—Editorial
Leading article: Cannabis: a retraction
Published: 18
March 2007
Yes,
our front page today is calculated
to grab your attention. We do not really
believe that The Independent on
Sunday was wrong at the time,
10 years ago, when we called for cannabis
to be decriminalised. As Rosie Boycott,
who was the editor who ran the campaign,
argues, the drug that she sought to
decriminalise then was rather different
from that which is available on the
streets now.
Indeed, this newspaper's campaign
was less avant-garde than it seemed.
Only four years later, The Daily Telegraph
went farther, calling for cannabis
to be legalised for a trial period.
We were leading a consensus, which
even this Government – often
guilty
of gesture – authoritarianism – could
not resist, downgrading cannabis
from
class B to class C.
At the same time, however, two things
were happening. One was the shift towards
more powerful forms of the drug, known
as skunk. The other was the emerging
evidence of the psychological harm
caused to a minority of users, especially
teenage boys and particularly associated
with skunk.
We report today that the number
of cannabis users on drug treatment
programmes has risen 13-fold since
our campaign was launched, and that
nearly half of the 22,000 currently
on such programmes are under the age
of 18. Of course, part of the explanation
for this increase is that the provision
of treatment is better than it was
10 years ago. But there is no question,
as Robin Murray, one of the leading
experts in this field, argues on these
pages, that cannabis use is associated
with growing mental health problems.
Another campaign run – more recently – by this newspaper is to raise awareness
of mental health issues and to press
the Government to improve provision
for those suffering from mental illnesses.
The threat to mental health posed by
cannabis has to take precedence over
the liberal instinct that inspired
Ms Boycott 10 years ago.
Many elements of her campaign remain
valid today, however. The diversion
of police resources into picking up
easy convictions for cannabis possession
was a waste. The rhetoric of the "war
on drugs" tended to distort priorities:
the current shift towards a strategy
of harm reduction is a long overdue
correction. Where we part company with
her is on her view that the legalisation
of all drugs is desirable because it
would end the involvement of organised
crime. So it might, but the fact that
the possession of cannabis – and other
drugs – is illegal acts as an important
social restraint.
In fact, there is a strong case
for believing that the present state
of the law and of government policy
is about right. The way the police
enforce the law seems to be a reasonable
compromise, while the emphasis of public
policy is on information, education
and treatment. The more the facts can
be driven home about the differences
between old-style hash and modern skunk,
and about the risks to mental health,
the better. And the more that policy
towards drugs generally focuses on
the causes of addictive or self-destructive
behaviour, rather than locking people
up, the better still.
The growing evidence of the risk
of psychological harm posed by cannabis
means that the time has come for us
to reverse one of the positions with
which – before the Iraq war – this
newspaper was most identified.
We quote John Maynard Keynes in our
defence: "When the facts change,
I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
|
Statement
of the 
In 1997, this newspaper launched
a campaign to decriminalise the drug.
If only we had known then what
we can reveal today... 