CANNABIS IS A HEALTH ISSUE

Sir - The management of cannabis should be a public health concern
rather than a criminal justice issue. There is no logic in treating
cannabis and other drugs differently from alcohol and tobacco.

It is possible to mount a campaign stressing the health dangers of
cannabis without the threat of criminal retribution - witness the
very successful campaign against smoking tobacco.

Our prisons are overcrowded and reclassifying cannabis from class C
to class B will only add to the problem. The policy of prohibition
has manifestly failed, as it did with the prohibition of alcohol in
the United States in the 1920s.

Lord Cobbold, Knebworth, Hertfordshire