poliphilo

Gordon Brown wants to regrade cannabis from a Class "C" to a Class "B" drug. In response members of his cabinet have been falling over themselves to confess their own past drug use. I don't know if they're doing this to pre-empt future revelations or in an attempt to head him off at the pass, but the effect is to highlight just how mainstream cannabis now is .

If you're under seventy (and not Gordon Brown) you'll have been around the stuff and probably used it. I don't smoke tobacco, so I don't smoke grass- simple as that- but I did try it once (it made me cough) and I've been in houses where the fug hung so heavy I was getting the full benefit. By the way, does that make me an accessory?

The criminalisation of cannabis criminalises us all. I think it's daft.

Upping the penalties for cannabis use isn't going to squash the cannabis culture. We should decriminalise it for the same reason we haven't criminalised alcohol- a far more dangerous drug- because it's entrenched, it's here to stay- and a law that isn't going to work- that can't be properly enforced, that goes against the grain of what's socially accepted- is unjust and brings all law into disrepute.