CANNABIS EXPERTS ISSUE A WARNING

MEDICAL experts yesterday backed a Home Office plan to make cannabis a
Class C instead of a Class B drug but warned that it remained both illegal
and harmful.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs was asked by David Blunkett,
the Home Secretary, to report on whether the proposed reclassification
announced last autumn should go ahead.

Mr Blunkett is still awaiting the findings of an investigation by MPs due
within the next few weeks before making a decision. A parliamentary order
would then be needed so the reclassification - which means possession of
cannabis would no longer be an arrestable offence - is unlikely before July.

In its report, the council accepted that the current classification of
cannabis was disproportionate in relation both to its inherent harmfulness
and to the harmfulness of other substances that are currently in Class B.

But it said cannabis was "unquestionably harmful" and they were anxious
that the dangers associated with its use were widely known.

Prof Sir Michael Rawlins, council chairman, said: "Cannabis is associated
with some risks to health, but these are less than the risks posed by other
Class B drugs such as amphetamine."

The report concluded that:

The high use of cannabis is not associated with major health problems.

Occasional use is only rarely associated with significant problems in
otherwise healthy individuals.

The harmful effects are very substantially less than those associated with
similar use of other Class B drugs.

Even occasional use, however, poses significant dangers for people with
disorders of the heart and circulation and for those with mental health
problems.

Regular heavy use can result in dependence.

The report said that between 1981 and 2000 the proportion of those aged 20
to 24 who said they had taken the drug rose from 12 per cent to 52 per cent.