Has Cannabis been RELEASED?

Source: https://pr.cannazine.co.uk  (Cannazine Cannabis News) Back in the 1970s, Release was everyone’s friend.  Anyone who enjoyed using cannabis knew that Release was the place to go for advice and the banner around which we could rally to oppose prohibition. That has all changed. Release has turned away from the mainstream and become an uber-politically correct collection of lawyers interested only in more and more esoteric minorities.

Now it is little more than a free legal advice bureau.

I suppose that given the inevitable caution of lawyers, Release was never going to enthuse about the new [cannabis Sentencing] guidelines. Its advice is here – accurate but extremely unhelpful. It has only one campaigning idea, which is to run letters signed by celebrities as national press advertisements. It is a shame that it does not spend its money more wisely and that it cannot assist people effectively with what the new guidelines mean.  As its founder, Caroline Coon, wrote:

“For too long there has been a deep strategic failure of principle, a failure to fight for anti-prohibition policies.  For too long Release directors have been ludicrously unambitious. Release is producing vague, derivative, ‘decorative’ waffle. There is very little difference between what Release says on its web site and what government says in various drug information outlets.  It is dull and tepid. Release does not care. Release does not campaign.”

So neither martyrdom nor cowardice are effective campaigning strategies. That is why CLEAR, now the largest, membership-based, democratically run, drug reform group in Britain takes a different path. We will constantly promote ideas and proposals for regulation. We will gratefully accept any progress that is made, however small, and do all we can to inform and educate those who use cannabis and the public in general. The new sentencing guidelines are massive progress. With the Home Affairs select committee inquiry into drugs policy and the various ballots for marijuana in the USA elections, the end of prohibition is in sight. We are getting there. The weed and, more importantly, the people who use it will soon be free! By Peter Reynolds CLEAR UK - Cannabis Law Reform, PO Box 674, Salfords, Redhill, Surrey. RH1 9BN. https://clear-uk.org Cannazine Cannabis News