Time to reclassify Cannabis

I very much welcome the Home Secretary's decision to reclassify Cannabis as a more harmful drug.

Since Cannabis was "downgraded" in classification in January 2004 even the most liberal newspaper on the market - The Independent - which led the campaign to decriminalise this drug, has changed its position.

It's important to recognise that there are many different types of Cannabis - it's not a single homogenous drug. Nor are its effects uniform on its takers.

But it is not a harmless drug: it can cause depression, exacerbate schizophrenic tendencies and cause exactly the same long-term damage that smoking cigarettes does: lung cancer, bronchitis and other respiratory harm - in fact cannabis contains MORE tar than cigarettes. In addition, heavy cannabis use results in nerve damage and impairs learning.

Some strains of the drug, notably one known as skunk, are far more powerful and have the same addictive qualities as many more "hard" drugs like heroin. So let no-one tell you that cannabis is harmless or that we should tolerate our kids smoking it in order to discourage them from experimenting with harder drugs.

I believe there is a strong case for cannabis to be made available as a therapeutic drug under doctors' prescription to assist those suffering major pain. And of course we need to put in place even better support for cannabis, and other drug, addicts. But those are both issues removed from whether this should be something the police in reality ignore or which they intervene to deter.

I believe the original decision to reclassify cannabis from class B to C was wrong; I'm delighted that decision is to be reversed and hope it will form part of a wider package of measures to tackle drug misuse and addiction in our society.