday, 28th September 1997: “I’d like to see the government back a programme of research into the medical properties of cannabis and I do not object to its responsible use as a recreational relaxant.”

# 14 LaGuardia Commission Report, 1944 “Cannabis smoking does not lead directly to mental or physical deterioration… Those who have consumed marijuana for a period of years showed no mental or physical deterioration which may be attributed to the drug.”

# 15 Robert Sweet, U.S. District Judge, New York ”Finally, the fundamental flaw, which will ultimately destroy this prohibition as it did the last one, is that criminal sanctions cannot, and should not attempt to, prohibit personal conduct which does no harm to others.”

the author is a cannabis enthusiast who is committed to promote the environmental and social benefits of cannabis in general and medicinal marijuana in particular. please follow the link for more information on cannabis and hemp.

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