IoS Conference LIGHTING UP WESTMINSTER

"IT'S EASY to see why it's called dope," declared the leaflet, bravely.
"Only a dope would be stupid enough to use it, and only a stupidly corrupt
or criminal person would try and get their 'friends' to also use it." It
was a valiant attempt at disinformation, published under the copyright of
someone calling themselves E Kenneth Eckersley CMS, HSDC, FIOD, FIMgt,
FISMM, MCIM, HonMPHMA (Int). But, distributed to delegates of an open
debate on the decriminalisation of cannabis, held by the Independent on
Sunday on Thursday, its message largely fell on deaf ears.

The event, at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre "a stone's throw
from the Mother of Parliaments", brought together 700 people the washed
and the unwashed, Christians and weedworshippers, delegates wearing
headtotoe hemp and Armaniclad politicians under the heading "Cannabis:
Should It Be Decriminalised?". And as the platform speakers began their
speeches under the gentle chairmanship of Channel 4's Jon Snow, the debate
also spilled over on to the conference floor.

After this newspaper's editor, Rosie Boycott, and Professor John Strang, a
director of the National Addiction Centre, had opened the debate, Barry
Clark, who has multiple sclerosis, was first on his feet. "A few years ago
I was told that I had three years before I ended up in a wheelchair," he
said. "But my neurologist, doctor and pain therapist all told me to take
cannabis and I'm still walking today." He looked puzzled. "I have got to be
a criminal to grow and take cannabis. I just want to know why I can't smoke
it in my own home."

The Labour MP Austin Mitchell declared himself openminded on the subject.
"I'm here to exhale rather than to inhale," he told delegates. On behalf of
the Alliance for Cannabis Therapy, he had last week approached the Home
Office to discuss making the drug available on prescription, but he had
been told there was "no political will". He was confused because the reason
the Home Office gave was that there was no research yet it was also
refusing to commission any.

"Meanwhile, thousands of MS sufferers are being forced into the
backstreets, into illegality," he said. The comparable prescription drug,
Nabilone, was addictive and had serious sideeffects, where cannabis did
not. "The law is coming into disrepute," said Mr Mitchell. "It is
absolutely wrong that MS sufferers should be treated in this way."

A psychiatric nurse in the audience wanted to know when prison governors
were going to be locked up, given that knowingly permitting a person to
smoke cannabis on your premises carries a heavy sentence.

Then a man, who introduced himself as Dr Franklin, declared he had bad news
for the conference. Cannabis was unhelpful for Parkinson's disease and,
indeed, made it worse, he said to a chorus of disagreement. "It does work,"
said another member of the audience who suffered with the disease. "It's
not a cure, but it alleviates the condition and helps you sleep. The first
time I smoked it, I woke up and wondered if I'd got my old legs back." He
shook his head sadly. "It was only for a couple of minutes, but it was
absolutely worth it."

The Body Shop founder, Anita Roddick, spoke of a need for compassionate
lawmaking, and a man wearing a suit declared he had used cannabis for 20
years and still held down a responsible job. The Conservative MP Barry
Evans urged the conference to count the human cost of decriminalisation.
Psychiatric hospitals were full of patients who had smoked large amounts of
strong cannabis, he said.

He then became entangled in a long metaphor about "unscrambling eggs".
Alcohol and cigarettes, he said, were eggs already scrambled, but it wasn't
too late for cannabis which was still unscrambled. There was also the
problem of unscrambling the medicalmarijuana question from the
recreationaluse issue. People at the front claimed he was talking like a
dopehead. Mr Evans said he was used to voicing unpopular views. "After all,
I am a Welsh Tory," he said, to applause.

A member of the audience wanted to know whether Cow and Gate babyfoods were
a "gateway drug" a substance which leads to harder drug use. After all,
some people who had used C&G had ended up on heroin. Another woman was
concerned about the dangers of Cocopops, which young people were attracted
to because they tasted nice. It may have been that she thought they might
lead to harder cereals, like bran flakes. Or, perhaps she meant Alcopops.

The handsome Italian MEP Gianfranco Dell'Alba took the audience by surprise
by declaring himself in favour of legalising, not decriminalising cannabis.
And why stop there? "Legalise all drugs!" he cried, standing at the podium
in his Armani suit. One or two activists were seen to swoon, although that
could have been the effect of a large basket of hashbrownies, slowly
making its way through the audience.

"I'm Dutch and I don't think the policy in the Netherlands works," declared
a woman in leather trousers only to be interrupted by someone also
claiming to be Dutch who thought decriminalisation worked. "No, I'm Dutch!"
shouted the first woman. In the end they agreed they were both from the
Netherlands.

Mike Goodman, director of the drugs charity Release, explained that more
people had died playing association football than from using cannabis. The
exact score was 98 to the footballers and nil to the cannabis users. At the
current rate of arrest, a million people would have been charged with
cannabisrelated offences by the millennium, he said.

He paraphrased the philosopher John Stuart Mill: "People should have the
right to have control over their own lives, provided they do not harm
anybody else." Mr Goodman welcomed any move to decriminalise cannabis and
called for a watchdog, Ofpot, to be established to act as a qualitycontrol
agency. "I think a lot of people would volunteer for a seat on that
agency," he said to cheers.

Dressed entirely in hemp clothing, a young man who had changed his name by
deed poll to Free Rob Cannabis, said he would shortly begin a jail sentence
for possessing cannabis. He was looking for sponsors for each day he was in
jail. The money would go to his charity, the Free Medical Marijuana
Foundation, which supplied cannabis to Multiple Sclerosis, chemotherapy and
glaucoma patients free of charge.

Professor Colin Blakemore, more usually at odds with the green activist
contingent of the audience as an advocate of animal experimentation, drew
applause from the crowd with his support for the Netherlands' policy. It
had proved useful in "decoupling hard and soft drugs", he said. In the
Netherlands, 2 per cent of the population had used cocaine, while in the US
it was 33 per cent. "The decriminalisation of cannabis would be a sign not
of weakness but of political maturity for this government, in which we have
so much hope." He suggested that the Independent on Sunday should ask
Formula One to sponsor its campaign.

David Partington, of the Evangelical Coalition on Drugs, compared his role
at the conference to that of Christians entering the arena in Roman times.
"We're still going strong after 2,000 years," he said. But he seemed to
sense the approach of Armageddon, "when pleasure and instant gratification
become the determining feature of [society's] conscience at the expense of
the individual."

Mr Partington had recently met a man with a son, whom he would call James,
who had nearly died from a "cannabis overdose". "There are thousands and
thousands of Jameses outside the sophisticated building that is the Queen
Elizabeth Conference Centre," he said. Inside the sophisticated building an
unmistakable smell was already wafting from the traditional direction of
the back row, despite the QEII conference centre's firm nosmoking policy.

"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you,"
said Mr Partington, noting that his slides had somehow got rather jumbled up.

Lynn Zimmer, an associate of the Soros Foundation and coauthor of
Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, invited the audience to forget all about
the weed for a minute and think about sex. We were to imagine a married man
and a married woman spending a night of passion in a hotel room. What they
were doing had the potential to cause hurt to both the couple and their
families, and in many people's eyes it was "immoral, wrong, harmful".
"Should adultery be made illegal?" she asked. Should the government declare
a war on adultery and on flirting, the gateway to adultery?

As Mr Snow drew the conference to a close delegates lined up by Free Rob
Cannabis to explain they were suffering from a range of illnesses and could
they please get on his freecannabis mailing list? A few people said the
debate had changed their minds. "I would never have been seen dead at a
place like this a year ago," said one man, looking ill at ease, "but since
my son went to prison for possessing a tiny amount of cannabis, I've
decided to do my bit."