LEGALISING CANNABIS 'WOULD BREAK TERRORIST LINK'

The government could afford to take the political risk of legalising
cannabis as a first step to breaking the link between drugs and terrorism,
Mo Mowlam said yesterday. Speaking at a London conference on the Colombia
drug problem, Ms Mowlam, who as Cabinet Office minister was responsible for
drugs policy between 1999 and 2001, dismissed the government's
reclassification of cannabis, announced earlier this summer, as unworkable.

"[It is] the young person's drug of choice. It's ridiculous that it's
illegal. It's making young people break the law, and not helping anybody.
You can buy it, smoke it, but not sell it. It doesn't make sense."

Last month Ms Mowlam used an article in the Guardian to explain her
conversion to legalising the drugs trade on the grounds that illicit
profits fund paramilitaries in Colombia, and perpetuate conflicts and civil
wars around the world. After it appeared, she said, she received nearly 700
emails - all but half a dozen supportive.

"Most governments have failed in trying to deal with the problem," she told
the conference. "We have to take radical action. There are people who
support it in both [main] parties but there's not enough to get a change.
There's a great electoral fear [that legalisation] is not going to be a
vote winner.

"I believe you can go for legalisation of cannabis first of all. If you
legalise, you won't do away with the market immediately, but you dent it
severely. It has the advantage that you can regulate and control it
[through tax]."

The outgoing Colombian ambassador, Victor Ricardo, said: "Colombia cannot
carry on this fight on its own. This problem is not only the responsibility
of producing countries."