Cannabis
Debate between George Howarth and Paul Flynn(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Paul Flynn
I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. We look at the United States with incredulity because it does not accept the evidence on gun possession. We can all see the evidence; it has been shown over and over again that the more guns there are in society, the more deaths and murders take place. However, the United States will not accept that. We are in a similar state of denial on cannabis. Many places in the world now recognise that prohibition has been a continuing disaster—a disaster more serious than the prohibition of alcohol in the United States—yet we refuse to recognise the fact.
Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he accept that his analogy with gun control in America proves exactly the opposite point? The problem with guns in America is that there are too many of them and they are too easy to get, so I am not sure the analogy supports his argument in the way he used it.
Paul Flynn
The analogy is with the fact that we deny evidence. We do not look at evidence. As I illustrated, the evidence is that controlling drugs in prison has failed. The Government went to the idiotic palaver of requiring three questions to be asked before they admitted that there is not a prison in Britain free of illegal drug use. The point is about that defensive attitude and the denial of information.
I believe the word is spreading throughout the planet now. In the United States, which was the worst of the lot and the most in denial, four states are now selling cannabis recreationally. Has the sky fallen? Has it been a disaster? It has been a great success. In 2000, we saw politicians of great courage in Portugal introduce a depenalisation scheme. It was unpopular with other politicians, the press and the public, but they went ahead and it has turned out to be a brilliant success in every way. They cut down the number of deaths within five years. They have invested more money in health systems and support systems, and the scheme was widely praised by our own Health Committee when it went to Portugal. It also went to Colombia, and its report in 2012 asked for an investigation into drugs. It based its conclusions, after a year of investigations, on the success of Portugal, but do we talk about that? Are we going to follow suit? We do not have to take the courageous step now; Portugal has done it for us. It has done the work, which has been hugely beneficial.