Recently, everyone’s favourite Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, set a few disturbing proposals to House of Commons, following advice by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (AMCD), regarding the sale of cannabis seeds and smoking paraphernalia. Let’s have a little look, shall we?
The AMCD recommends investigating:
“whether it might be practical to bring cannabis seeds within the scope of the Misuse of Drugs Act”
and also recommends that:
“The Home Office should assess the extent to which the trade in cannabis paraphernalia might be more effectively regulated”.
So wait, everyone ignores the AMCD unless they agree with your agenda? Brilliant! As if stopping the sale of king-size rizlas will result in massive, country-wide decline in pot smoking, anyway…
Enter The ATA
Naturally, this dick-move is a very unsettling one for anyone that sells cannabis seeds, or smoking paraphernalia, such as myself. Enter the ATA — the Alternative Trade Association! They describe themselves as a “coalition of UK wholesalers, attempting to stop these misguided proposals becoming law”. They not only provide you with a weath of information about the subject and how to keep your business safe (including updates about any future legislative changes), but they also have plenty of retained legal muscle to defend any action taken against the industry.
They’re also setting up a website, Smoke-Aware.co.uk, to educate people on the risks of smoking and the problems drug use can bring. On top of that, they’re also apparently planning to launch some kind of media campaign, but I’m not too sure what that will involve.
For a start, it’s great to see people not lying back and taking this crap, so well done ATA! Let’s hope we can get everyone involved — surely there’s strength in numbers? With any luck, these ridiculous proposals will be nipped in the bud before our government start looking any more stupid.
For any internet-marketing-savvy wholesalers out there, signing up gets you a search engine friendly, high quality link directly to your site. That can only help you in the search engines. On the downside, they do require all members to link back to them, which automatically makes me somewhat wary. But for all you get in return, one link back isn’t going to hurt. 
Update: It seems herbal highs are under threat as well. Current Government: “Let’s ban everything until we know it’s safe” — I can hardly see them actively allowing the sale of anything, can you?
