Source: Letter in Daily Mail, UK

Date: 12 January 1998

Author: Tina Smith

LAW IS THE HEIGHT OF HYPOCRISY

THE arrest of William Straw, the Daily Mirror journalist and another man for the alleged small cannabis offences illustrates the injustice of the law, which bans the plant.

In a public house where alcohol - a dangerous, addictive, legal drug - is sold, a small amount of a plant produced recently described as "remarkably safe" by Professor Lestor Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School, yet illegal, was sold. Prosecution of this is the height of hypocrisy.

The fact that the journalist asked the youth to get some cannabis as a basis for the story makes the reporter the only one of the three so far arrested upon whom any allegation of harm could possibly be laid.

The annoying thing is that the cost - both economic and to police time - will come out of the public pocket. To what end? Punishing someone for a crime without a victim. A fine example of continuing British justice.

Now that the cannabis laws can be seen for what they are, let's get rid of them, and the concept that the nanny state is more capable to decide what we can smoke, and bring back in the right to freedom of choice.

Tina Smith

Norwich