DO WE NEED ANY MORE DRUGS?

One deeply-felt conviction unites the thousands of demonstrators who will
be marching though the streets of London today: that the law banning
cannabis is an absolute ass.

It may not be a view shared by the Government, but it cannot simply be
brushed aside. The protest will show that the campaign to legalise the
drug now reaches far beyond the ranks of the young and rebellious.

The marchers will be led by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, supported by a number
of prominent European MPs. A liberal broadsheet is giving the campaign its
backing. And it is not just the fashionable bien-pensants who think the
present law is unworkable. The Mail's Ann Leslie has argued powerfully in
this newspaper that cannabis should be decriminalised.

Their case can seem beguilling. The law in this matter is more honoured in
the breach than the observance. Academic studies suggest that half of all
sixteen-year-olds have experimented with the drug. Millions of adults have
puffed the occasional joint without coming to any noticeable harm. And it
is arguable that cannabis is less injurious to health than either alcohol
or tobacco.

Yet when all that is said, today's demo still does not deserve to succeed.

Yes, the ban on cannabis may indeed be ineffective. But then, so are the
bans on harder drugs such as heroin and cocaine. There were just 333
registered addicts in 1958. Today the number hooked runs into tens of
thousands. Despite police successes - like yesterday's arrest of a Turkish
drugs baron - junkies can all too easily find a fix.

But should the law be changed simply because it isn't always obeyed?