LEGALISE CANNABIS, SAYS LABOUR ADVISER

Drugs In Britain: Special Report

A key government adviser last night advocated the legalisation of cannabis
as part of a radical overhaul of political and cultural institutions in
Britain.

Lord Haskins, a Labour peer and chairman of the better regulation
taskforce, said the BBC should take advertising, the Church of England
should be disestablished and the country's main sporting bodies dumped.

In a wide-ranging speech that surprised delegates at the Radio Academy's
annual gathering in Glasgow, Lord Haskins predicted a complete break-up of
the United Kingdom, leading to economic and cultural decline, if his
warnings were not heeded.

Lord Haskins's views - particularly on the BBC - are likely to be taken
seriously, as he is regarded as an important adviser to the government in
areas of regulation.

The BBC's charter is due to be reviewed in 2006, and the debate over its
future is under way.

But it was the peer's remarks about drugs that caused most surprise. "The
state perseveres with some moral regulations which are mainly symbolic and
largely ineffective in protecting the young, such as rules against
under-age selling of tobacco, drink and lottery tickets, and total bans on
drug selling," he said. "Such regulations are, if anything,
counterproductive. The excitement of breaking them becomes a stimulant."

Such rules simply "criminalise the market", he said.

Lord Haskins said he believed cannabis should be legalised, and that harder
drugs could be made more readily available on prescription as part of
medical programmes to treat addicts.

The peer's stance is sharply at odds with government policy. The home
secretary, Jack Straw, has taken a tough line on illegal substances, and
will not countenance any relaxation of the laws governing hard drugs. He is
also opposed to the decriminalisation of cannabis - let alone its
legalisation. The government's only concession to campaigners has been to
permit limited trials to test the drug's medical benefits.

In last night's lecture, which was sponsored by the Guardian Media Group,
Lord Haskins delivered a wide-ranging attack on the state of regulation in
Britain, and called for radical institutional reform.

Bodies such as the MCC (now the England Cricket Board), the Football
Association, the Lawn Tennis Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf
Club should be scrapped. "They gave the world the games of cricket,
football, tennis and golf, but have, through their privileged,
unaccountable incompetence, reduced British sport to the third division."

He could see no need for the restrictive licensing laws, which served only
to encourage hooliganism, nor any justification to maintain an established
church.

Any attempt to regulate the internet "to prevent it from doing moral damage
to us" would be a "fruitless exercise". People should be free to download
pornography if they wanted, so long as it did not harm a third party.

The monarchy should be reformed, and the House of Lords abolished. He also
criticised Prince Charles's stance on GM foods, saying advances in
technology were of great advantage to poorer countries.