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UK: Cannabis Scare Fails To Ignite
Guardian Weekly, The
Thursday 19 Oct 2000 Website: http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/GWeekly/front/ Author: Alan Travis and Kevin Maguire CANNABIS SCARE FAILS TO IGNITE Campaigners Insist Drug Is Less Dangerous Than Tobacco A claim by the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, that cannabis was two to four times more dangerous than tobacco was challenged by drug law reform campaigners last week. Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired the Police Foundation's landmark inquiry into the drug laws this year, insisted that although cannabis was not harmless it was still less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Meanwhile Yvette Cooper, the Public Health Minister, became the latest politician since Ann Widdecombe's "zero tolerance" initiative on cannabis to admit that she has tried the drug. In doing so she joined Mo Mowlam and Charles Clarke, but virtually no other member of Tony Blair's government, in admitting what at least nine Tory shadow ministers (and President Bill Clinton) have owned up to, though few have admitted enjoying it. Mr Straw, who said he had never used cannabis, argued that the law should not be changed, because pharmacologists and psychiatrists had testified that the drug could have very severe effects. "The long-term effects include a very severe exacerbation of mental illness and also include cancer," he said. "It is reckoned that cannabis is between two and four times as carcinogenic as tobacco. If cannabis were legalised, then consumption of a drug for which the evidence is very strong that it is harmful will unquestionably increase." The Home Office later said Mr Straw's claim had been based on evidence given by the British Medical Association (BMA) to a House of Lords inquiry into whether cannabis should be licensed for medical use. But cannabis reform campaigners complained that Mr Straw was not comparing like with like. While a cigarette smoker might get through a packet of 20 a day it was highly unlikely that somebody would smoke 20 joints a day. They also said that if Mr Straw's only argument was that it was dangerous to smoke cannabis, then it would be a recipe for everybody to eat it instead. Dame Runciman's inquiry report quotes the BMA's conclusion that "the acute toxicity of cannabinoids [the active ingredient] is extremely low: they are very safe drugs and no deaths have been directly attributed to their recreational or therapeutic use". She said: "Our view is that cannabis is not a harmless drug, but in terms of the main criteria of harm, which are mortality, morbidity, relationship with crime, addictiveness, etc, it is less dangerous than all the other main illicit drugs, or than alcohol or tobacco." Labour MP Martin Salter called for a "grown-up debate", and said it was time to set up a royal commission: "I would rather have a drugs policy looking at drugs that kill, rather than criminalising 6m people who use cannabis." * Children in Britain use cannabis more than in almost any other country in Europe, according to a report by the European Union's drug monitoring agency. Use of cannabis by British children is 30% to 40%, along with Ireland and the Netherlands, compared with 5% to 7% in Portugal and Sweden. The figures also show that one in 10 British adults is using cannabis, while across the EU one in five people has tried it once.
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