THE PENALTIES FOR CANNABIS USE

Sir, Your correspondent Colin Webster (letter, October 6) supports Ann
Widdecombe's campaign against cannabis on the grounds that it is an
illegal drug and the law should be obeyed.

It is the legal status of cannabis that causes so much trouble. No one
has ever shown that cannabis causes serious harm, and no one has ever
behaved antisocially whilst under the influence of cannabis alone. If
only this was so of the currently legal, albeit controlled,
substances, alcohol and tobacco.

Cannabis's legal status is derived from the actions of the Second
International Opiates Conference of 1924 and the decisions of a
sub-committee which did not involve this country's representatives.
Cannabis was subsequently included in the legislation intended to
control drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

Britain is still stuck with this international agreement; to breach
it implies approval of hard drugs. The consequence is that
successive governments have been forced to ignore report after report
that find no harm in cannabis, and to persist instead in maintaining a
hypocritical stance whereby damaging and deadly substances are
approved but an innocuous substance is vilified.

Not until an administration genuinely seeks to understand the role
that all intoxicating substances play in modern life, and legislates
accordingly, can any progress be made away from the present impasse.

JIM JONES (Senior lecturer, substance misuse studies), School of Human
and Health Sciences, Huddersfield University, HD1 3DH.