MP CALLS FOR CANNABIS LEGALISATION

After reports that the son of a Cabinet Minister has been arrested in
connection with a drugs offence, the Labour MP, Paul Flynn, has called for
the recreational use of cannabis to be legalised.

In a statement, Paul Flynn, the MP for Newport West, and vicechairman of
the Allparty Drugs Misuse Group, said: "If the story is true it might help
melt the permafrost of prejudice and ignorance of Government policy on
recreational drug use.

"Will they now realise that soft illegal drugs are the nonaddictive drugs
of choice of most young people even the middle class children of MPs."

"The truth is that 50% of young women and 70% of young men between the ages
of 20 and 24 in the UK have used illegal drugs. The war is lost."

"The only way to reduce drug use and drug crime is to collapse the illegal
drugs market by replacing it with a legal market that can be policed,
regulated and
controlled."

Mr Flynn, a noted leftwinger in the Labour Party, has often commented that
the laws on drugs should be altered to allow people to use cannabis in
their own homes.

The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, has said that the Government does not
intend to change the law in relation to cannabis.