It is time for a fresh approach to cannabis law

Research showing regular use of high strength “skunk” cannabis can cause a five-fold increase in the likelihood of developing psychotic symptoms has led to a sterile discussion between those who would legalise currently illegal drugs and those who want to retain the existing criminal justice sanctions for drug possession and drug dealing.
The findings show that the harms of cannabis vary substantially depending on its strength. Picture: PAThe findings show that the harms of cannabis vary substantially depending on its strength. Picture: PA
The findings show that the harms of cannabis vary substantially depending on its strength. Picture: PA

For the legalisers, the findings were explained as an inevitable consequence of a prohibitionist drugs policy that leaves the supply of currently illegal drugs entirely in the hands of criminal gangs, while those who favour prohibition saw confirmation that a dangerous substance is rightly being kept illegal.

There is, though, a third response which avoids the inevitable polarity that the drugs debate perennially produces. The findings show very clearly that the harms of cannabis vary substantially depending on its strength.

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Before it would be possible to institute a regulated market in cannabis it would be necessary to establish just how harmful the various strands of the drug are. The findings from those studies would inform consumers as to the choices they might make and assist lawmakers in determining how best to legislate for different drugs. For example, retaining the existing criminal justice sanction for those who are selling the higher strength cannabis while weakening sanctions directed at those who are using and selling the lower strength cannabis.

Such a policy resonates with the legalisers’ calls for governments to establish a regulated market in drug supply, as well as the prohibitionists’ calls for the retention of criminal justice sanctions for those dealing in the more proscribed substances. The principle is one of basing judgements of harm and criminal justice sanction on empirical assessments of harm – it should be possible to develop an empirically determined drugs policy out of the common ground between prohibitionists and legalisers.

Unless it is possible to identify a common ground between those who favour drugs prohibition and those who favour drugs legalisation, the UK will always have a polarised debate between two fundamentally opposed positions, producing a drugs policy satisfying neither side.

• Neil McKeganey is director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research, Glasgow, www.drugmisuseresearch.org

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