Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate

THE BECKLEY FOUNDATION PRESS

Presents:
CANNABIS POLICY: MOVING BEYOND STALEMATE

Amanda Feilding, director of the Beckley Foundation, convened an international team of the world’s leading drug policy analysts to write a book analyzing cannabis prohibition policies, which has concluded that criminalization has clearly failed to reduce consumption and has shown there to be no link between prevalence and cannabis policy – be it liberal or draconian. Cannabis has become widely used among the population and prohibition policies have only proven to be extremely expensive, intrusive on individual privacy, and socially divisive. The book outlines a full spectrum of alternative policies from depenalization to a fully regulated legal market.

Order Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate from Oxford University Press or from Amazon UK

Paperback: 300 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press and Beckley Foundation Press (Jan 2010)
Language English
ISBN-13: 978-0199581481

Summary:

Cannabis, marijuana, pot, ganja – it goes by many names – is by far the most widely used illegal substance, and accounts for more arrests than any other drug. Politicians the world over have tied themselves in knots trying to decide how to deal with it.

Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate is unique in providing the materials needed for deciding on policy about cannabis, and will be of interest to a wide range of readers interested in drugs and drug policy. It reviews the state of knowledge on the health and psychological effects of cannabis, and its dangerousness relative to other drugs, legal and illegal. It considers patterns of use, the size of illicit markets and the effects of attempts to enforce a global prohibition. It examines countries that have tried reforming their regimes and softening prohibition and evaluates the effects of such changes on cannabis usage, drug markets, and in mitigating the adverse consequences of prohibition. For policymakers willing to look outside the box of the global prohibition regime, the book examines the options and possibilities for a country or group of countries to bring about change in, or opt out of, the global control system.

The book “is based on solid research and it is argued in an imaginative yet realistic fashion…. We need to change our way of thinking and acting on this matter. New policies must be based on empirical data, not on ideological assumptions and dogmas.”
Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil.

“Now it is time for change…. The outstanding scientists who composed this report point the way ahead.”
Jan Wiarda, former chairman, European Police Chiefs.

via beckleyfoundation.org