Why I Started a Government Petition to Ban Alcohol (and then had a beer to celebrate it going live)

By Chris Shaw

August the 26th and I awaken to find an e-mail sitting in my inbox from the Government. At first I was a little worried. I try and stay out of the Government’s way as much as possible, but I read on and realised they finally responded to the “Make the production, sale and use of cannabis legal” petition that I signed weeks ago and, to be honest, I was very, very annoyed.

I understand the Government’s response. Getting drug policy right in this country won’t get you votes from middle England, where the Tories and Labour have been fighting it out since the 90’s. If anything the Government’s response will help them with that base. Even though a 2013 Ipsos MORI poll suggests that 53% of the UK population support either legalisation or decriminalization of cannabis, we still have a lot of anti-cannabis hysteria in 21st century Britain, mainly thanks to right-wing news organizations and a lack of public figures that call for more liberal laws on drugs.

Another reason is because of big money interests. Do you think big pharmaceutical companies would be happy with a freely available medicine for many ailments to become free to use for anyone? And big booze companies that own the intoxicant market? No they would be livid. It’s not like politicians don’t know what the right thing to do when it comes to drugs laws. David Cameron, as a member of the home affairs select committee on drug misuse, said back in 2002 ‘I ask the Labour Government not to return to retribution and war on drugs, that has been tried and we all know that it does not work.’

Another reason why I understood the response (and let’s keep it real here guys) is that cannabis is a mind altering intoxicate, which can cause adverse effects and health issues in some people. Every substance has different effects on different people, but that’s all a reason for legalization; and none of the health or social issues associated with cannabis are as bad than the ones associated with alcohol.

So when I read the response to the cannabis petition I had a little think … all of their talking points where the same ones they used in America in the 1920’s to push through probation of alcohol. So what if you were replace the word cannabis and swapped it with alcohol? Would it still make sense? I did it and, guess what, it made perfect sense! So I then decided that I would take this straight to the Government in form of a petition to ban alcohol and make it a Class A drug

Now hardly anybody reading this is likely to believe banning alcohol would be a good idea, most of all me. It would bring violence and organised crime to our streets. People would flaunt the laws and start making dodgy batches of booze in their baths with anti-freeze and other such dangerous additives, which people would happily put up with just to get their fix and children will be freely available to start buying alcohol due to fact that no one will care about an ID. Do any of these talking points seem familiar to you?

The point of this petition is not to get alcohol banned for the same reasons we say cannabis shouldn’t be banned. It’s to point out government hypocrisy. The same hypocrisy we’ve been putting up with for years. If the government is happy to say drink responsibly, then why can’t we smoke responsibly?

So please sign my petition. We only need 10,000 signatures to get a response from the Government and that’s all we need to show people they do not really care about our health, but rather their interests and with this petition we can point this out to the wider public and help our cause.

In case you missed it, you can sign online here – https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/106811… remember this is about highlighting Government hypocrisy over cannabis laws, not seriously proposing the introduction of alcohol prohibition in the UK and to see what they say in view of their response to the cannabis petition.