Letter: CONTROVERSY OVER SMOKE BAN APPLIES TO CANNABIS USERS

Source: The Sentinel, Stoke-on-Trent

Date : July 15 2008

Author; Dilys Wood

One year on from the introduction of the smoking ban and once again John Abberley uses his column to defend smokers' rights: 'Smoke ban has seen decent adults treated like criminals' (The Sentinel, July 4).I couldn't agree more John, but once again I feel compelled to point out the comparison with cannabis use.

There is, of course, a significant difference between tobacco and cannabis use; tobacco kills over 10,000 people a year in the UK alone, but no-one has yet died solely due to cannabis use, despite Gordon Brown's misinformed (and indeed illiterate) comment that modern day cannabis is "more lethal"!

Wherever cannabis has been cited on a death certificate, there have invariably been other drugs or factors involved. I understand that our politicians can't know everything about everything, which is why we pay for committees and advisory bodies of experts.

The Government has chosen to ignore its drugs advisory body and reclassify cannabis to Class B to "send a message to young people".

The reality of this is decent adults not only treated like criminals, but actually criminalised and prosecuted.

Possession of a Class B drug carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum sentence for carrying a knife has just been increased to four years.

What message does this send to young people when knife crime has apparently taken over from terrorism as our biggest security threat?

Millions of adults in the UK regularly use cannabis recreationally or medicinally, the demand is enormous. Hence we see police busting cannabis growers with the same regularity as American cops busted 'speakeasies'.

I expect that, in this era of politicians trying to dictate how we live our lives, the majority of people, smokers or not, would agree with John Abberley. I find it hard to understand why people can't see that the same applies to cannabis. To misquote John's final paragraph: "There's nothing more depressing than the sight of kids of 12 and 13 smoking cannabis. And here's an alarming statistic: one in 10 kids under 16 have tried cannabis. I can't think of a better way of promoting health than by tackling this serious problem, instead of turning decent adults who use cannabis into criminals."

DILYS WOOD Stoke
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