A pro-cannabis political party has been hit with a large fine for breaking British election law.
Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol, a single issue political group which contested 32 seats at the 2015 general election, was charged £23,000 following “numerous” failings.
The punishment was levied by the Electoral Commission after the party failed to make financial declarations on time and keep proper accounting records.
The cash was divided between a £10,000 fine for the UK national party and a £13,000 for its Northern Ireland branch.
The party is far outside the UK political mainstream, and managed to attain less than 1% of the vote in the majority of the grab-bag of seats in which it stood.
The main advantage of the political project will have been putting their party’s name – a claim with some scientific backing – in front of more than 2 million voters on election day.
A spokesman for the Commission said: “We had significant concerns about this party’s willingness to comply with the rules and the loss of transparency as a result of its unprecedented history of non-compliance. The fines issued in this case reflect the serious impact that this can have on voter confidence.”
Separately, Cannabis is Safer than Alcohol no longer exists as an official UK political party. After failing to complete its annual registration it was struck off the official list of political groups.
The fine is not the first penalty levied against the party, which had already been fined £18,000 for previous breaches.
Funds from Electoral Commission fines are added to general taxation revenue to fund government activity.
As a result, a portion of the party’s cash could, ironically, now be spent on government anti-drugs campaigns, as well as funding police enforcement of drug laws, public prosecutions of drug dealers and their continued imprisonment.
