CALL TO DECRIMINALISE DRUG

A LEADING Free Church Minister is the latest establishment figure to
support calls for cannabis to be decriminalised.

Professor Donald Macleod, the controversial principal of the Free Church
College in Edinburgh who was at the centre of a damaging church split three
years ago, also did not rule out legalising the drug in the future.

He is likely to enrage the church's strait-laced members with his views.

He describes cannabis as a "mild narcotic", which should be downgraded from
a class B drug. "I am in favour of decriminalisation," he said. "A lot of
police time is being wasted on enforcing the current law on the drug.

"I would decriminalise cannabis now and I would not rule anything out -
including legalisation - in the future once the experience of
decriminalisation has been monitored.

"I have never used cannabis but I have had contact with people who have.
Alcohol causes more widespread harm. The evidence suggests that the link
between violence and alcohol is more direct than that of violence and
cannabis."

Writing in the West Highland Free Press, Macleod adds: "It's as plain as
day that if the aim of current drugs policy is to reduce drug abuse, it is
not working. And if the aim of criminalising cannabis is to reduce the
consumption of hard drugs, that's not working either.

"The policy is broke and if it's broke we should fix it. Otherwise history
will deem us guilty of reckless adherence to dogma even when we knew
perfectly well that all we were doing was producing addiction in epidemic
proportions.

"But cannabis is no longer a minority pursuit. Half the population seems to
have used cannabis. Are we going to fine them all? And where will we build
the jails to hold those who don't, won't or can't pay the fines.

"Alcohol remains the most lethal force in the community. It fuels our yob
culture, livers and brings carnage to our roads. What are we doing about
it? Proposing all-day opening!"

Macleod also attacked Shadow Home Secretary Anne Widdecombe for calling for
zero tolerance on cannabis.

"Her comments were outrageous, yet they bewitched seven members of the
Shadow Cabinet who in previous lives were themselves cannabis users, and
for all we know, a few others who still are," he said.

"The bewitched members have now returned to the real world and to the cold,
grey truth that on Miss Widdecombe's terms they would have criminal records
and find themselves barred from careers in education, social work,
children's homes, the police, the probation service and presumably the
Shadow Cabinet.

"Yet when Bill Clinton admits that he once smoked pot or Francis Maude
comes out as a former cannabis-user or Claire Short calls for a rational
discussion on drugs, it's as if they'd confessed to being SS guards at a
concentration camp."

Macleod's intervention into the debate on drugs is likely to renew concerns
among the Wee Frees over his liberal approach to many social issues. He has
courted controversy before by saying Prince Charles should be allowed to
marry his lover Camilla Parker Bowles and giving his blessing to her
becoming Queen.

However his most notorious collision with the church came in 1996, when he
was cleared of indecently assaulting four women.

He was acquitted at Edinburgh Sheriff Court of five sex harassment charges
after the sheriff said his downfall had been plotted by conspirators
opposed to his reformist views. Some of his opponents had amassed a
mysterious fund to pay witnesses to travel from abroad to give evidence
against him.

Macleod endured a long and bitter campaign to oust him from the church on
charges of heresy.

The charges were dropped after a massive show of support for Macleod among
ministers and worshippers.