A HIPPIE CHICK AND THE BISHOP OF EDINBURGH MAKE STRANGE COMRADES, BUT THE
30-YEAR-OLD CANNABIS DEBATE FORGES SOME UNHOLY ALLIANCES

RICHARD Holloway, the Bishop of Edinburgh, is an unlikely campaigner for the
legalisation of cannabis, but this week he weighed into the debate started
by flower-power children in the Sixties, admitting he has tried the drug and
calling for the law to be reviewed.

The head of the Scottish Episcopal Church is the latest in a long line of
establishment figures who have recently questioned why the laws governing
the use of cannabis have not been changed. His intervention has been
welcomed by those who have been fighting the battle, unsuccessfully, for 30
years.

The bishop says he is no radical, but simply cannot understand why the drug
is still prohibited despite scientific evidence that it is not harmful and
mounting proof that policing its ban is both costly and ineffective.

"I am not wanting people to take drugs," he says. "I am simply saying people
do use them and we should have sensible policies about them. I use them
myself in that I drink alcohol" .

"I don't think it can be seen as a crime. Something that people want to do
in enough numbers that does no harm to anyone else.

"Some people for some reason like to drink cream sherry. We don't forbid it
because we don't like it. As long as it is handled in a responsible way and
we teach our young people in particular to live moderately and to use these
recreational substances moderately, then that's the wise policy."

The Bishop's words may have shocked some, but his argument is not new.
Caroline Coon, who has been at the forefront of the campaign to
decriminalise cannabis for 32 years, yesterday applauded Bishop Holloway's
stand, which echoed most of the views she has advocated for years. "What
Bishop Holloway has stated is humane and brilliant," she enthuses. "If a
bishop can safely drink a dram or two of malt whisky then he can surely
smoke a joint."

Coon, then a 19-year old art student, founded Release, a drugs advisory
charity in 1967, soon after Mick Jagger was convicted of being in possession
of pep pills, bought legally in Italy.

Jagger, who was given a three-month prison sentence, was among hundreds of
young people being arrested in the late Sixties for drug offences. "People
were being arrested and literally disappearing off the streets for days,"
says Coon, now a successful artist and one-time manager of the Clash, living
in west London.

"In the last 30 years we have seen hundreds of thousands of pounds being
spent in a totally unworkable law against drug use," she adds. "The paradox
is that as more people have become socialised to using recreational drugs,
the law itself has become more punitive. Prison sentences are massive.
Prisons are full of working-class people and the drugs policy encourages a
kind of mafia, the illegal manufacture and distribution which has brought
the whole of the law into disrepute."

According to Home Office statistics there were 2,393 convictions for the
possession or use of cannabis in 1967, the year Release was founded. In
1997, 86,034 people were found guilty and fined or cautioned for possessing
the drug. "Legal reform has not followed social change," says Coon.

"Compare drugs with other issues of the Sixties such as homosexuality,
abortion and women's liberation. In the early Sixties you were sent to
prison for homosexuality, now you have Government ministers who are openly
gay. Prior to the Sixties if a young, unmarried girl was pregnant she might
be sent to a mental hospital.

"These days most rational people agree an individual has a right to do with
their body what they like, but that is not a right you have about drug
taking. In 1969, in the first Release report, I said the law must be able to
prevent the ill effects of drugs misuse, while the individual is allowed the
fundamental right to do with themselves what they choose. The law does not
stop alcoholism or addiction but what the law does in relation to alcohol is
punish anti-social behaviour. You could have exactly the same law for
marijuana" Coon remembers being able to purchase tincture of cannabis on
prescription 32 years ago. "Today it is really scandalous that it is not
available as a medical treatment," she says.

The bishop agrees with Coon on this point also. In a new book, Godless
Morality, Bishop Holloway argues that cannabis can be an effective pain
reliever. "Cannabis has a medical use. In my book, I give examples of
terrible symptoms that are alleviated by cannabis and I think the BMA are
coming round to this, and I think the Government is slowly moving on that."

Since the Bishop spoke out about his views on drugs this week, he has been
criticised both in the press and by some politicians. Some have even called
for his resignation.

While Charles Kennedy, the leader of the Liberal-Democrat party, agreed with
his view that the law should be reviewed and called for a Royal Commission
into the subject, Tony Blair remains opposed to decriminalisation, and Ann
Widdecombe, the shadow home secretary described calls to change the law as
"irresponsible". She was quick to reveal that the Tories were considering
introducing on-the-spot fines for possession of cannabis.

Bishop Holloway dismisses the attacks, claiming that the authorities and
some sections of the press are nervous of the drugs issue and find it easier
to argue to retain the ban than to discuss change. "It may well be because
the people who take leadership in changing the law, namely the politicians,
are for some reason more nervous about this area than almost any other.

"One of my takes on that is that because there seems to be on the part of
the most influential sections of the press a complete down, even on any
debate or discussion, and I think the politicians probably run scared," he says.

"I don't want to be unfair to them because many may well profoundly believe
in the prohibition as policy, but I would have thought that they would be
pragmatic enough to know that the prohibition policy isn't working. It is
profoundly divisive, and extremely costly - certainly as far as cannabis is
concerned, as it is a relatively low-grade drug."

Bishop Holloway is not the only establishment figure who has called for a
rethink on the drugs laws, particularly those in relation to cannabis. Apart
from Charles Kennedy, Lord McCluskey, a senior Scottish judge, has voiced
doubts about the effectiveness of the laws relating to cannabis, saying it
should be decriminalised.

Many of those who signed a petition drawn up by Release in 1967 - including
David Bailey, George Melly and Tariq Ali - have not changed their views .
When Mick Jagger was arrested in 1967, William Rees-Mogg, the then editor of
the Times, wrote a famous editorial: "Who Breaks A Butterfly On a Wheel?"
Challenging the heavy-handed tactics being used against drug takers.

In 1992 Simon Jenkins, the then editor of the Times, stated cannabis should
be decriminalised on Panorama. Even the Prince of Wales has hinted where his
sympathies lie concerning the medical use of cannabis, recently asking a
multiple sclerosis sufferer if she had tried the drug, and saying that it
was apparently one of the best things with which to treat the pain.