BAN TOBACCO, LEGALISE CANNABIS ­ ARE WE BARMY?

The law on cannabis is confusing, complains Sir John Stevens, London's
Commissioner of Police. It's not just the law, Commissioner, it's the
national state of mind on this subject that confuses. It strikes me as barmy.

We are agreed, are we not, that smoking cigarettes is bad for the nation's
health. Everything is being done to discourage it. Those who persist in
smoking are drummed out of railway carriages, public places, offices and an
increasing number of restaurants.

Hand-in-hand with this health-conscious campaign goes a determined crusade
to legalise the smoking of cannabis. It is grossly unfair, these crusaders
declare, to license tobacco and alcohol yet deny pleasure to those who
enjoy an occasional spliff.

In the days when I knew something about dangerous drugs, sat on government
committees dealing with them and talked to schools about them, I learnt a
bit about cannabis. In truth the occasional spliff does most people no more
harm than the occasional cigarette or cigar.

But cannabis as a habit will affect different people in different ways,
some of them harmfully. Most of the stuff on sale now is stronger than it
was in the days I studied it, and some of the girls we interviewed
mentioned that relations with the boyfriend had become eerily estranged
since he took it up.

Bear in mind how long it has taken us to discover the alleged perils of
tobacco. Fifty years ago, some of us smoked like chimneys, without a care
in the world. There was a splendid padre in the First World War who won
renown by distributing Woodbine cigarettes to the troops in the front line.
Would he be getting a round of cheers today?

If the next generation chose to smoke cannabis, some of them excessively,
we have no way of telling what the consequences might be for our national
health. I think it unlikely that we would become a fitter nation.

The driving force behind legalising cannabis is threefold. It would ease
life for those suffering certain brands of sickness. It would counter
criminals engaged in selling the stuff. It would wave aloft the banner of
liberty.

Well, fine, but alongside a national effort, backed by ministers, to make
smokers of tobacco feel ashamed of themselves for imperilling their own
health and that of others and so running up bills on the National Health
Service, it strikes me as a funny way to be going on. Yes, "barmy" is the
word for it.

I strive to work up sympathy for the motorist who is going to pay a fiver
more for speeding, but it's uphill work. Speed limits in this country are
treated by so many motorists as guidelines. How far they choose to exceed
them is left to their discretion.

I claim to have some insight into this because, years ago when I lived in
my parliamentary constituency, I learnt on my agent's advice to observe
speed limits in every village to avoid losing votes. After doing this for
25 years, it became habit-forming, and I tend to go on driving through
villages close to the 30mph mark.

What a dangerous indulgence this has become! Invariably there is someone
behind me who wants to go at 35mph, 39mph, or even faster and brings this
to my attention by driving a yard behind me. I would love to know how much
insurance companies paid out last year on cars damaged by tailgating.

As George Trefgarne writes, there is talk by the Church of England of
selling off some of the bishops' palaces. Why do we go on calling them
"palaces"? Most of them are nothing of the kind and it puts the bishops in
a false position.

In the 1930s, when I started to work in London, I was given space in my
uncle's house in Bethnal Green at 17, Victoria Park Square, which once had
been the Bishop of Stepney's palace. It was a lovely residence with a
private chapel and a nice outlook, but it was no more a "palace" than the
house I occupy now.