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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: McCartney rounds on MP over 'silly' addicts Ben Russell The Independent Thursday 03 May 2001 A Cabinet Office minister whose son died of a heroin overdose launched a scathing attack on MPs who underestimate the problems of drug abuse yesterday after a Tory described users as "silly". Ian McCartney rounded on Teresa Gorman, the outspoken Conservative MP for Billericay, during questions about the Government's anti-drugs strategy. Ms Gorman had asked: "Isn't it time we started to look at this problem of drug taking more from the eyes of the victims - the people who are attacked and mugged by drug addicts - than always from the point of view of people who are silly enough to take drugs?" Mr McCartney responded: "That last comment is the silliest comment I have heard about drugs. Having watched on a daily basis a son dying from drug abuse, this was not a self-inflicted injury. Nor was the facility to take cannabis something other than a gateway to taking more dangerous drugs." He said: "I am sick and tired of members of this house who think there are easy answers about preventing children from falling into the trap of being involved in drug abuse, first of all though cannabis, and then moving on to other drugs. "It is a very difficult, complex issue and we have a 10-year plan, and I hope the honourable lady will get behind that plan. Every year there will be hundreds of children, who would have died if we didn't have that plan, who will be alive to survive and go on to be good citizens." Earlier, the Government was accused of hypocrisy in its widely differing attitudes to alcohol and cannabis. The Labour backbencher Paul Flynn said that in moving to relax pub licensing laws while refusing to allow the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, the Government was being inconsistent. Referring to yesterday's announcement that the Government was to press ahead with moves towards all-hours drinking, the Newport West MP said: "The Government are about to make more widely available the deadly addictive killer drug alcohol, which is involved in 80 per cent of crimes of violence and abuse. Yet the Government still supports the jailing of those seriously ill people who use cannabis medicinally in spite of the fact that a month ago the Royal Pharmaceutical Society conference said this drug had unique benefits for those suffering from severe pain and the effects of multiple sclerosis." Mr Flynn, a long-time campaigner for the use of cannabis as a pain reliever, asked: "Why is the Government soft on a hard drug and hard on a soft drug?" Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Office Minister, replied that progress was being made towards producing a form of cannabis for medicinal use.
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