CLEAR wants you to go to prison

Author: James Collins

CLEAR has recently announced a new means by which, they claim, citizens of the United Kingdom can now legally obtain cannabis medicine with a prescription.  The end has come.  Prohibition is over and Peter Reynolds is solely responsible.  Everyone rejoice!!

Okay, perhaps you can put the party hats away.  Like previous declarations of legality involving Jim Pinky Starr and the infamous “decriminalization” claims surrounding an unexciting set of sentencing guideline changes, this is absolute bunk.  It’s weapons-grade bullshit, once again.  Somebody is going to invade Petoria for WMD violations if he keeps this crap up.

Here’s a screenshot of CLEAR’s Press Release in case it disappears:

The press release by CLEAR claims that their method, exactly the same one employed by Pinky, is now available to all medical cannabis patients.  All you have to do is donate to CLEAR, buy some plane tickets to Holland, bamboozle your GP into prescribing Bedrocan, and then slip the whole affair past customs.

What?

That’s ridiculous, and even if it were legal it provides for a two tier system where access to medical cannabis is determined by your financial means.  Aside from this test of means it isn’t above board.  The statements by CLEAR make it sound as though they applied for an import license, but does not state if they got one, and there is certainly no paperwork pictured in the accompanying material.  All we have is this anecdote about Clarence Clear and a picture of some Bedrocan containers.  Not much to go on, is it?

Well, what if you, the needy medical cannabis consumer, wanted to partake of this brilliant scheme?  According to these statements the first thing you can do is give money to CLEAR.  So, medical cannabis access is for sale, but only through CLEAR and more specifically Peter Reynolds.  Peter claims to be holding the holy grail of cannabis medicine in the United Kingdom, but he will only share his magnificent secret if you give him money.  Did you get that last part?

Yes.  He’s blackmailing medical cannabis consumers with the dodgiest of dodgy schemes.

 

Now, CLEAR has foolishly admitted that if they were to go public with the details of this process the loophole would be immediately closed by government.  That would seem to suggest that it isn’t truly legal, but is in fact sidestepping some kind of regulation in a way that could lead to arrest and prosecution.  CLEAR claims such a prosecution would be unsuccessful, but anyone who knows someone who has been arrested knows how lengthy and stressful the arrest and trial process is.  They are willing to risk that kind of trauma to an already sick individual in order to gain publicity and donations.  They are not offering help obtaining legal counsel in the event this happens.  When the bus comes along you go under it alone.

What kind of sociopath would do that?

It takes a unique degree of self-involvement to go public with this kind of stunt.  If you were to keep doing it in secret it would be one thing, but it looks like CLEAR might have emailed their notification about the secret method to the press.  It’s written like a press release, one that discusses a Student Activities Council election in the school paper, but a press release none-the-less.  That would suggest Peter was unwise enough to send this to places like the Daily Mail, where they will most certainly want to find this loophole and get a cork in it.  So how can it be secret and public at the same time?

Sounds like a bottle of snake oil to me.  Even CLEAR says it isn’t 100%, although they seem hesitant to admit that the consequences of failure could be a serious criminal charge for attempting to smuggle contraband through customs.  That’s really serious stuff, you do time for that.  We’re not talking about a fine here – that’s a real “go to the bighouse” kind of offence.  In case you just crawled out from under a rock to find this article open on a nearby iPad, prison is really bad.

So, Peter declares on behalf of his political party that medical cannabis is now legal in Britain so long as you give him some money and keep your damn mouth shut.  That isn’t much of an open victory, it sounds like an invitation to join a cult.  All you have to do is fork out your entrance fee and Peter will escort you to Nirvana.  No deposit, no return.

This kind of garbage has pervaded the existence of CLEAR.  First we had the Pinky Starr affair where a similar scam resulted in absolutely negative bupkus in the change department, or even public discussion.  Then we have the decriminalization claims which panned out to be nonsense.  Now, in a broken record like fashion, they are reiterating claims that they can help you sneak your weed past customs legally, but not quite legally, and no promises.  How many times are they going to do a victory dance before the game has actually begun?

I wonder if Peter will find a way to serve time for the first person who gets busted trying to pull this trick.  I wonder if they will use their upswing in donations to help fund trips for needy medical consumers to make the trip to Holland for their medicine.  I really wonder if anybody is foolish enough to step up with their donation in hand to play guinea pig for a dangerous experiment in quasi-legal cannabis.  I certainly hope not, because it won’t be Peter Reynolds rotting in a cell cursing the day they listened to CLEAR and their ridiculous claims.