Cannabis Christians against hypocrisy

Adele Blakebrough is a Baptist minister in KingstonuponThames who runs
the Kaleidoscope Project, a treatment centre for drugusers. Here she
responds to criticisms made of our stance on the decriminalisation of
cannabis by the Evangelical Coalition on Drugs, which brings together 100
Christian organisations involved in combating drug addiction.

I am not surprised that the Evangelical Coalition on Drugs should express
hostility to the Independent on Sunday's campaign to decriminalise
cannabis. The churches in this coalition represent the conservative end of
Christian opinion on most subjects; they are entitled to their opinion on
drugs, but not to convey the impression that their views are based upon any
special authority.

My own church runs one of the oldest and largest centres for the treatment
of serious drug users in Britain; we have been in business for 30 years and
we see 300 heroin users every day in our treatment programme. One thing I
can state with total certainty is that there is no connection of any kind
between the world of the typical, recreational user of a drug like cannabis
and the chaotic lives of the people Kaleidoscope deals with.

When people speak of cannabis as a "pathway to the use of other drugs" they
are saying no more than this: cannabis is widely used a quarter of 1619
year olds have experienced it and that people addicted to very dangerous
drugs like heroin and cocaine have almost always used any drug they can lay
their hands on, from the sort of tranquillisers GPs prescribe to alcohol.

Cannabis is no more a pathway to heroin or crack cocaine than are alcohol
or Valium. So when ECOD states that "95 per cent plus of heroin users
seeking treatment from us started their drugtaking career with cannabis,
never intending to go any further," it would be possible to substitute the
word alcohol for the word cannabis without any risk of misleading. Indeed,
the statement is probably truer of alcohol than it is of cannabis. To use
the argument that cannabis should be illegal because a tiny minority of
those who use it also develop addictions to drugs like heroin is like
advocating the prohibition of alcohol because a minority of drinkers become
alcoholics or banning sugar, because a minority of those who like sweets
become dangerously obese.

The strongest argument for banning or controlling the use of cannabis is
that all drugs, cannabis included, have negative effects, especially if
used excessively. We would all like to see our society consume fewer drugs,
though when we express this view we should also be honest about the
numerous forms of addictive and escapist behaviour in which we all indulge,
whether or not we are drug users.

But when one drug with very few proven illeffects, like cannabis, is
outlawed, whilst others which are more harmful, like tobacco, are sold
openly and advertised, those who prefer cannabis are right to detect
hypocrisy. It is not sufficiently noted that the law bears down very
heavily indeed upon cannabis users: the last government raised the level of
fines, and tens of thousands of people have acquired criminal records
consuming huge amounts of police and court time in the process. Fourfifths
of all drug offences in Britain concern cannabis.

Placing cannabis outside the law has a number of other clearly damaging
effects. It means that those who use it must make contact with a criminal
underworld, whose raison d'etre is to market a range of illegal products,
including more dangerous drugs: an international mafia's interest lies
powerfully in making the pathway link between cannabis and heroin a
reality. Prohibition also means that public education campaigns cannot be
conducted as openly and effectively as they should be for example, there
is no equivalent of the highly effective drinkdriving campaigns.

The bottom line is that in an open society, individuals have to be free to
make their own, reasonable choices, just as governments have a
responsibility to put arguments about public health and to provide
incentives and disincentives through taxation and other means.

If cannabis were a lawful drug, many Christians would want to urge
abstinence, as some do of alcohol, or sexual relations outside marriage.
Christians believe that all human beings are sacred, blessed by divine love
and entitled to human respect we should not be surprised if they aspire
to the highest standards of behaviour.

Most Christians, however, are able to recognise the reality that cannabis
is in practice almost entirely a recreational drug which causes negligible
harm to those who use it, that it is, in the end, just another part of the
world's ways. Above all, most Christians shudder at the hypocrisy of the
current law. I am pleased to support the Independent on Sunday's campaign.