SAY NO TO THE INQUISITION

Sir - Both drug laws and drug education must be reality-based
(leading article, May 22). Children who realise they've been lied to
about cannabis often assume that harder drugs such as heroin are
relatively harmless, too: a recipe for disaster.

The Commons Home Affairs committee recently concluded that "the harm
caused by illegal drugs varies immensely from one drug to another.
Since most users and potential users know this, there is no point in
pretending otherwise." While Britain increasingly favours commonsense
approaches to drugs, the culture wars are heating up in America.
President Bush is now pushing "compassionate coercion" for users of
non-traditional drugs, with America's millions of cannabis smokers
the likely target.

Like any drug, cannabis can be harmful if abused, but arrests and
criminal records are hardly appropriate health interventions. Unlike
alcohol, cannabis has never been shown to cause an overdose death,
nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Unfortunately,
cannabis represents the counterculture to misguided reactionaries
intent on forcibly imposing their version of morality. Britain should
just say no to the American Inquisition.

Robert Sharpe, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington DC