Cannabis - a high court case against the government?

martin_e

martin_e

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Last week, Edwin Stratton, appeared in magistrates court to defend himself on a charge of cannabis cultivation. He had refused a caution on arrest.
He is running a brilliant and innovative defence claiming that the Government is abusing its power by unlawfully discriminating against those who are in possession of drugs that have been criminalised.

More at http://transform-drugs.blogspot.com/2008/10/government-challenged-on-drugs-law.html

Also, clicking this link - http://www.drugequality.org may help him demonstrate the interest in changing the law.

Basically his defence is that the Government, in rejecting the advice to rate drugs based on harm, is illegally discriminating against those who are using drugs which are equally, or less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. This is illegal under the Human Rights act 1998...
 
The word that the government will play on is the fact that it only relates to "unjustifiable" discrimination. We don't think it's justifiable but there are many people who support the "cultural and historical" use of tobacco or alcohol who would think it was.
 
lala69 said:
The word that the government will play on is the fact that it only relates to "unjustifiable" discrimination. We don't think it's justifiable but there are many people who support the "cultural and historical" use of tobacco or alcohol who would think it was.
Click to expand...

Possibly... I doubt the courts will roll over and say "crap, you're right... it's fine to skin up then".

But nice to see them have to justify themselves a bit.
 
You know I'v been thinking about this and the more I think about it the more I think it's a genius idea, and one that shoudl hav ebeen thought up ages ago (it's so simple:Smile3:). I totally agree that it's wrong that those who like alcohol are allowed to consume, buy, sell, supply and posess their drug of choice (albeit only with a license to sell) yet the rest of us who have other drugs of preference (which in many cases are less harmless, almost completely in the case of shrooms) are prosecuted for being involved in such activities.
 
He may have more of a case than meets the eye. I gather lots of our law was found to be in contravention of the Human Rights Act. Hmm. I'll watch with interest.
 
the govt. will probably say something along the lines of "I R teh man stfu n00b!!1! rofl"
or add clauses to certain laws.
 
Tricky for them to just add stuff to current law. The defence here is that current law is unlawfully discriminatory under the Human Rights Act (which incidentally trumps most other laws). They can't really abandon the Human Rights Act...
 
no but they could argue that they'd ban alcohol too if it weren't for the fact that banning it would cause riots on a massive scale so over all it's safer to keep alcohol legal.

(obviously not in those words and I'm sure they could find more things like riots, civil unrest, tradition, commerce etc to add to their case)
 
I see a fait accompli on the way

IF the government wants to carry on allowing the use of alcohol and tobacco then they will have to legalise some other currently illegal drugs

or

Ban alcohol and tobacco as well

Should cause a problem for the daily mail on how to headline it if nothing else
 
"Alcohol and tobacco damaging to health - shock revelation"

or

"Win a year's supply of skunk - just collect tokens from the next five issues"
 
They could send out lucky dip bingo cards - one square 'may' contain LSD
 
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