Bulgaria Plans 15 Year Jail Terms For Single Spliffs

Authorities in Bulgaria are planning to introduce draconian new anti-cannabis laws shortly which mean smokers caught with minuscule amounts of spliff will face between 3 and 15 years in jail, Alternet revealed this week.

The new 'zero tolerance' approach could have devastating consequences for those caught breaking the law, since according to local civil rights organisation the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, Bulgaria's criminal justice system is both overcrowded and brutal.

"Law enforcement officers commonly beat suspects and inmates, and beat and mistreated minorities. Arbitrary arrest and detention were problems," they said in a report published this February.

"Conditions in some prisons and detention facilities were harsh, and there were some instances of prolonged pre-trial detention," they added.

The former Soviet satellite state's move towards zero tolerance of cannabis, came as respected British medical journal the Lancet published a report examining the linkage between mental health issues and cannabis which concluded that the drug is unlikely to cause behavioural or emotional problems.

"The evidence that cannabis use in itself causes psychological and social problems is not strong," declared chief researcher John Macleod, PhD.

"This does not mean that cannabis is harmless, it means the evidence is weak."

The Lancet based their conclusion on data from 48 different studies.
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