| Jasbird 2005-11-20, 12:54 am |
| Why is cannabis illegal?
The question is often asked. No scientific sudy had found
cannabis to be particularly harmful when it was reaffirmed as a
harmful drug in the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act. There was no
particular reason given in the Act why it should be illegal.
Did they just decide through sheer predjudice alone that
cannabis was so dangerous that it should be an illegal drug?
The reasons given for keeping Cannabis illegal (back in 1971)
were said to be:
1) We don't know that it isn't harmful therefore we should take
the precautionary principle and assume that it is. (Sharples)
2) It does not matter whether it is harmful since we can't
change the law as that would worry the public who have been
brain-washed by propaganda into believing it to be harmful
(Morgan)
3) Cannabis could be a gateway drug (leading to Heroin use) -
(Morgan & Raison)
4) Liberalising the law would send the "wrong message" to the
public (Sharples).
These mumblings of m'learned men are taken from the - Standing
Committe debate on the draft of the new Misuse of Drugs Act
(which was passed by Parliament on 27 May 1971 substantially
unchanged from the draft). These mumblings are the reasons given
(by them) or making cannabis an illegal drug.
Mr Sharples, Minister of State (Home Department, 12 Nov 1970):
My right hon. friend referred to further investigations going on
into the effects of cannabis, about which, as he rightly said,
we do not know a great deal at the moment. Our attitude with
regard to cannabis is to be precautionary. Until we know more
about cannabis, and have far greater knowledge that we have at
the present time, the descision of Parliament, ... as to the law
against cannabis should be enforced.
Mr Morgan, MP (17 Nov 1970):
Even if one came to the conclusion, on a substantial volume of
medical evidence, in years to come that cannabis was not perhaps
as dangerous as had been supposed, one would still have to apply
one's mind diligently to the psychological consequences of
reducing the penalty in relation to cannabis and of making
cannabis, in the eyes of the general public, appear to be
something less important, less significant, less harmful than it
had been hitherto.
One cannot divorce this from its background. For many, decades,
cannabis has been rigorously dealt with by law either as a
poison or, later, as a drug. When we still know so little about
its actual effect in all situations, and even when we do not
know whether the numbers in Britain who take cannabis are 30,000
or 300,000 - and many responsible people suspect that the number
could be in excess of half a million or a million - it would
clearly be wrong for us to liberalise the regime in relation to
cannabis.
My case, therefore, is that in relation to Schedule 4 the
present Government, like the previous Government, have no option
but to deal with cannabis in as zealous a light as was the case
for many years previously. Until and unless there is clear
evidence to the contrary, there would be no justification for
acting differently.
Mr. Morgan: It is no part of my case that Draconian measures in
themselves can be successful. I wholeheartedly agree with the
point made in the Wootton Report that we should look more to
education than to criminal sanctions. One must, however, look at
the other side of the coin and ask what would be the
consequences of liberalising the regime in the present state of
knowledge - or, to put it more accurately, the present state of
ignorance - in relation to cannabis.
Mr. Timothy Raison: I cannot feel that the hon. Member for
Cardigan (Mr. Elystan Morgan) spoke with complete balance on
this subject. It seemed to me that he tended to exaggerate the
risks. After all, if half a million or a million people are
taking cannabis, I would have thought that the medical evidence
that cannabis was harmful would be beginning to come in at a
greater rate than is the case. We are talking about a very large
consumption of cannabis, and if it was dangerous I would expect
the hospitals to be telling us that they were getting dangerous
results.
Mr. Morgan : There are two points that must be made clear. The
first is that there is certainly some evidence from the
researches of Professor Paton, Professor of Pharmacology at
Oxford, which were published on the very day that the Wootton
Committee reported. Secondly, even if there was not a direct
link, one cannot divorce oneself from the possibility of the
indirect link that this is the initiation into the drug
sub-culture.
Mr. Raison: I accept the second point particularly. The factor
which ultimately made me support the retention of penalties for
cannabis is this link, or at least, this hypothetical link.
It is a complicated problem whether one does more to encourage
people to go on from cannabis to heroin by making cannabis
illegal or by legalising it. One hears both arguments.
Nevertheless, I think that the Wootton Committee was right to
say, " We do not at the moment know enough about this problem
and, therefore, we feel that we must keep cannabis illegal".
Fundamentally, it is important that cannabis should remain
illegal until one can be absolutely sure that there is no damage
deriving from it.
Mr. Sharples: As the Committee will know, we accepted the Bill
as it stood with the penalties that were put forward by the
previous Government. The hon. Member for Cardigan (Mr. Elystan
Morgan) made a strong case for those penalties to remain in the
Bill. I should like to reiterate the point made by the hon.
Member and also by my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford
(Mr. Deedes) that the penalties in the Bill are very high. The
Committee must recognise that they are high largely because of
the view which Parliament has taken in successive debates about
the importance of making it seem that drug offences of any kind,
including offences relating to cannabis, in the present state of
our knowledge, should be looked at seriously by Parliament and
considered seriously by the courts. There is the very real
problem, too, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for
Cardigan, of the psychological effect of reducing penalties
already provided by the law. This could give the impression that
Parliament favoured a relaxation in the law relating to
cannabis.
|