Subj: UK: Leading Free Church cleric joins calls for cannabis review



Date: 20 Aug 1999



Source: Scotsman, The  (UK)

     



Leading Free Church cleric joins calls for cannabis review  

MAIRI MALLON  





ANOTHER senior churchman has entered the debate about 

cannabis, calling for the law to be reviewed with a view 

tolegalisation of the drug.



Professor Donald Macleod, principal of the Free Church of 

Scotland's college, said the drug was no more destructive 

than alcohol.



He believed the official drugs policy was a failure 

andregarded the argument that soft drugs can lead to hard 

drugs with contempt.



Prof Macleod publicly backed the new Liberal Democrat 

leader, Charles Kennedy, who earlier this week called for a 

radical rethink of the Government's anti-drug policies.



Prof Macleod made his comments in his weekly column in the 

West Highland Free Press.



Prof Macleod's views come after the Bishop of Edinburgh, the 

Most Rev Richard Holloway, 65, admitted he had once taken 

cannabis and supported calls for its legalisation.



Prof Macleod said yesterday: "I do think it is quite 

illogical and hypocritical to be trying to criminalise 

cannabis and at the same time to be advertising and 

packaging alcohol.



"I see many young lives ruined by having it on the record 

that they have in fact taken cannabis. I am not sure that 

putting people in prison for something which is simply 

harmful is the right thing to do. If we did that we could 

all be put in prison for taking sugar.



"By criminalising it we are hiking up the price and the 

criminal underworld flourishes."



Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said 

that a review of the legal status of cannabis could make 

matters worse. "We always have to bear in mind the view of 

the general public, and what we are seeing is that they do 

not want yet another mood-enhancing substance freely 

available.



"We already have alcohol and tobacco, and if we add cannabis 

then we add to the problem, not substitute it. You could 

seean increase rather than a resolution of the problems we 

see at the moment."



Mr Ramsay called for the Government to set up a royal 

commission to review all anti-drugs legislation.



Labour is opposed to any relaxation of drug laws, including 

those on cannabis. A Government spokesman repeated yesterday 

that the Prime Minister saw no value in a royal commission 

on drugs.



An SNP spokesman said that while the party had a policy not 

to decriminalise drugs, it supported a call for a 

commission.



"There has been a great deal of interest in this topic with 

Charles Kennedy and Bishop Holloway speaking publicly about 

this recently," he said. "We would welcome a royal 

commission because then we will have the best evidence which 

will enable everyone to make an informed decision. There can 

be no harm in knowing as much as possible."



The Scottish Tory deputy leader, Annabel Goldie, dismissed 

the intervention of Prof Macleod as "ill-considered".



She said: "Representing as he does a church whose trenchant 

disapproval of alcohol is legendary, it seems bizarre to say 

the least that Prof Macleod should be supporting the 

legalisation of a substance which is now notorious for 

destroying families and has been, in many cases, the lead in 

to addiction to hard drugs."



A spokeswoman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "It is 

not our place to comment on policy, but we welcome a debate 

on cannabis. Our job however, is to uphold the law."



In his column, Prof Macleod writes: "I believe it is 

evidentin the world around us that it [the current drugs 

policy] has failed. You can see this in the number of young 

people who's lives are absolutely destroyed by drugs.



"For the argument that soft drugs lead to hard drugs I have 

only contempt. It deliberately omits from the category of 

'soft drugs' alcohol and tobacco.



"A heroin addict who has been a life-long non-smoker and a 

total abstainer is as rare as an anorexic Sumo wrestler."