It’s cannabis conference week in London this week and the Southbank will be full of besuited types extolling the virtues of corporate cannabis regimes, along with politicians making hay. Meanwhile only miles away in suburbs like Peckham current drug enforcement policies and lack of political movement on overall drug reform and police resources will mean the stabbing and probable death of a young teenager by the end of the week.
The Guardian call it, writing…
Figures you would usually associate with politics will stroll through the venues, such as the founder of industry body the Centre for Medicinal Cannabis (CMC), Steve Moore – a former David Cameron insider – and its policy lead Blair Gibbs, once an adviser to Boris Johnson as mayor of London. They are considered interlopers by seasoned cannabis activists, and are often the object of their anger on social media.
The founder of the Guido Fawkes political website, Paul Staines, who provides public affairs advice to the CMC, may also be in attendance, while the Spectator’s chairman, Andrew Neil, will chair a talk featuring Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb and Tory MP Crispin Blunt, who recently founded the new Conservative drug policy reform group.
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the establishment has hijacked cannabis, and fears that a future recreational cannabis market dominated by corporate interests may lobby against the right for people to grow their own. “If they were in it for helping people, where were they 10 years ago when we were banging the drum?” he asks. “It’s extremely concerning seeing these hard-right figures trying to get involved with cannabis. They’re completely gentrifying it by attempting to persuade lawmakers that homegrown cannabis is unsafe.
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