In the same week that we got a how not to introduce yourself to the electorate masterclass from Renua – or the Irish Tae Party as we’ve taken to calling them – another new political outfit, Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol, was seriously displeasing First Minister Peter Robinson north of the border.

Irking him in particular is that by fielding four candidates in May’s Westminster elections, the Ulster branch of CISTA are entitled to a primetime party political broadcast.
“It shows how ludicrous electoral law and the role of broadcasters has become when we get cranks being given airtime like that,” Robinson fumed. “Why not have Screaming Lord Sutch on the leaders’ debates?”
That could prove tricky with the Monster Raving Looney Party founder passing away in 1999, but we get the DUP leader’s drift.
“We’re definitely doing something right if we’re getting up Peter Robinson’s nose,” says Barry Brown, the former SDLP candidate who’s standing for CISTA in West Tyrone where Sinn Féin’s Pat Doherty got elected last time round in 2010 with a whopping 10,685 majority.
“By entering into a ‘keep Sinn Féin out at all costs’ pact with the Ulster Unionists, Peter Robinson is ensuring that this election is blatantly sectarian,” Brown charges. “They’ve in effect become single issue parties who are saying: ‘All we’re interested in is strengthening the union’. With cannabis not being central to either Nationalist or Loyalist ideologies, CISTA is one of the few opportunities to register an entirely non-sectarian vote. I’m hoping to bring on board a lot of people who don’t have any interest in the mainstream political parties and taking part in the democratic process here as it stands.
“Realistically, with Westminster being first past the post I’m not going to win, but if I got somewhere in the region of 1,500 votes that’d be a good foundation for the Stormont elections, where it’s proportional representation and there will be plenty of second, third and fourth preferences up for grabs. The possibility of there being a CISTA member of the Legislative Assembly next year is quite high.”
Also flying the CISTA flag in Northern Ireland are Glenn Donnelly who spent seven years working in Vancouver’s pioneering cannabis industry, and is running in North Down, where Independent Sylvia Harmon currently reigns supreme; Martin Kelly who has the DUP’s David Simpson in his Upper Bann sights and Neil Paine, a 45-year-old retired British soldier, who’s hoping to unseat the DUP’s Gregory Campbell in so called East Londonderry. The local connections don’t end there with another Omagh man and former Conservative activist, Shane O’Donnell, hoping to make an impact in the London constituency of Holborn and St. Pancras. The party founder is Paul Birch, who owned a chunk of Bebo before it was sold in 2008 to AOL for £548 million. He’s confident that come polling day on May 7, CISTA, which he’s bankrolling to the tune of £100,000, will have enough candidates to secure them party political broadcasts in England, Wales and Scotland too.
“Shane O’Donnell was the catalyst for me standing in West Tyrone,” Barry Brown reveals. “I read an interview about him running in London on Google+ and thought, ‘I can bring a Northern Ireland perspective and relevance to this’.”
Given how paramilitary groups on both sides of the divide have used drugs as a justification for their baseball bat-wielding ‘community policing’, is Brown worried that by questioning their zero tolerance policy he’ll become a target himself?
“Possibly,” he acknowledges. “There are two main towns in the constituency, Omagh and Strabane, where it wasn’t too long ago that punishment beatings were being dished out to anyone who they regarded as being ‘involved’ in drugs. Judges in Derry have not released the names of people in drug cases for fear of reprisals by guys with woolly faces. It’d be the same, though, if I were to canvas in certain areas for the SDLP. Some people just don’t want to listen to opinions other than their own. I will knock on doors where it makes sense to do so, but a lot of the campaign will be run via social media.”
On which some people have criticised CISTA for not wanting to legalise or, at the very least, decriminalise all drugs.
“I don’t think including legal highs or the likes of cocaine and heroin in what we’re trying to do would be beneficial,” says Brown underlining CISTA’s seeming ‘let’s not run before we can walk’ approach. “Personally, I think those legal high shops are doing more damage than cannabis itself ever could do. We’ve a lot of people round here hooked to Magic Dragon, a really dirty type of synthetic cannabis that’s being used because they don’t have access to the real thing. Even hardened drug-users I know are steering clear of it.”
Along with the health benefits of knowing exactly what you’re smoking, Brown believes there are compelling economic reasons for legalising cannabis.
“Last year in Northern Ireland, there were approximately 4,000 cannabis seizure incidents,” he expands. “30 kilos of cannabis resin, 300 kilos of herbal cannabis and 10,000 cannabis plants with an estimated street value of £8 million was recovered. That’s probably only 10% of the illegal market, which if taxed like in Colorado would be worth a huge sum to the exchequer.
“People say to me, ‘Are you not afraid of the PSNI busting your house?’ My answer to that is, ‘In the worst case scenario, I might have a joint or two about me. If they’re going to pull my house apart and take me to court for that, they’ll have to admit how much the legal procedure costs’. An Isle of Man figure I saw was £5,000 for a guilty plea on a £2 piece of cannabis. I don’t imagine it’s much different here.”
The findings of the 2014 Global Drug Survey, which was conducted here in tandem with Hot Press, suggest that the Gardai are turning a blind eye to people caught with cannabis that’s clearly for personal use. Attitudes don’t appear to be softening in the North though.
“A local gentleman, who had his house raided by the PSNI, is being prosecuted on the strength of a tiny amount of cannabis they found in an old grinder of his,” Brown concludes. “I don’t know if they’re doing it to keep police figures up, but him going to court and getting a criminal record makes no logical sense whatsoever.”