STRAW AND PRESCOTT HARD LINE ON DRUGS.

TWO senior Cabinet ministers yesterday joined forces to warn against the
dangers of legalising cannabis.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Home Secretary Jack Straw spoke out
as the fall-out continued from the Tory climbdown on 'zero tolerance'
towards the drug.

An uncompromising Mr Prescott said: "The Government is absolutely right. I
am a hardliner on drugs. I think cannabis leads to use of other drugs and I
am against that.

"I have seen what it does, both in my 10 years at sea and on the estates in
my constituency, so I am not very tolerant of that."

His tough message given during an official visit to Peckham, South London,
echoed the Home Secretary who earlier gave a grim warning about the risks of
cannabis use.

Mr Straw insisted that the dangers should not be under-estimated while also
agreeing that the police should focus on killer drugs.

"Pharmaceologists and psychiatrists tell us that cannabis can have very
severe short-term effects," he said. "The long-term effects include a very
severe exasperation of mental illness and cancer. 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 very harmful will unquestionably
increase. In five or ten years people will say: 'Why have you done this? It
has made us more unhealthy."

He was speaking only hours after an eighth member of the Shadow cabinet,
agriculture spokesman Tim Yeo, admitted that he had smoked cannabis at
university and found it 'agreeable'.

The row erupted at the weekend when Mr Straw's Tory shadow Ann Widdicombe
announced plans for fixed $100 fines for anyone caught with cannabis.

The Conservatives were then embarrassed when several shadow ministers
admitted they had used the drug in their youth. Leader William Hague was
forced to concede the policy needed reworking.

The Home secretary has denounced Miss Widdicombe's zero tolerance proposals
as 'mad' because they did not recognise the proportionate damage caused by
illegal drugs.

But Labour backbencher Paul Flynn, a long-time supporter of legalising
cannabis, said: "Public opinion is ahead of the political cowardice shown by
Labour ministers.

"The brains of the Home Office ministers have undergone a mind meld. There
is one brain and the only way to get new ideas into it is through a
lobotomy.

"I have tried every reasonable means to say that their two basic assumptions
about drugs - that prohibition reduces use and that legality increases use -
are false."

A recent inquiry, led by drugs abuse expert Dame Ruth Runciman, recommended
that cannabis should be reclassified from a class B to a milder class C
drug. She said she hoped that Mr straw might still be persuaded to
reconsider.

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

Yesterday it was also claimed that cannabis may not be as dangerous as
alcohol for drivers.

It is believed that test results from the Transport Research Laboratory at
Crowthorne, Berkshire, indicating this have been passed to ministers.

Meanwhile the Government is preparing to publish a report which is expected
to reveal that the number of drivers found with drugs in their system jumped
from 3 per cent to 18 per cent in the last decade.