THE TRUTH ABOUT CANNABIS

It's Britain's worst kept secret.

Even though it's illegal, more than 15 million people have tried it -
including a third of all British teenagers and, by their own
admission, a select group of Government ministers.

In Real Life: Should I Smoke Dope?, Nicky Taylor, an immersive
journalist and single mum, embarks on a fact-finding mission to discover
the truth about smoking cannabis.

Her journey mimics most people's first foray into cannabis culture -
it's both funny and sometimes frightening.

In order to separate the science from the fiction, Taylor travels to
Amsterdam and works in a coffee shop selling cannabis, seeing
first-hand what the effects of cannabis are on everyday life.

It becomes apparent that the effects are unpredictable - no experience
is the same and it varies according to one's mood, environment and,
crucially, the strength of the cannabis.

In Dutch coffee shops, customers can roughly assess the strength of
what they are buying because cannabis is graded according to its THC
content - this is one of the active ingredients in cannabis that
produces the "high effect".

The problem in Britain is that there is no way of regulating or
knowing what is being dealt on the streets, and the cannabis most
commonly found on sale, "skunk", is very strong.

Going on patrol with Dutch police in Amsterdam, Taylor hears a police
officer make the case for their tolerant attitude to the sale and use
of cannabis in coffee shops.

Back in the UK, Taylor accompanies the Peterborough police who are
concerned about the use of both alcohol and cannabis by teenagers.

She talks to one of the kids who is open about his psychological
addiction to the drug.

She also discovers the huge growth of an underground industry in
Britain's suburbs cultivating hybridised genetically modified cannabis
in ordinary houses converted to greenhouses.