Hi THCTalk
I'm applying to join your forum because I've been informed that I have been the subject of some discussion recently relating to the leader of CLEAR, a campaign I am a senior member of.
Some background about me:
I'm in my late 50's now, so I've been around the block a few times. I first encountered cannabis at age 19 in 1973 and I've been a serious activist in the UK cannabis law reform movement since around 1992 or so, although I had been around the original Legalise Cannabis Campaign in the late 70's.
In 1992 the old LCC had died and a new group sprung up in Norwich, where I live. This called itself the Campaign to Legalise Cannabis international Association (CLCIA) and was based at the old Jacks Yard in the city. My approach right from the start was different from most of the others involved in the CLCIA, not least because at the time I was starting to worry about my tobacco smoking. I had been a cannabis user since the early 70's and because of that I had developed a 20+ a day cigarette habit, which had become apparent when I started world travelling at the tail end of the 80's - I could go without the cannabis with no problem, but tobacco was a must have.
I decided back then that the cannabis law reform campaign should be a part of the drugs harm reduction movement that was just starting to get underway and so I contacted the local drugs support group, The "Matthew Project" with the idea of getting them on board. This of course didn't happen, but it did involve me in lengthy debates with them about smoking and tobacco which in 1994 eventually encouraged me to cold turkey off the cigs.
This, as might be imagined, went down like a lead balloon with the cannabis crew, but there was no going back.
My attempts to spread the anti-tobacco message as a born again non-smoker settled down after a while and I tried - without success - to interest the others in the campaign in a safer use campaign as a part of the law reform argument.
Around 1995 the internet arrived and with it UKCIA, a website set up by the dying embers of the old LCC as a cannabis information site. By about 1998 it fell into my hands as webmaster and I have been running it ever since. Originally there were several of us, but as is the way of these things it's been a one man operation for many years now. I took full ownership of the site about 5 years ago.
The Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA) grew out of the CLCIA and started up in 1998. For a while was quite successful, but it was dominated by one person who refused to allow anyone else to take a leading role - and my attempts to interest the LCA in the safer use campaign met with determined resistance so I launched "Tokepure" on UKCIA in 2001, which was met with accusations of being "partial prohibition" and "against the freedom of choice".
Around 2005 I stopped using cannabis - not in the way or for the reasons I had quit tobacco, it was a gradual thing, I think I had taken it as far as it could go to be honest. I remained active in the law reform movement however.
Over the years the LCA descended into a farce and sometime around 2006/7 I had a big split with them. I used to run a forum on UKCIA and it got to the point where they were flooding it with short posts containing long signatures advertising LCA, I asked them to stop and an argument developed, so I banned about three people , which resulted in a massive drop off of traffic - they had been posting under multiple identities. I watched from the side lines as it became a bad joke. For a while the UK420 site ran a decent activist section, but it was also dominated by arguments and some really nasty personal attacks.
During all this time several names cropped up as "regulars" - always involved in arguments and attacks.
By 2010 the LCA had withered to around 50 members and was little more than a bad joke. About this time a new name burst onto the scene - Peter Reynolds (PR). I was suspicious of him at first and decided to keep him at arm's length. He had been a prolific blogger and his blogs were somewhat right of centre, this was something well known . There is no doubt he made a very bad start in the campaign as well but within a very short time he had joined the LCA and been promoted to spokesman. Very shortly after that a vote was held and PR was
elected - fairly and properly - as the leader of the LCA.
Over the first part of 2011 PR set about rebranding the LCA into CLEAR and I liked what I saw. I eventually joined the CLEAR team as website editor and my tokepure campaign was welcomed as a key CLEAR campaign.
Shortly after that the attacks on PR and CLEAR happened. I saw this from the inside. It's been a very nasty, spiteful hate campaign which has been suspiciously well organised. All the regulars are there - the same people who spent much of the past decade at each other's throats were now united against PR and CLEAR. Quite honestly I have never seen anything like this. I do not agree with everything PR says or does, but he has shown himself to be well motivated and a totally dedicated campaigner for law reform over the past year or so. The people attacking him in the main have long been known to me as ineffective at best and trouble makers at worst. The whole anti- PR thing being topped off by a truly disgusting hate site peterreynoldwatch.
So that's me basically, long term owner of UKCIA and webeditor of clear-uk.org. I'm not a cannabis user any longer, but I do remain passionate about law reform. Not because I want to "free the weed", but because I want to stop people getting hurt by a sick, ineffective and damaging law.
Please ask away if you have any questions
Derek
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