EVIDENCE SUPPORTS LEGALISATION

Sirs,

So the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, is saying that if legalise cannabis
campaigners can show that cannabis is not a dangerous drug then the
Government may reconsider its stance on prohibition.

Strangely enough though, the evidence has always been there. In 1968 the
UK Royal Commission, the Wootton Report, concurring with other major
reports on cannabis, said that cananbis ought not to be illegal and its use
did not pose unacceptable risks.

Since then other reports have concluded that cannabis is not addictive,
does not lead to hard drug use, detrimentally effect memory or motor
skills, and does not cause cancer. The British medical journal The Lancet
(November 1995) said "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not
harmful to health."

The US Drug Enforcement Agency's own investigative judge, Francis Young
(1988), concluded that cannabis is safer than most common vegtables.

The evidence has been there for some time, ignored by successive
governments as they ignore the many acclaimed benefits of smoking cannabis
to many people.

Maybe the arrest of Jack Straw's son has achieved something after all.
Maybe now people will wake up to the fact that this unjust and unworkable
law may eventually lead to the arrest of their own sons and daughters, for
using a safe plant in preference to dangerous intoxicants.

Maybe 1998 will see the start of the most positive step this Government
could make towards healing society - the legalisation of cannabis.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Girling
Chairman CLCIA
Norwich