CANNABIS DEVASTATES LIVES - WE WOULD BE MAD TO LEGALISE IT

Our house is full of the memorabilia of cannabis. When I go to the airing
cupboard, I sometimes inadvertently pull out the England duvet cover and
matching pillowcase with their sprinkling of small, brown-edged burn holes.
These date from the time, not very distant, when our son's bedroom was a
spliff-making factory and we lived in fear that the whole place would go up
in flames.

Hidden under the rug by his bed there are contemporaneous scorch marks.
Among the video collection still lurks the box without a name where he used
to stash Rizla papers, bits of torn-off card, lumps of hash, vacuum-sealed
pouches of weed and a small penknife. On summer nights, Rob uses the
electric fan that was once an essential part of his cannabis armoury: he
acquired it in a futile attempt to disperse the fumes.

In the hall is the jacket in which he was arrested. In the garden, a green
wheelbarrow that he found useful to transport our CD player and speakers to
the pawn shop a mile away. Even the empty spaces tell their story - spaces
where two electric guitars and an amplifier stood before they were
similarly carted off to raise money for mounting cannabis debts.

Time has not made us foolishly fond of these relics. I think the reason we
haven't got rid of them is that their presence is salutary: they remind us
of war, how unremittingly awful it was while hostilities lasted, and how
lucky we are that peace has broken out. It was bad enough watching our son
turn into a complete stranger and dealing with the awesome practical
consequences of living with a thief, a liar and a dopehead. But by far the
most painful part of the experience was not being able to help him out of
his cannabis-induced neuroses.

We first noticed that something was wrong when Rob, aged 15, developed
puzzling signs of a social conscience and an interest in other people. "How
was your day?" he would ask. He started to worry that he was boring his
friends. Why couldn't he, the life and soul, think of anything entertaining
to say? He imagined that he had every disease in the news - BSE, ME, a
brain tumour - and would examine the pupils of his eyes obsessively.

He stopped going out, became vague and complained about not being able to
sleep at night. It was only a matter of time before he bunked off school,
pleading that he couldn't remember anything in lessons. We started to smell
smoke on his clothes and his breath and, on the few occasions when he did
go out, he returned glassy-eyed, raided the fridge and then crashed out
spreadeagled on his bed, unwashed and fully clothed.

When we raised our suspicions about cannabis with our GP (who had diagnosed
adolescent depression and prescribed a mild anti-depressant), we were made
to feel old-fashioned and reactionary. The family psychotherapist also took
an indulgent view of Rob's minimalist confession about "the odd joint in
the park", even though, by this time, we were noticing that saleable goods
were disappearing - first his and then ours - to fund his cannabis habit.

For a year, until we found a counsellor who shared our view of the dangers
of cannabis, Rob was addicted. He suffered from paranoia and flashbacks.
Normally, he knew right from wrong but now he was in a moral fog. Black was
white, white was black, and nothing really mattered anyway.

He was excluded from school for rolling a joint in the playground and
arrested for tampering with a van while doped up. (The police confiscated
lumps of cannabis resin but did not press charges.) For a week, we put him
under house arrest, taking turns to supervise him behind locked doors and
windows. We could not give him money for trainers, revision books or a
haircut because by the time he reached the shops, it had gone. People we
had never heard of would phone, using first names only, for assignations.
He came back from these meetings white with anxiety.

In the middle of Rob's GCSEs, which, naturally, were not going well, he was
hounded to meet a deadline for a large amount of cash. To begin with, we
had paid £30, £40, even £60 to get suppliers off his back - each debt was,
of course, always the last. This time, he needed £180. As we headed yet
again for the cash dispenser, I asked what would happen if he did not pay.
His answer was flat and wretched. He would be head-butted for the first
non-payment. Then, it would be the baseball bat. Finally, he would be
tipped into the canal. All this to finance a "recreational" drug.

If cannabis were to be legalised, the debts would be smaller and the
criminality lifted, but the psychological damage would remain. And,
post-prohibition, it would affect more people. Young children who think it
clever to smoke and drink will turn to cannabis as the next risque thing
that grown-ups do. It will be as easy for them to mess up their heads and
their education as it is for them to get legless on cider in the lunch hour
- - only with more permanent adverse effects. Cannabis, a crude drug
containing more than 400 chemicals, is presumed to be less unhealthy than
tobacco. But its concentration of tar, carbon monoxide and cancer agents is
at least double that found in cigarette smoke. It can take up to two years
for all traces to leave the brain. Common sense suggests that cannabis,
like nicotine, could be a gateway drug: those who try it will sooner or
later look for bigger kicks. The 10 per cent of the population who are
susceptible to addiction and start taking cannabis could therefore develop
cross-addictions.

But, if you have lived with a young person distorted by dope, the argument
that cannabis could be the gateway to hard drugs - frightening enough - is
somehow beside the point. It is perfectly capable of undermining families
and personalities on its own. Advocating a change in the law that would
make "recreational" use of cannabis more common is tantamount to writing a
blank cheque for the eventual treatment of its victims.

Nothing will persuade me that cannabis - up to 50 times stronger today than
it was in the 1960s - is not a dangerous substance. Sleeplessness, lack of
motivation, short-term memory loss, paranoia, aimlessless, depression . . .
Have the liberalisers thought this through? It is irresponsible to send out
the message that a drug that can produce these effects in some users is a
tolerable addition to our social life. I have a wheelbarrow to remind me
otherwise.