UK "Drug Tsar"
Calls Cannabis Campaign "Red Herring"
Fears Improvement In Health And Academic Performance?
March 30, 1998
See
UK Drug Tsar Asked If
He Has Used "Drugs" -- He Is Willing to Talk Students; But Does He Listen?The
Independent
1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL England
letters@independent.co.uk
http://www.independent.co.uk/
http://www.independent.co.uk/sindypot/index.htm
By Clare Garner
CANNABIS CAMPAIGN ‘IS A RED HERRING’
The Government’s "drug tsar" Keith Hellawell
yesterday insisted that cannabis should remain illegal and branded campaigns for its
legalisation "a red herring."
Speaking after 11,000 people marched through London for the Independent on
Sunday’s campaign to decriminalise cannabis, Mr Hellawell said the health and social
effects of cannabis consumption ruled out liberalisation of Britain’s drug laws.
See
A Scottish Report on the New Scientist
Article on Dutch Research Gets More Support for Legalizing Cannabis
"Many people who are against it [cannabis law] sometimes feel, well, because there
seems to be this weight of argument, or weight of numbers as I would put it, it must be
all right - and of course it is not all right and it doesn’t help," he said
(Ed. note: A short distance away from where he lies, the Tsar [no
matter how one spells it, these people are incoherent] could find a small country with
lots of data and decades of experience with cannabis. The British people know this. The
British police know this. How did Blair find a "drug tsar" that does not?)
Mr Hellawell dismissed the Independent on Sunday’s campaign as "a
hindrance."
"Campaigns tend to give one side of the story and of course they appear often to
have weight of numbers because it is only people who are interested in doing what the
campaign is pushing that respond to it. But what we get on the ground from workers, from
addicts and from parents and lots of people who are saying ‘we don’t want it
legalised,’ - so I think it (the campaign) is less than helpful frankly."
See Comparison of drug
addiction levels in various European countries.
He said smoking cannabis had harmful side-effects. "We do not yet know how many
people have driving abilities affected, what examination results are affected,
See Legalize Marijuana and Improve
High-School Academic Performance? Holland Ranks First
how industry is affected by cannabis, therefore from my own point of view there is a risk
factor which is as yet to be quantified."
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