Source: Lancet, The
Website: http://www.thelancet.com/
Issue: Volume 346, Number 8985
Pubdate: Sat, 11 Nov 1995

Editorial

Deglamorising cannabis

The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health. Yet
this widely used substance is illegal just about everywhere. There have
been numerous calls over the years for the legalisation, or at least
decriminalisation, of soft drugs, among which cannabis remains the most
popular with all social groups. In this highly contentious area, the
Dutch attitude has been often mentioned as the voice of sanity. In the
Netherlands, customers of coffee shops can buy up to 30 g of cannabis
for about 10 pounds ($15) although the drug is technically illegal. The
shops are not allowed to advertise, or to sell cannabis to individuals aged
under 16 years.

Prominent among those currently calling for legislative reform - and
going further by making constructive proposals - are police chiefs and city
medical officers, people who know only too well that the existing
policies in most countries are ineffective and unworkable. Meanwhile,
politicians have largely remained silent, seemingly afraid of offending
powerful segments of the electorate or merely of being perceived as weak
in the face of rising crime figures. When the occasional politician
raises her head above the parapet - as the British opposition MP Clare
Short did recently in calling for a fresh debate on decriminalisation of
cannabis - the response is tediously predictable: widespread condemnation
from political colleagues and overwhelming support from those who have to
cope with the end result of political inertia.

In the case of Ms Short, not only was she speedily reprimanded by the
party leader, but also party officials claimed that their
non-legalisation stance was entirely logical since legalisation of
cannabis would "increase the supply, reduce the price, and increase the
usage". According to a Home Office report earlier this year, the number
of people taking cannabis has doubled in a decade - without any help from
"liberal" measures. Perhaps the politicians' real fear was that freedom
to use soft drugs would automatically progress to increased use of
substances such as cocaine and heroin. If so, they must have overlooked
the recent Dutch government review which pointed out that decriminalisation
of possession of soft drugs has not led to a rise in the use of hard drugs.

If the Dutch approach is so successful, why are changes afoot in The
Hague to tighten up that country's drug policy.? First Amsterdam's mayor
proposed closing down half the city's coffee shops that sell cannabis, and
in doing so he rejected a report by his health department in favour of
legalisation of soft drugs. Then the Dutch government, which had made an
election promise to legalise cannabis, last month issued a discussion
paper which mirrored the Amsterdam plan. If, as expected, the Dutch
parliament agrees the latest proposals, half the country's 4000
cannabis-selling coffee shops will close and the amount that can be sold
to an individual will be cut to 5 g.

Since the government's own review provides no ammunition for such a change in
policy, the real reason behind the new measures must lie elsewhere. One
need look no further than the Netherlands' neighbours and co-signatories of
the Schengen agreement, which introduced a border-free zone between the
Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, Luxembourg, and Belgium. When
France, in particular, threatened to end the agreement, claiming that the
Netherlands was the major supplier of Europe's drugs, some action had to
be taken and the coffee shops became the scapegoat.

Leaving politics aside, where is the harm in decriminalising cannabis.?
There is none to the health of the consumers, and the criminal
fraternity who depend for their succour on prohibition would hate it. But
decriminalisation of possession does not go far enough in our view. That
has to be accompanied by controls on source, distribution, and advertising,
much as happens with tobacco. A system, in fact, remarkably close to the
existing one in Dutch coffee shops.

Cannabis has become a political football, and one that governments
continually duck. Like footballs, however, it bounces back. Sooner or
later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the evidence:
cannabis per se is not a hazard to society but driving it further
underground may well be.

The Lancet