AFTER CAMERON, NOW FOR AN OPEN DEBATE ON DRUGS

Nearly one in three British adults has taken some form of illegal
drug in their lifetime. According to new allegations, the
Conservative party leader is one of them. David Cameron is said to
have been disciplined at school over an incident involving cannabis.
Mr Cameron has, in the past, refused to be drawn on claims that he
has also taken cocaine, rightly insisting the matter is private and
belongs to the past.

The revelation that someone in Mr Cameron's position might, as a
teenager, have joined his peers in a dalliance with drugs should
neither surprise nor shock. But since drugs are central to health and
criminal justice policy, it is welcome if a potential Prime Minister
has personal experience to bring to the debate.

Unfortunately for Mr Cameron, the drugs debate is often characterised
by ignorance and hysteria. A wider problem is that public attitudes
to cannabis have been confused by the drug's downgrade from a Class B
to a Class C controlled substance, a move Mr Cameron backed. This
happened just as the cannabis on UK streets was getting more potent
and, arguably, more pernicious. There is much anecdotal evidence and
some clinical proof of a link between powerful 'skunk' strains of
cannabis and serious mental illness. For Mr Cameron's generation,
marijuana has connotations of Sixties hippy culture and harmless
puffing in student dorms. But today's teenagers are smoking a strong
hallucinogen, not a mild sedative.

There is still clearly a distinction to be drawn between cannabis and
harder drugs. A heroin or crack addict might need hundreds of pounds
per day to feed his habit. He can become a one-man crime wave. If a
cannabis user harms anyone, it is most likely to be himself. Many
doctors and a few police officers would like to see a more liberal
approach to drug policy that recognises addiction as a sickness to be
treated rather than a crime in itself. But that view all too often
runs up against kneejerk horror at the prospect of legitimising any
use of a banned substance, even under strict medical supervision.

That attitude ignores one important fact: that drug use usually
starts out as a rational choice. People have always sought recreation
through intoxication. Uncomfortable though it may be for politicians
to admit it, soft drugs, as experienced by many people, are not a
fast-track to destitution. The real issue is what leads some to
dabble only fleetingly while others fall into chronic use, harder
drugs and crime. There are competing social and biological
explanations for why some are more predisposed to addiction, but
either way it is a mundane truth that not all drug users should be
branded as criminals.

Ever since the Baby Boomers took off their paisley shirts, donned
suits and started work, it has been a statistical certainty that many
people in public life will have used drugs in their past. Public
attitudes inevitably change as a result. Barack Obama, the US
Democratic presidential candidate, has admitted to drug use and been
spared the silly contortions that Bill Clinton went through, claiming
to have smoked marijuana, but not inhaled it.

If David Cameron took drugs and emerged unscathed, he would be quite
typical of his generation. His life story, insofar as we know it, and
his liberal approach to the issue in public debate and parliamentary
practice, suggest a modern politician well-qualified to lead an
enlightened debate on the subject. This can only be welcomed when
most policymakers give the impression of being hopelessly out of
touch with the reality of the drug culture in modern Britain.