BANNING CANNABIS IS IMPOSSIBLE SO WHY NOT CONTROL IT?

'The Gateway To Hard Drugs Is Provided By Criminal Dealers Rather Than The
Substance Itself'

In the cannabis debate, two principles are at war with each other:
pragmatism versus paternalism. The idea that the best policy is what works
confronts the notion that if something is bad for you, then you shouldn't
be allowed to do it. Until now paternalism has dominated policy towards
soft drugs. And perhaps it would have gone on doing so were it not for a
senior police officer in London, Commander Paddick. He read a study that
showed that it costs about UKP 10,000 to bring a suspect to court.

Because of the bureaucratic procedures involved, each case takes two police
officers off the streets for as long as five hours.

To this can be added the costs of the Crown Prosecution Service and the
courts. And for what? A fifth of those charged were given conditional
discharges, and fines averaging UKP 45 were imposed on the rest.

The report concluded: "Arresting individuals... solely for possession of
small quantities of cannabis is an ineffective use of police resources and
does not enjoy community support." As a result, Commander Paddick decreed
that, in Brixton at least, there would be no prosecutions for possession of
small amounts of the drug. Instead offenders would receive a warning and
the drugs would be confiscated. Pure pragmatism. The Home Secretary stated
that he was "interested in the experiment".

The experiment is decriminalisation. The names of those been warned will be
kept on file locally, but the record cannot be cited in any future court
proceedings. It is not legalisation, which would mean that possession and
use of cannabis would no longer be an offence at all. Decriminalisation
retains the principle but renders it ineffective. It is an unsatisfactory
compromise.

For on the streets of Brixton nothing much changes. The same criminals
control the sale of cannabis. Users run the same risks of purchasing
bad-quality or tainted material. Young kids as well as adults can continue
to make purchases. There is the same pressure from dealers for their
customers to graduate to hard drugs. The illegal supply chain operates as
before. From the country of origin to the point of sale, the same brutal
methods of business are employed. There is no diminution in crime, just a
reduction in arrests of more or less innocent, harmless end users.

From a pragmatic point of view, decriminalisation doesn't work well
enough. The merits of the proposals made recently by two former ministers,
Mo Mowlam (Labour) and Peter Lilley (Conservative), are that they would
make a difference to the dynamics of the trade. Sellers of cannabis would
be licensed -- by magistrates, says Mr Lilley. This would take the business
away from criminals. The cannabis products on sale would have been tested
and they would carry a health warning. This reduces the risks for users.
Sales to people under 18 would be illegal, as would smoking in public
places. The trade would be taxed. And as these arrangements are similar to
those for alcohol and tobacco products, we can assume that they would work
well enough.

This is the full extent of the pragmatists' case; what do the paternalists
say in reply? They naturally emphasise the harm to users. Unfortunately
scientific opinion is divided. Susan Greenfield, the highly respected
professor who has studied the brain for 30 years, says that concentrations
of tar, carbon monoxide and cancer agents are at least double those in
cigarette smoke.

As for the comparison with drink, she asserts that about 7,000 milligrams
of alcohol are needed to achieve the mind-altering effect of relaxation,
whereas for cannabis the figure is just 0.3 milligrams. If you have one or
two joints, the skills you need for driving are impaired for a full 24 hours.

Yet the equally well respected medical journal, The Lancet, comments that
"moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health, and
decisions to ban or legalise cannabis should be based on other
considerations". Indeed we don't hear much about health problems that are
unambiguously caused by moderate use. Of course there are heavy users, as
there are heavy drinkers. These people do harm themselves and may harm
others, and all the more so if they already have a tendency to engage in
antisocial behaviour. But a lot of drug misuse is related to social
deprivation. Poverty drives addiction as much as the nature of the
substance itself.

As to whether cannabis is a gateway to hard drugs, the Lancet study states
that there is no way in which cannabis chemically predisposes users to move
on to them. The gateway is provided by criminal dealers rather than by the
substance itself.

I hope I have been fair to the paternalist arguments. For as compared with
the pragmatists' plans for dealing with the problem, I find them
unconvincing. They do not point to massive, ever prevalent harm to users
themselves and to others. In any case. we already live in a society where
cannabis is widely used. The pragmatists say don't ban it, control it. I agree.