We’ve seen a spate of Reefer Madness driven by the Daily Mail in the media over the last few weeks. There’s an election coming up and the Tories are vehemently sticking to anti cannabis rhetoric.

Respected journalist Jon Snow had a whitey after he took two very strong hits of cannabis prior to being enclosed in an MRI and compared the experience to being in a war zone. This little stunt caused as much laughter as it did incredulity amongst cannabis users, who suggested he do it again, but this time with a pizza listening to Bob Marley and perhaps a lower dosage.

Then we have the Daily Mail’s sensationalist and misleading reporting suggesting that 24% of all psychosis cases are the fault of skunk.

CLEAR has published a revised and updated version 2.0 of its plan for the regulation of cannabis in Britain. This is based on the 2011 study 'Taxing the UK Cannabis Market' which CLEAR commissioned from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit (IDMU).

Peter Reynolds, president and elected leader of CLEAR, said:

CLEAR has published a revised and updated version 2.0 of its plan for the regulation of cannabis in Britain. This is based on the 2011 study 'Taxing the UK Cannabis Market' which CLEAR commissioned from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit (IDMU).

Peter Reynolds, president and elected leader of CLEAR, said:

CLEAR has published a revised and updated version 2.0 of its plan for the regulation of cannabis in Britain. This is based on the 2011 study 'Taxing the UK Cannabis Market' which CLEAR commissioned from the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit (IDMU).

Peter Reynolds, president and elected leader of CLEAR, said:

A co-founder of social network Bebo has launched a new disruptive UK political party centred on the legalisation - and taxation - of cannabis.

Paul Birch, who aided husband and wife team, Michael and Xochi Birch, in founding once momentous social network Bebo, last week launched the Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol (CISTA) to evoke a UK policy change towards cannabis.

After reinvesting his tech industry profits in CISTA, the newly launched manifesto claims the ‘War on Drugs’ has been lost.

It reads: "By reforming cannabis laws, we could raise £900m in duties and cut the deficit by £1.25bn or free up spending on essential public services."

The CISTA logo

When you think of the smell of cannabis, as familiar to some London streets as sirens and the night bus, you don't really think of Tottenham Court Road. For all its alternative religion and dodgy electronics shops, TCR is still part of the culturally bankrupt tourist heart of London. But it's here, in a back alley behind the Burger King-Boots megacomplex, that CISTA, a new political party dedicated to the legalisation of cannabis in the UK, is holding its launch event.

A high-profile parliamentary conference is to be held next month to discuss alternatives to Britain’s failing drug laws and influence the international debate on drugs.

The provisional programme for the conference, to be hosted by the UK parliament’s Commons home affairs committee, includes officials from Mexico’s foreign ministry, legalisation campaigners such as Danny Kushlick, of Transform, and health experts such as Prof David Nutt.

The conference will also form part of preparations for the UN general assembly special session on the world drug problem, to be held in 2016.

(Photo courtesy of Greg de Hoedt / the Brighton Cannabis Club)