The Big Question: Should Cannabis Be Legalised?

Eddie Ellison Retired Detective Chief Superintendent and Former
Operational Head of Scotland Yard's Drug Squad

Why is cannabis illegal anyway? The original, American-exported
arguments came from the anti-black rhetoric of the Thirties, but the
ridiculously exaggerated and embarrassing allegations about the drug
failed to be condemned, and prohibition was not abandoned alongside
the shameful racism that accompanied it.

Today, a wide range of policing representatives, respected members of
the medical profession, large sections of the British judiciary, most
countries of Europe and even the majority of the polled public
recognise that continuing to criminalise cannabis use is illogical,
futile and entirely unjustified; only the politicians remain fearful
of adopting more permissive legislation. They monotonously continue to
condemn youth for preferring a drug that is recognisably less harmful
than their parents' alcohol or tobacco; home growers for reducing our
trade deficit; and medical users, such as multiple sclerosis
sufferers, for responsibly choosing a natural, traditional herb for
their bodies. Simultaneously, they destroy potential careers and waste
precious resources within the police, judiciary and
laboratories.

Our cities, our roads, our children and our health would be far safer
with a mass migration from today's public houses to tomorrow's
cannabis cafes.

Ann Widdecombe Conservative MP

If cannabis were to be legalised, then all the dealers' profits would
come from hard drugs, which they would consequently push much harder.
Furthermore, if it were legal, more people would try cannabis and, as
a percentage, find it a gateway to hard drugs - the actual number of
people going through that gateway would increase. Already, the medical
profession is sounding alarm bells about the harm done by cannabis,
but the lesson of cigarettes and alcohol is that once something is
legal, then, no matter how harmful it may subsequently prove to be,
prohibition is thereafter impossible. When I was at university, so
little was known about the harmful effects of tobacco smoking that the
authorities used to allocate smokers and non-smokers to the same
bedrooms. Keeping the barrier of illegality is therefore essential to
the nation's health.

Baroness Greenfield Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford
University

Absolutely not. There is increasing evidence that it affects mental
prowess. The argument that it doesn't kill you, while of course being
valid, assumes that that's the only important issue surrounding the
use of cannabis. And for me, almost as important is the issue that we
may be compromising people's potential in all kinds of ways,
especially the potential of young people; legalising cannabis would
help to create a society where people have impaired cognitive skills.

There is also the increasing evidence that there is a higher incidence
of depression and schizophrenia among cannabis users. Do we want a
society in which a large number of people are more at risk of that? As
a neuroscientist, I am concerned primarily with mental function and
bringing out people's potential as individuals. If we send out signals
that a drug culture is OK, then I think perhaps we are not realising
our full spectrum of skills, ability and individuality.

Chief Superintendent Kevin Morris President of the Police
Superintendents' Association of England and Wales

I believe cannabis is a health problem rather than a legal one, and
enforcement of the law, while a necessary measure, will never be a
satisfactory solution.

The Government's decision to inject UKP183m into drug treatment over the
next three years is certainly welcome news. Education must also
feature heavily as a tactic in deterring people from using cannabis,
but even that is not straightforward.

Campaigns aimed at "frightening" young people have been proven not to
work; they simply do not believe the message. Perhaps we can learn
something from the campaigns that are aimed at drink-driving and
tobacco smoking - both of which have been significantly reduced in
recent years. We have not achieved that by banning the use of alcohol
and tobacco, or by targeting and arresting adults who use them
responsibly, but rather through honest education. Whether cannabis
should have been made illegal in the first place is a debatable point.
Would making cannabis legal now help a healthy-lifestyle campaign? I
believe not - it is too late.

Lauren Booth Writer and Columnist

My views used to be very strongly in favour of legalisation, but now,
with time, they have become as unfocused as the Government's. On the
one hand, having smoked it a lot during my life, I can see that it has
done me no harm and I've had some fun, and I think it even adds some
positive value to society on one level; but on the other hand, a lot
of the studies are showing that long-term depression and other
illnesses are related to smoking it. So I think, certainly, get it to
MS sufferers, get it to the terminally ill patients, get it to the
people with certain cancers, for pain relief. For the rest of us, I
think that just declassifying it rather than actually legalising it is
where I stand now.

Dame Helena Shovelton Chief Executive of the British Lung
Foundation

Our recent report "Cannabis - A Smoking Gun?" found that smoking pure
cannabis can be just as harmful to the lungs as tobacco. The most
important issue to the BLF is that the public are fully aware of the
health implications so that they can make an educated decision. Many
people, especially teenagers, believe that cannabis is a healthy,
"safe" alternative to tobacco.

Yet tar from cannabis cigarettes contains 50 per cent more carcinogens
than tobacco. And the health dangers of cannabis have substantially
increased since the 1960s, because of the increased amounts of THC in
the cannabis consumed today.

But the BLF report is not about the moral rights and wrongs - or
indeed the legalisation - of cannabis. Rather, it's simply there to
make sure that everyone is completely clear about the respiratory
health risks involved. Respiratory health issues are often ignored in
the cannabis debate, and the Government needs to consider implementing
a public health campaign on the risks before it is too late.

Commander Brian Paddick Police Officer Who Introduced 'Softly Softly'
Policy on Cannabis in Lambeth

The legalisation of drugs is a matter for politicians, not police
officers. The issue for police officers is deciding what policing
priorities should be, taking particular account of local views and
resources. Cannabis is harmful and, like alcohol, taken to excess it
can be very damaging. There is a need for reliable, credible and
non-judgemental information to be more widely available, particularly
to young people, such as the "drug-rap" initiative of DrugScope and
the Black Police Association. Cannabis is clearly not as damaging as
other controlled drugs, and, in terms of criminal penalties and its
position in the police priority list, it should be lower than heroin
and cocaine. The Home Secretary is making difficult decisions around
the reclassification of cannabis to ensure the law is reasonable and
credible. Senior police officers need to be equally brave and make
similarly difficult decisions to ensure consistency and
proportionality of enforcement.

Shane Collins Green Party Drug Spokesperson and Licensee of the 5th
March and Festival to Re-Legalise Cannabis

Banning cannabis, said the comedian Bill Hicks, is like claiming that
nature made a mistake. Quite apart from being an astonishing act of
human arrogance, the anti-cannabis laws also represent a violation of
fundamental civil rights.

It is a simple truth that if you prohibit anything for which there is
a demand, you create a criminal market. That was learnt in the US
during Prohibition in the Thirties, and is being painfully relearnt
now in the UK.

Prohibition does not work. How many more of our young people do we
have to criminalise before we realise that? Britain has some of the
harshest drug laws in Europe, and yet this country also boasts the
highest rates of drug use. By now, more than half the population
should, strictly speaking, be classed as criminals - because they
have, at some point in their lives, smoked cannabis. Yet what the law
of the land should do is reflect the will of the people.

Isis Amlak Mature Student and Mother-Of-Two

We as adults should be allowed to make choices about what we do to
ourselves. People choose to drink alcohol, which is more damaging, and
smoke cigarettes.

I'm not what you would call a strict Rastafarian sister, but I'm
conscious of my history as an African person, and I'm aware of the
impact of the prohibition on cannabis on my community, on
Afro-Caribbean people in particular. Cannabis is an integral part of
the Rastafarian faith. While these laws are in operation, they give
the police more leeway to oppress and persecute black people. There
are also all the medicinal reasons why it should be legalised. I just
see the law as a political tool being used against the people who
indulge in cannabis use.

Itabarica Napthali President of the Haile Selassie Peace
Foundation

I don't think there's anything wrong with decriminalising cannabis for
medicinal purposes and for people who use it for their spiritual
purposes, such as ourselves. To me, the herb is for the healing of the
nation. I don't think it's something to be smoked in public, like
cigarettes. Especially in the western world, everything is fast, and
our minds move so fast that we have to slow down and meditate to
become more calm. Cannabis helps to slow the mind down.

Lezley Gibson Multiple Sclerosis Sufferer and User of Cannabis For
Medical Reasons

Yes, it should. I got multiple sclerosis 18 years ago when I was 20; I
was told that within five years I would be incontinent and in a
wheelchair. I started using cannabis three years later - I'm 38 now,
and none of those things has happened to me.

Before I started using cannabis, I was on the usual downward spiral of
MS sufferers, getting worse and worse. Now I have a quality of life. I
can function and I don't need constant attention. I feel like a normal
human being most of the time - which is a bonus in itself, never mind
the fact that it helps with bladder control, bowel control, spasm,
pain, my eyesight and speech.

I smoke three spliffs a day at the most. People who grow it give it to
me. But I've been arrested a couple of times, and am now a "criminal"
who can't get house insurance. After the first arrest, 13 years ago, I
was given a two-year conditional discharge. The last time, in 2000, I
was found unanimously not guilty on the grounds of medicinal necessity.

Viv Craske Editor of Mixmag, 'the World's Biggest Dance-Music And
Clubbing Magazine'

I believe cannabis should be legal for one reason and one reason only:
it's really good fun. Smoking dope doesn't make you run about thinking
that the drivel you're talking is deeply profound (like Ecstasy), make
you spend three hours drawing psychedelic swirls on your knee (like
LSD) or turn you into a soulless, thieving sociopath (like smack).

Instead, weed makes you piss your pants at Monty Python, stare
enraptured at Disney films and walk away from a Radiohead gig
believing it has changed your life.

Cannabis should be legal because it makes serious people silly. Which
is probably why politicians aren't exactly racing to submit that White
Paper. Have a crafty evening spliff and soon you'll be lying on the
sofa, ordering a 12-inch thin crust and forgetting all about the
stress of your job, your red-lining bank balance and why Tony Blair is
such a poor, misguided fool.

Weed makes you giggle like a carefree eight-year-old and reach
profound revelations about life, the universe and everything. All this
for just a UKP12 bag of a naturally occurring herb.

What The Law Says

The reclassification of cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug will
not transform Britain into a smokers' paradise. Guidance issued to the
police ahead of the relaxation of the cannabis laws this year will
make it clear that smoking dope remains a criminal offence.

But instead of arresting first-time users, officers will issue a
caution. Anyone who receives three warnings will be liable to arrest
and a conviction leading to a maximum two-year prison sentence.
Juveniles under the age of 18 will face automatic arrest for
possession, as will anyone who refuses to surrender the drug if they
are asked to by police.

In the meantime the current law remains in force; a serious case of
possession can incur a five-year jail sentence and a discretionary
fine. And even after reclassification, as a Class C drug, the offence
of supply will still attract a maximum sentence of 14 years.