DEBATE: CANNABIS CONFUSION

Is the Government sending conflicting signals about the use of cannabis?

TOO much hot air is wasted on young cannabis users. What about the over-50s
who have been using it for 20 or 30 years? Tony Blair does not realise that
there are votes to be gained from legalising cannabis properly.

Four alcohol and tobacco outlets in my street sell killer toxic substances
legally, but Class C brings me no nearer to being able to buy cannabis that
is fit for human consumption. Growers can still use pesticides, middlemen
can still include henna, nutmeg, coffee, animal dung, wax and more
dangerous contaminants to bulk it out and shippers can smuggle it in sewage
or diesel tanks so that pollutants penetrate the wrapping. As long as
cannabis is of such poor quality people will have to smoke it in an effort
to destroy germs, rather than eating it to avoid damage to the lungs.

All I want is legal parity for cannabis with alcohol and tobacco so I can
grow a few organic plants of my own or buy cannabis chocolates from the
newsagent.

Linda Hendry, linda@anamika.freeserve.co.uk

SPINNING POT

FOR years the public has been receiving unequivocal messages from police
and government spokesmen about the high and rising level of drug-related
crime. Now that this Government is on a path to reclassifying cannabis, we
need some honesty about Home Office projections for the increase in
burglary, mugging and other drug-related violent crime which, according to
their past pronouncements, will inevitably follow increased cannabis abuse.
The increase in such crime must have a seriously adverse effect on police
resources to combat hard drugs.

Or could it be that the Government is planning either to decriminalise
cannabis-related crime or to supply free cannabis on demand (or both)? Had
he been alive today, Karl Marx might well have said "spin is the opium of
the people".

Brian Morrison, Esher, Surrey

DAVID WHO?

DAVID BLUNKETT is being widely (and tiresomely) accused of sending "a mixed
message" on drugs to the young people of this country. Why do so many think
that any message is being received by that audience? How many of the target
group of young people even know of Mr Blunkett?

Robert Battye, Halifax

DANGERS OF LIBERALISATION

I HAVE just returned from a week on business in Amsterdam. I found it
everything I had been led to believe. Next door to a watch-repair shop was
an open-air heroin "bazaar" where grown men felt no compunction about
loosening their fly and answering nature's call in front of eight-year-old
passers-by. The amount of filth allowed to remain in the streets, broken
and used needles, weed "baggies", and food wrappers, while the authorities
obliviously walked by, was astonishing. In truth, I did not witness any
violent crime; I was told there was very little, as the attitude of the
authorities was so permissive that there was no need; criminals felt
comfortable without the need for violence.

I am not sure why editorialists continually laud some European countries'
"progressive" drug laws, but I can only imagine it is because they have
either never visited these places, or they are deliberately attempting to
deceive their readers.

Davian Edwards, Nashville, Tennessee

HALF-HEARTED POLICY

I AM mystified by Labour's decision to downgrade cannabis. Once again,
there does not seem to be any joined-up thinking from the Government. I am
in support of the legalisation of cannabis as long as it is controlled via
coffee shops or even the police.

If proper measures of distribution are not put in place then our children
will still be buying cannabis from the same dealers that are encouraging
them to take the harder or more addictive drugs.

Daniel Griffiths, Worcestershire

THE DEMON DRINK

CONGRATULATIONS to Simon Jenkins for a spot-on piece (July 10). What I find
so galling about the cannabis debate is the staggering hypocrisy of the
anti brigade, who sit over a glass of wine, pontificating on how smoking
cannabis is a certain road to heroin addiction while completely ignoring
the facts about their own preference.

The British Medical Association has stated that alcohol is a factor in 65
per cent of murders, 75 per cent of stabbings, and 50 per cent of fights
and domestic assaults. Police superintendents advised that alcohol is
present in half of all crime.Smoking a joint is a relaxing experience, it
makes you feel good about yourself and other people, you don't feel sick,
you don't get a hangover, you certainly don't become violent and, in 99.9
per cent of cases, you don't become a heroin addict. Yet, as Mr Jenkins
pointed out, the maximum penalty for supply of cannabis is now on a par
with rape and manslaughter.

Mr Blunkett is an intelligent man but his cannabis policy is idiotic.

Alistair Johnson, Epsom, Surrey

ALCOHOL ADDICTION CHEAPER

SIMON JENKINS wonders why the Government takes risks with alcohol but not
with heroin. The reason surely is that it costs only ?10-20 per day to be
an alcoholic, so an alcoholic is unlikely to commit crime to finance the
addiction. A heroin addict, on the other hand, needs a few hundred pounds
per day to finance the addiction and is thus very likely to commit crime to
get the money, with consequent severe social consequences.

E. Housley, Edinburgh

RE-EDUCATE ABUSERS

I CANNOT think of any other sphere of human activity which causes such
misery, expense and corruption as is engendered by our laws relating to the
distribution and consumption of drugs.

However unpalatable it may appear, we should legalise the sale of these
substances and use our resources to treat and re-educate those who
seriously abuse them -- just as we do, quite successfully, with alcohol and
tobacco abuse.

John Bevan, Camberley, Surrey

WHAT'S A REBEL TO DO?

I'M FEELING very confused at the moment, but not in a nice way, like when I
smoke cannabis. No, it is more the things that I am hearing from my elders
and betters, particularly those who choose superiority as a profession.

Obviously, I am incapable of making up my own mind about what to do with my
life; so like millions of others in this country, I hang on every word that
comes from political types before deciding what to do with my life.

I've smoked cannabis as regularly as most people drink, since the age of
about 15. I'm now 31 and much to the amazement of all those who know that
I' m a regular smoker (not least of all myself), I am still managing to
live comfortably in SW1, and continue to earn a six-figure salary.

Now, the source of my confusion: in the good old days, when I started
smoking dope, it was quite clear that I was a rebel, and the smoking of
weed established those credentials proudly and clearly for all to see (I
figured this was more emphatic than just not voting -- none of my friends
vote). Now it appears that cannabis smoking is likely to become acceptable!
What is a rebel to do? I do have a contingency plan: I am going to wait
until my politically disaffected generation gets around to making
politicians socially unacceptable, and then I'll join all three major
political parties simultaneously. If that doesn't maintain my rebel status,
nothing will.

Oh well, time to roll another fat one.

Stephen Winspear, London SW1