Subj: Why we're marching today

Date: Mar 28, 1998

Source: The Independent

Why we're marching today

Last September, the 'Independent on Sunday'
called for the decriminalisation of cannabis.
Today, thousands will be in London to add their
support. Graham Ball recalls how the campaign
took off

Today, for the first time in 30 years, the streets of
London will be thronged with people who want
the freedom to smoke cannabis without fear of
arrest.

The reason they are there is due to a campaign
begun six months ago by our sister paper, the
Independent on Sunday, which has attracted
support from thousands of readers, as well as
doctors, politicians, and people from the worlds
of business and the arts.

The paper's editor, Rosie Boycott, opened the
campaign by disregarding the hypocrisy that has
traditionally surrounded this subject to write
frankly about her own experiences. "I rolled my
first joint on a hot June day in Hyde Park in the
summer of 1968. Just 17 and desperate to be
grown-up. Since my first joint, I have smoked a
good many more, although I hardly smoke at all
nowadays. The habit has given up on me. But I
don't see why people who share my earlier
enthusiasm should be branded as criminal.

"The truth is that most people I know have
smoked at some time or other in their lives. They
hold down jobs, bring up their families, run major
companies, govern our country, and yet, after 30
years cannabis is still officially regarded as a
dangerous drug," she wrote.

Last September, the honeymoon period enjoyed
by the new Labour Government was coming to a
close. It had become clear by then that on the
issue of drug law reform the new Home
Secretary, Jack Straw, was happy to endorse the
same hard-line policies of his predecessor,
Michael Howard.

Rosie Boycott's decision to "out" herself struck a
chord with those who had hoped for a more
radical approach from new Labour. "I quickly
realised that I was pushing against an open door.
There are plenty of people, who like me, believe
it is high time we adopted a more sensible
approach to cannabis," she said this week.

Paul McCartney, Anita Roddick and Richard
Branson were among the first to endorse the
campaign. In the following weeks they were
joined by the highest achievers from the worlds of
arts and entertainment, literature, medicine, and
intellectually accomplished.

Janet Suzman, the classical actress, Labour's Ken
Livingstone, Professor Colin Blakemore, Harold
Pinter and Martin Amis soon followed. The
support of so many celebrities encouraged
readers to add their names, and to date more than
14,000 have signed; each week more join.

The campaign received its first boost last October
when, surprisingly, the most senior judge in
England and Wales backed calls for a public
debate on the legalisation of soft drugs, including
cannabis.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the Lord Chief Justice,
made it clear that while he was not expressing a
personal view on decriminalisation, it was an issue
that merited consideration. "It is a subject that
deserves, in my judgment, detached, objective,
independent consideration," he said.

Many reformers saw this statement as a
deliberate riposte to Jack Straw's earlier
announcement not to grant a Royal Commission
of Inquiry into the working of the 1971 Misuse of
Drugs Act which prohibits the use of cannabis.

In the same month an opinion poll commissioned
by the IoS revealed that 80 per cent of people
wanted the current laws relaxed and that more
than one third wanted the immediate
decriminalisation of cannabis for recreational
purposes.

In November, the medical side of the argument
was significantly advanced by the British Medical
Association's decision to publish an 80-page
review which overturned the old assumption that
cannabis was a drug with no therapeutic benefits.
Demands for doctors to be allowed to prescribe
cannabis as a medicine had been growing for
more than a decade. Strong anecdotal evidence
had suggested it was good for treating muscle
spasticity connected to Multiple Sclerosis,
anorexia, some forms of epilepsy, glaucoma,
asthma and hypertension.

The influential BMA urged the Government to
"consider changing the Misuse of Drugs Act to
allow the prescription of cannabinoids (active
chemical compounds in cannabis) to patients with
certain conditions causing distress that are not
adequately controlled by existing treatments."

They went further and recommended that "while
research is under way, the police, the courts and
other prosecuting authorities should be made
aware of the medical reasons for the unlawful use
of cannabis by those suffering from certain
medical conditions for whom other drugs have
proved ineffective".

Whilst the Government has turned a deaf ear to
the report, there is evidence that the magistrates
have responded.

The IoS campaign consistently revealed cases
where individuals suffering from crippling disease
had been convicted or sent to prison for using
cannabis to ease their pain. Following the BMA
report, some courts took a more lenient approach
in line with their recommendations and issued
admonishments and lighter fines to invalids in the
dock.

The case for applying the criminal law to protect
public health suffered another setback with the
leaking of a World Health Organisation report in
February. The report, that had been suppressed
by officials, contained analysis by an expert panel
of scientists, which determined that long-term use
of cannabis was less harmful than alcohol or
tobacco. The magazine New Scientist, which
broke the story, said: "Politicians will just have to
bite the bullet - cannabis will have to be
decriminalised."

However, the one event to make most impact on
the campaign came from the least likely source.
On Saturday 13 December, a young woman
bought a small amount of cannabis from a young
man in a London pub. An unremarkable event,
commonplace even. Except that young man with
the £10 deal was William Straw, son of the more
famous Jack. The issue of the 17-year-old's
identity loomed over the whole of last Christmas,
until early in the New Year it was revealed that
the Home Secretary had turned in his son and
expected him to face the consequences.

In the end, he got off with a caution, and the
woman who set the deal up, a reporter from the
Daily Mirror, was accused of entrapment.

The incident proved embarrassing for the
Government, although the Prime Minister was
quick to give his minister his full support, and
proved once and for all that cannabis use is more
widespread than even the most fervent advocate
had suspected.

And so we come to the march. After six months
of debating the case in print, it was clearly time to
turn words into action. Throughout the campaign,
the involvement and support of readers has been
vital. The passions raised by the question of
cannabis decriminalisation run deep.