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Margaret Wente at The Globe and Mail writes:

The UK made marijuana possession semi-legal a few years ago, but experienced an explosion of pot use among minors, as well as a sharp rise in harmful effects attributed to more potent strains of weed.

Cannabis use among young people has fallen significantly since its controversial reclassification in 2004, according to the latest British Crime Survey figures published today.

The Home Office figures showed the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who had used cannabis in the past year fell from 25% when the change in the law was introduced to 21% in 2006/07 - still about 1.3 million users.

"The evidence for the existence of an association between frequency of cannabis use and the development of psychosis is, on the available evidence, weak. The council does not advise the reclassification of cannabis products to Class B; it recommends they remain within Class C. [Telegraph]

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A crazy woman, Dr. Ada M. Fisher, was authorized to speak to the press on behalf of the McCain campaign at the NAACP convention. She took that opportunity to make some of the most unfortunate and incoherent remarks about drug use in recent memory:

AF: "…Obama in his book about his father talked about his use of drugs. And I think it’s disingenuous of people to vote for somebody for President when you won’t allow a drug user in any secure or nuclear facility. Yet we as a nation, are willing to consider making somebody President of the United States I think that speaks very poorly…Bill Clinton said he smoked but he didn’t inhale…But he didn’t come out and flagrantly say he used drugs…and if that’s going to be our standard God helps us in nuclear facilities and secure facilities who have this kind of history..and this nation must be very careful when it lowers the bar on who and what it will accept.
…

AF: See, if you admit it, it should disqualify you. Otherwise, we’ll have to let all those people who …applied for jobs in these facilities…There is a reason that those rules are there. I was a detox director for 16 counties in North Carolina , so I have a great understanding about what drugs and what they do to people. And I know that in moments of weakness, people tend to revert those things that they’ve used in the past. I don’t think it’s disingenuous, I don’t think its fair. If I ran for President of the U.S. and I had that history, I would expect people to look at that very carefully. We cannot have a nation high on drugs and have the President… as an example. I’m sorry I disagree with that. [Wonkette]

Note: Pete Guither has more at DrugWarRant, observing among other things that no one seems to have a problem putting recovering alcoholics in the White House.

(This blog post was published by StoptheDrugWar.org's lobbying arm, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, which also shares the cost of maintaining this web site. DRCNet Foundation takes no positions on candidates for public office, in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and does not pay for reporting that could be interpreted or misinterpreted as doing so.)

"Nobody here was a very happy camper," said James Propotnick, the department's deputy director for law enforcement. "People started calling. ... We were notified immediately. I don't think the paper was hot off the press 15 minutes and we started getting calls."

"We just wanted to know the number of people in Hawai'i County who were currently receiving medical marijuana, and they erroneously sent us the list with the actual names."

"It has to do with safety," Propotnick said. "Let's say that there's a whole lot of people who want to steal marijuana and you publish the list with the names and addresses. Now what have we done?”