CANNABIS SCARE FAILS TO IGNITE

Campaigners Insist Drug Is Less Dangerous Than Tobacco

A claim by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, that cannabis was two to four
times more dangerous than tobacco was challenged by drug law reform
campaigners last week. Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired the Police
Foundation's landmark inquiry into the drug laws this year, insisted that
although cannabis was not harmless it was still less dangerous than alcohol
or tobacco.

Meanwhile Yvette Cooper, the Public Health Minister, became the latest
politician since Ann Widdecombe's "zero tolerance" initiative on cannabis to
admit that she has tried the drug. In doing so she joined Mo Mowlam and
Charles Clarke, but virtually no other member of Tony Blair's government, in
admitting what at least nine Tory shadow ministers (and President Bill
Clinton) have owned up to, though few have admitted enjoying it.

Mr Straw, who said he had never used cannabis, argued that the law should
not be changed, because pharmacologists and psychiatrists had testified that
the drug could have very severe effects. "The long-term effects include a
very severe exacerbation of mental illness and also include cancer," he
said. "It is reckoned that cannabis is between two and four times as
carcinogenic as tobacco. If cannabis were legalised, then consumption of a
drug for which the evidence is very strong that it is harmful will
unquestionably increase."

The Home Office later said Mr Straw's claim had been based on evidence given
by the British Medical Association (BMA) to a House of Lords inquiry into
whether cannabis should be licensed for medical use.

But cannabis reform campaigners complained that Mr Straw was not comparing
like with like. While a cigarette smoker might get through a packet of 20 a
day it was highly unlikely that somebody would smoke 20 joints a day. They
also said that if Mr Straw's only argument was that it was dangerous to
smoke cannabis, then it would be a recipe for everybody to eat it instead.

Dame Runciman's inquiry report quotes the BMA's conclusion that "the acute
toxicity of cannabinoids [the active ingredient] is extremely low: they are
very safe drugs and no deaths have been directly attributed to their
recreational or therapeutic use".

She said: "Our view is that cannabis is not a harmless drug, but in terms of
the main criteria of harm, which are mortality, morbidity, relationship with
crime, addictiveness, etc, it is less dangerous than all the other main
illicit drugs, or than alcohol or tobacco."

Labour MP Martin Salter called for a "grown-up debate", and said it was time
to set up a royal commission: "I would rather have a drugs policy looking at
drugs that kill, rather than criminalising 6m people who use cannabis."

* Children in Britain use cannabis more than in almost any other country in
Europe, according to a report by the European Union's drug monitoring
agency. Use of cannabis by British children is 30% to 40%, along with
Ireland and the Netherlands, compared with 5% to 7% in Portugal and Sweden.

The figures also show that one in 10 British adults is using cannabis, while
across the EU one in five people has tried it once.