LEADING FREE CHURCH CLERIC JOINS CALLS FOR CANNABIS REVIEW

ANOTHER senior churchman has entered the debate about cannabis, calling for
the law to be reviewed with a view tolegalisation of the drug.

Professor Donald Macleod, principal of the Free Church of Scotland's
college, said the drug was no more destructive than alcohol.

He believed the official drugs policy was a failure andregarded the argument
that soft drugs can lead to hard drugs with contempt.

Prof Macleod publicly backed the new Liberal Democrat leader, Charles
Kennedy, who earlier this week called for a radical rethink of the
Government's anti-drug policies.

Prof Macleod made his comments in his weekly column in the West Highland
Free Press.

Prof Macleod's views come after the Bishop of Edinburgh, the Most Rev
Richard Holloway, 65, admitted he had once taken cannabis and supported
calls for its legalisation.

Prof Macleod said yesterday: "I do think it is quite illogical and
hypocritical to be trying to criminalise cannabis and at the same time to be
advertising and packaging alcohol.

"I see many young lives ruined by having it on the record that they have in
fact taken cannabis. I am not sure that putting people in prison for
something which is simply harmful is the right thing to do. If we did that
we could all be put in prison for taking sugar.

"By criminalising it we are hiking up the price and the criminal underworld
flourishes."

Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said that a review of
the legal status of cannabis could make matters worse. "We always have to
bear in mind the view of the general public, and what we are seeing is that
they do not want yet another mood-enhancing substance freely available.

"We already have alcohol and tobacco, and if we add cannabis then we add to
the problem, not substitute it. You could seean increase rather than a
resolution of the problems we see at the moment."

Mr Ramsay called for the Government to set up a royal commission to review
all anti-drugs legislation.

Labour is opposed to any relaxation of drug laws, including those on
cannabis. A Government spokesman repeated yesterday that the Prime Minister
saw no value in a royal commission on drugs.

An SNP spokesman said that while the party had a policy not to decriminalise
drugs, it supported a call for a commission.

"There has been a great deal of interest in this topic with Charles Kennedy
and Bishop Holloway speaking publicly about this recently," he said. "We
would welcome a royal commission because then we will have the best evidence
which will enable everyone to make an informed decision. There can be no
harm in knowing as much as possible."

The Scottish Tory deputy leader, Annabel Goldie, dismissed the intervention
of Prof Macleod as "ill-considered".

She said: "Representing as he does a church whose trenchant disapproval of
alcohol is legendary, it seems bizarre to say the least that Prof Macleod
should be supporting the legalisation of a substance which is now notorious
for destroying families and has been, in many cases, the lead in to
addiction to hard drugs."

A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "It is not our place to
comment on policy, but we welcome a debate on cannabis. Our job however, is
to uphold the law."

In his column, Prof Macleod writes: "I believe it is evidentin the world
around us that it [the current drugs policy] has failed. You can see this in
the number of young people who's lives are absolutely destroyed by drugs.

"For the argument that soft drugs lead to hard drugs I have only contempt.
It deliberately omits from the category of 'soft drugs' alcohol and tobacco.

"A heroin addict who has been a life-long non-smoker and a total abstainer
is as rare as an anorexic Sumo wrestler."