CHANGE IS IN THE AIR, SO NOW THE QUESTION WITH CANNABIS IS A PRACTICAL ONE

The debate about the legislation or decriminalisation of cannabis has
moved at such a pace in recent weeks and months that it is no longer
a question of if but when. Yet perhaps a more pertinent question is:
how? Where would the drug be sold? Who could buy it? Who could sell
it? These are practical, not philosophical, questions, and until they
are properly addressed, the debate will take place in a vacuum. For
its part, the Government, sadly, seems unable to confront the fact
that change is in the air.

Four years ago, our sister paper, The Independent on Sunday, launched
a campaign that helped to break the stalemate and moved the debate on
legalising cannabis on to the national agenda. That campaign is now
bearing fruit. The creation of a Royal Commission could help to
establish the parameters of a change in the law.

The latest intervention by Peter Lilley, a beacon for the Tory right
- - and, more cautiously, by Michael Portillo - is a reminder that the
Conservative Party is still capable of causing a stir for the right
reasons. Ann Widdecombe's call for "zero tolerance" last year
backfired when many of the Shadow Cabinet announced that they
themselves had smoked cannabis. Mr Lilley's initiative, by contrast,
is in the spirit of the times.

The Government, meanwhile, shows its unwillingness to face the
inevitability of change by failing even to provide a spokesman to
discuss the issue. And yet, any politician who seeks to set his or
her face against the trend will be remembered, in this regard, as a
latter-day King Canute.

The argument that cannabis is a "gateway drug" to harder and more
dangerous drugs is still often heard - but is stupefyingly illogical.
If a dodgy dealer offers both cannabis and heroin, cannabis may
indeed be a gateway to worse things; but if the corner shop that
offers cannabis also offers Kit-Kats, lager, and smoky-bacon
flavoured crisps (or, as in Holland, coffee and cakes), then the
gateway - though perhaps not ideal, in health terms - can hardly be
seen as lethal.

Despite what some dewy-eyed supporters of change might suggest, that
does not mean that decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis will
reduce the overall drugs problem. Legalisation of cannabis will make
the problems posed by other drugs neither better nor worse.

Nor can health be seen as the key issue. As the Lancet magazine
noted: "Moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on
health, and decisions to ban or to legalise cannabis should be based
on other considerations." Cannabis is less damaging to health than
alcohol or tobacco - though the question of alleged positive benefits
remains unclear; research published in the British Medical Journal
this week suggests that benefits for pain relief may be overstated.
Instead, the main argument in favour of legalising cannabis is dull ñ
that there may be no good reason not to.

By the same token, there is little reason to rush helter-skelter
towards a change in the law. The Royal Commission would allow us to
take the time to get things right - including questions about where
the drug could be sold, as well as the importance of "drug-driving"
testing. Mo Mowlam, formerly responsible for the Government's drug
policy, now advocates reform; senior police officers are equally
relaxed. The change introduced in Brixton this week, whereby
possession of cannabis is no longer an arrestable offence (a classic
British fudge) is only one of many changes yet to come.

The question of "whether" is now almost obsolete. The Government must
finally focus on the important how-where-and-when questions. What it
cannot do is desperately and pointlessly look the other way.