WHERE THERE'S SMOKE, THERE'S AN ARGUMENT

A law change adds fuel to the debate over cannabis use

Steve, 25, Jamie, 23, and Amit, 30, all liked, or like, a smoke.

Steve tried cannabis at school and was smoking 10 to 15 joints every
evening by the time he was at college.

He lost his job and started behaving erratically. One night, drunk and
stoned in a club, he ate a lump of hashish resin and woke up hearing
voices. He is still being treated for schizophrenia.

For several years Jamie had smoked 20 joints, often of powerful skunk, a
week. He holds down a well-paying office job and says that he has no
problems with motivation or concentration. He says he has never suffered
any adverse effects, let alone mental health issues, and describes his
consumption as a 'positive lifestyle choice'.

Amit smoked 15 joints a day for six years.

'My life was like something from The Office,' he said last week. 'I had an
undercurrent of depression throughout that time. Without cannabis, it would
have been much worse.'

Amit has a new job and stopped using cannabis six months ago. But he admits
it was hard to break his habit. 'There is no doubt I was addicted,' he said.

All three men were heavy users. According to the Independent Drugs
Monitoring Group, a typical user consumes more than 7g of average-strength
cannabis a week.

This year an estimated one in 10 Britons aged between 16 and 59 - about 3.3
million people - will use the drug, although few of them will smoke as much
as Steve, Jamie and Amit.

But little is known about the effects of such broad consumption on people,
on health, on society.

At the end of this month, cannabis will be reclassified from a class B to a
class C drug - putting it on the same level as steroids and tranquillisers.

The effect of the change, and the police guidelines issued along with it,
will make it extremely unlikely that anyone consuming cannabis in private
will be arrested.

Smoking pot in your own home will, in practical terms at least, be legal.
Offend repeatedly or smoke in a public place or outside a school and the
consequences could be severe, however.

Under-18s, say the guidelines, should be arrested, although in reality it
is unlikely that the police will always follow the law to the letter.
Possession can still result in a two-year prison sentence, and penalties
for dealing are also increased.

The changes, recommended first in a report by the Police Foundation, a
council of scientific experts and the Commons Home Affairs Select
Committee, recognise that police rarely arrest and prosecute 'personal users'.

The changes are controversial. Some criticise any move to liberalise drug
laws, others criticise the confusion surrounding the new policy and many
say the changes don't go far enough.

The debate grew more heated again last week when new research by leading
psychiatrists pointed to a strong link between mental illness and cannabis use.

Professor Robin Murray, a psychiatrist at the Maudsley hospital in south
London, published findings stating that cannabis both increases the risk of
serious mental illness and exacerbates existing psychotic conditions.

Murray's conclusions were controversial. His research was not published in
time to be presented to the council of experts consulted by the Home Office
when it decided to go ahead with the declassification.

Critics of Home Secretary David Blunkett's decision seized on it as
evidence that the Government's drugs policy is, in the words of the Daily
Mail's Melanie Phillips, 'reckless'.

But the picture of cannabis use and its effects has more shades of gray
than black and white.

Research at Yale Medical School showed that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) -
the active ingredient in cannabis - can produce a psychotic reaction.

The studies confirmed that no one could sensibly say that cannabis was
'harmless'. However, they did not prove that cannabis was necessarily
dangerous for everyone.

Paddy Power, a consultant psychiatrist with the Lambeth Early Onset Service
in south London, says 70 per cent of the 170 people referred to the clinic
each year take cannabis.

'A proportion of the population is certainly at risk of psychosis from
heavy use of cannabis, but they are a minority and it is possible that they
are already at risk of psychosis for a variety of other factors,' he told
The Observer last week.

Power likens the connection between cannabis and psychosis to the link
between cigarette smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.

'It does not mean one leads inevitably to the other. The more you do, the
more you are at risk,' he said.

Steve, quoted above, is certain that cannabis triggered his psychosis.

'It made me feel instantly crazy,' he said. 'It was like turning on a switch.'

But Steve may have been vulnerable already, backing up the general
consensus that cannabis can make mental illness worse or increase the risk,
but does not cause it.

The issue of psychosis touches on many key debates within the broader
argument over the legalisation of cannabis and, more generally, society's
approach to other drugs.

Is the risk of exposing a vulnerable minority to possible psychosis
outweighed by the harm done to society by criminalising millions of people
who safely enjoy cannabis?

Is it even correct to lump cannabis with other controlled drugs such as
heroin or crack that are far more dangerous.

What would happen if cannabis supply was controlled by the government?

Is it not irrational to focus on cannabis when alcohol, almost all health
professionals agree, is a far more harmful drug and is misused far more widely?

Despite decades of debate, there is little clear consensus over the way
forward.

Peter Coker, who has worked with drug users for nearly 20 years and
currently runs the National Drug Prevention Alliance, opposes the
reclassification, let alone any further liberalisation.

'The reclassification is being read as a signal that there is a more
relaxed attitude to all drugs, and that is very dangerous,' he says.

Bob Carstairs, of the Secondary Heads Association, is also concerned about
the message sent to children by the reclassification.

'There are eight-year-olds trying cannabis. They are simply too young to
make a mature judgment.'

But others criticise the policy for not going far enough.

Francis Wilkinson, a former chief constable of Gwent, says the cannabis
laws discredit all drug laws. 'Children experiment with cannabis and find
it is not harmful. They then think that all the laws, even those dealing
with drugs that are very damaging, are wrong.'

He says cannabis and heroin have a completely different impact on the
individual and on society.

'For example, people who smoke cannabis do not commit crime to get more,'

But major change in drugs legislation is unlikely in the short term, not
least because Britain is bound by a series of United Nations conventions to
keep cannabis use illegal.

Policy is likely to come from the broad moderate consensus represented by
drugs professionals such as Power and others working on the front line of
drugs and mental illness in Lambeth.

Despite his concerns on health issues, Power backs reform.

'The main risk is the extremely detrimental effects on youngsters of being
caught up in the criminal justice system simply because of the recreational
use of a drug that has relatively limited adverse health effects compared
to other drugs and alcohol,' he said.

What no one denies is that millions in Britain will continue to use
cannabis - whatever the legal situation and whatever the health advice.

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LESSONS ON RISK

* In 2000, there were 70,000 convictions for possession of cannabis in Britain

* Most health professionals say education is the critical issue

* British Home Office officials say they know people need to be taught
about the health risks of cannabis

* They are spending 1 million pounds on a campaign to tell Britain about
the new legal situation regarding cannabis use and about the effect smoking
the drug can have on bodies and minds.