BISHOP TAKES SOFT LINE ON DRUGS

The Bishop of Edinburgh reignited the debate on drugs when he called for
young people to be taught to use cannabis responsibly. The Rt Rev Richard
Holloway, who recently stirred controversy by admitting he had tried dope,
said there was a generational prejudice to drugs.

"For anyone under 45 it is just a part of growing up," he said. "Older
people see no problem with their preferred drugs, tobacco and alcohol, while
our young people have normalised the use of hash." The bishop, head of the
Anglican church in Scotland, called for heroin to be made available on
prescription, cannabis legalised and a royal commission set up to consider
whether drug use should continue to be outlawed.

To a rapturous reception at the Edinburgh books festival, where he was
launching his new book, Godless Morality, Bishop Holloway said a dangerous
kind of fundamentalism had grown around the use of certain substances. "What
gives our society the power to say that this vegetable is bad and this one
is not? The two most dangerous drugs in our lives, the ones that kill the
most people, are legal ones.

"Why can't we have a grown-up debate on the subject. Why is it that every
time someone like Clare Short or a bishop like myself raises the question
they are dumped on by certain sections of the press?"

Bishop Holloway, who is also Gresham professor of divinity at the City of
London university, said religion itself has used the "state of ecstasy"
drugs induce for its own purposes through chanting, dancing and fasting, and
"that we need to get out of ourselves from time to time."

The bishop, who describes himself as an "extremist moderate", said the key
was in teaching children to use recreational drugs wisely.

He said the real danger of drugs was the crime their illegality generated.

He added: "We must always beware those who have a strong urge to punish.
Both with drugs and sex, I have tried to celebrate the virtue of
moderation."