CANNABIS IS BAD FOR YOU, BUT IT'S ALSO IMPOSSIBLE TO BAN

It's Far More Important to Educate People About What Dope Does to the
Brain Than Reclassify and Then Crack Down on It

Red Leb, Moroccan black, Afghan brown ... and now Kirkcaldy Brown
too. It was a surprise to find the new prime minister so keen to wade
into the cannabis debate. But battle has been joined. Since
signalling his desire to have dope reclassified upwards, clouds of
scented smoke have been wafting through Westminster.

First, there was the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, with her brisk
admission about her own limited drugs past, followed by half the
cabinet putting their hands up. Then there was the risible suggestion
that it was all a plot to out David Cameron on his illicit history.
Then came a report in the medical journal the Lancet, suggesting that
cannabis users have a 40% greater chance of suffering psychotic
episodes than the rest of us. And yesterday came a whacking for
Gordon Brown in the press, with reports that UKP50m is to be cut from
the drug treatment budget - a sign of hypocrisy if he is also
signalling that the drugs problem should be taken more seriously?

Brown must be wondering if it was worth the original high. There are
two things we know for sure about cannabis: it's bad for you and it
it's impossible to ban. It's bad because of the effect it has on
synapses in the brain. There is too much hard scientific evidence,
from neurologists and psychologists of impeccable credentials, to
play the old game of "Hey, compared to fags and booze, dope's harmless".

This accumulation of facts was enough to produce one of the more
remarkable media about-turns of recent years when the Independent on
Sunday, after a decade of campaigning doggedly for the
decriminalisation of cannabis, produced a front page this spring
headlined: "Cannabis, an apology". After years of recruiting people
to celebrate dope, it now celebrates those who have joined its
campaign to highlight the dangers of what it argues is super-powerful
hydroponic cannabis, or skunk.

You don't even have to base the case on modern, scary skunk. Some new
forms of cannabis are stronger, but, as the Guardian's Ben Goldacre
pointed out last week, the notion that it is "25 times stronger" than
what 1970s dopeheads toked is a gross media exaggeration likely to
ensure that young people don't listen to a word. This is less about
the increasing strength of the drug than about the increasing
strength of medical evidence.

In this, the cannabis argument today is like the tobacco argument in
the 60s. The science is there for those who want to look. But many
addicts look away, and there are still enough excuses and mental
alibis to see you through. The number of smokers was always much
greater than the number of cannabis users, but the mental evasions
aren't so different. In the old days it was, "it clears the tubes"
and "my gran smoked 60 a day and is still going strong at 80". Now,
it's "it calms me down" and "Sara's been a dopehead since uni, and
she's right as rain".

The tobacco (and indeed alcohol) comparisons are worth recalling when
we consider the second thing we know for sure about cannabis - that
you can't eradicate it through the police and the courts. Its use is
too widespread, the drug smuggling and distribution networks far too
large, and public tolerance too high. Ask any teenager whether they
have come across cannabis, or know someone who uses it, and the
answers would horrify most of us. If you really tried to defeat the
drug by a legal crackdown, you'd be building scores more prisons and
keeping the police away from much more important jobs ... and you'd
still fail, just as with the harder drugs.

Where the Independent on Sunday and similar campaigners originally
went wrong was in leaping straight from the failure of prohibition to
call for an end to any legal sanction, and therefore the arrival of
the fully organised modern market in selling drugs. The law isn't the
full answer, but it performs a useful subsidiary role in marking
disapproval and keeping corporate power away. The crucial issue is
consent. To change people's attitudes, education must come first.
It's only when the link with cancer, or in this case with mental
illness, is accepted that the law has any chance of being fully
accepted, and therefore effective.

Take the other great social change of this summer in England and
Wales, the public smoking ban. It is too early to assess the economic
impact. There have been reports of pubs closing down: the Scottish
experience has been of few closures, and rising food sales, but the
Irish have seen a lot of rural pubs closing. As one of those
returning to the pub now the smoke's gone, I've found them absolutely
packed, though this could be more because of the dreadful weather.

But the important point is that the ban, though loathed by many
smokers, has been accepted with remarkable composure. Very few cases
of violence have been reported, and only a handful of examples of
defiance. In contrast to the foxhunting ban, for example, the smoking
ban has gone through smoothly and meekly. Why? Because, I'd suggest,
there is such a widespread understanding of the risks of smoking,
including secondary smoking. The argument was won before the law was
imposed. Even those who curse the ban know in their hearts exactly
why it's arrived.

Similarly, it is much more important to educate people about what
cannabis does to the brain than it is to reclassify the drug and
initiate some cack-handed crackdown. If you want to change cannabis
users, give them sober and honestly presented evidence, not
journalistic exaggeration or political hyperbole. Then they can make
up their own minds, just as millions of once compulsive smokers made
up theirs. Young people aren't unable to think logically or receive
detailed information. They are at least as shrewd as the population
as a whole and faster than most at separating fact from spin.

The same goes for other health and lifestyle problems, including
heavy drinking and obesity. Government can do a lot around the
margins - educating people about exercise and excess, insisting on
proper labelling, raising alcohol taxes, banning advertising that
targets children, providing healthy food in schools and hospitals.
But it can't dig deep into our lives and force us to drink less, or
eat more vegetables, or take up jogging. The nanny state has its limits.

With cannabis, it's the facts, not the wagging finger, that might
bring about reform. A news story about drink, drugs or lifestyle with
a medical correspondent's byline has 10 times the impact of one with
a political reporter's name. It's a simple lesson. It's also one that
politicians - as they wade into the cannabis debate - should reflect on.