TORIES SHOULD NOT LEGALISE CANNABIS

Sir, Peter Lilley's call for the legalisation of cannabis and Michael
Portillo's reluctance to take a firm line against it (report, July 7) look
more like political desperation than political sense. How in the name of
freedom and social responsibility can the need to engage the young or to
win back middle-class parents unwilling to see their children criminalised,
or even for scarce police resources to be used more effectively,
conceivably justify widening the use of what is undeniably a harmful drug
(letters, June 30 and July 7)? As for severing the link between young
people and the drug barons, would not such a move achieve precisely the
opposite result? It is one thing for a trafficker to say to a young person:
"This cannabis is illegal but try it"; it is quite another for him to say:
"If you enjoyed the buzz you got from legal cannabis try this Ecstasy (or
crack cocaine, or heroin) - it will really send you."

If our would-be political leaders do not understand that by making cannabis
legally available more will inevitably use it and the potential market for
harder and even more dangerous drugs will be larger and far more socially
destructive, then I suggest that they spend a day or two in the public
gallery of an urban criminal court, where the reality will become
blindingly obvious to them.

If our Conservative political leaders want to attract more support to the
party they will surely not succeed with a policy which will undermine the
health of the young and create even more violent crime.

Yours faithfully, IVAN LAWRENCE (Chairman, Select Committee on Home
Affairs, 1992-97),. July 8.