Cannabis should be legalised for the over 18's immediately so tha it can be controlled as alcohol and other drugs are.
Mature adults do not need to be put in prison at a rate of 3 a week as presently happens for making their own choices on what to do with their bodies and given that not only has cannabis has been shown to help people suffering from depression it has also been shown to cut cancer risk amongst smokers it is ridiculous to do so.

Tobacco kills 60,000 UK citizens per year, Alcohol kills 40,000. But cannabis is dangerous! Ban tobacco and alcohol or legalise cannabis, anything else is just hypocrisy.

It may be that cannabis can worsen or bring out a mental illness in a user, but what about the majority of users who don't suffer? The same argument can be applied to alcohol, as there are many people out there who shouldn't have drink because it makes them morose or violent. Do we ban beer because of lager louts? Smoking cannabis is most likely worse for you than tobacco in health terms, but it can be ingested. No, the government won't ban or re-classify the drugs for which they are involved as "the main dealer". By that, I mean the revenue collected from alcohol and tobacco, which makes up a disproportionate share of the price. The government therefore must be a "dealer". Dealers raise prices knowing it won't affect demand, and they vigorously defend their "patch". An off-licence can be regarded as a tax collection centre for the authorities. That's why they are lucrative for criminals to rob, as are petrol stations. I think the Reverend is right. The government are a bunch of hypocrites.

Legalise cannabis? So that we can have lots of smoking, alcoholic schizophrenics on the streets. D'oh.

And these are the people that just gave us twenty-four hour drinking and relaxed the gambling laws. What a joke! What complete and utter hypocrites! "Worried", my @r$e!!!

I think we need to look at the studies done in Canada and elsewhere. There is to much personal bias in this country over cannabis. It seems to me that the drug companies would be hurt by legalizing cannabis and that is the real reason that cannabis is still illegal in this country.

I have a chronic cannabis problem, you see, my dealer got arrested and there is a chronic drought happnin..

If cannabis is illegal in this country why can so many school kids and college/university students get hold of it and their parents. The attitude towards it is relaxed, there doesn't appear to be a law against it. It's just annoying when they go off on one and become paranoid.

The law should be tough, tougher, and toughest still on those who peddle it and sell it and come down like bricks on students/teenagers/children and parents who smoke it!!! The sooner the law is made stricter and the drug back to class B THE BETTER. Nuff said.

Lets see, you go out and are confronted by somebody who is loud, offensive, threatening and obnoxious.. have they been drinking alcohol... or smoking pot ??? Drinking alcohol would be the only correct answer in this case. I have never seen anybody get into a fight after smoking pot because it is impossible. There are better drugs and better drugs for you out there than alcohol - FACT.

So because people are obnoxious and nasty when they're drunk that gives the excuse to make cannabis legal????? There's too many pot heads getting behind the wheels of cars and don't tell me it makes them drive better it does not!! Worse still they drink and smoke dope. Get real someone on cannabis driving a ton of steel is frightening.

What are the estimated figures for those said to be suffering from cannabis induced mental illness? The figures say 25% of children while their brains are developing are susceptible. Out of that 25% only perhaps at the most a minute % of that 25% will actually use cannabis and only a small % of them will actually go on to develop symptoms which would have developed at a later date anyway.

If cannabis is the instigator and not social engineering then surly it is all down to Tony Blair's need for all people to be as fully educated as possible and those who are said to be suffering should be educated away from using it while those millions who do use with no adverse side effects can then go on using for they are actually causing and receiving no harm from use.

As far as I know there are no figures for those said to be suffering Cannabis Induced Psychosis or Schizophrenia. CIPS. How many is it, a few hundred?

And if CC makes cannabis class b again then he carries on misleading the public through ill education.

Police in Brixtion are already getting tough becuase of the problems the new classification created they now arrest on the spot.
Dealars are openly operating and offering other drugs to be supplied later.
Carol is right though," What complete and utter hypocrites!", they need to be hard on ALL drugs, the cost of booze should be trippled, in real terms the cost has fallen dramatically over the past few decades.

Who's paranoid Anon from Anon?!

i think charles clarke should be looking at young people are getting pyschosis, i belive that u will find 80 to 90% of these people with psychosis havent had both there natural parents together while growing up. Look for the real problems and stop trying to use a plant as the reason. I have smoked canabis regulary for AT LEAST TEN YEARS DAILY, i work full time have a morgage and have never been in hospital except for the day i was born and one other day when i was about 10. I saw a shrink for behavior problems, i didnt smoke canabis then but my natural parents had split its not rocket science u know, please stop trying to blame a plant when its actually ouyr lifestyle that causes the problem with have.

Classification is not the real question. Whether or not people do harm to others or their property should deteremine whether or not arrests and court cases follow.

No victim no crime. No vistim, protect not punish!

Dear fellow citizens,

In India, in 1912 cannabis was prohibited, the reasoning was that the elders said, they had to prohibit cannabis otherwise, 'the young Indian men would murder their wives'.

We are still creating myths around cannabis today, yet we 'KNOW' what Tobacco does to people but still, the governments of our countries are very willing to take the lion share of the profits from Tobacco, which does literally 'Kill' people. Tobacco, is the most harmful drug used today, more harmful than all the other drugs illegal & legal put together.
The second most harmful drug is Alcohol, another money earner for the governments & big bussiness.

And while making all this money on Tobacco and Alcohol when we the working people, get ill from these substances, the drugs needed are too expensive to give to working people.
If one is very important or very rich, only then can he/she rely on medical care which is earnestly trying to save our lives.
Regards Ian Harris (Mr.)
Dagenham
Essex

Why do we behave like this towards cannabis?

If we look at Holland, less teenagers take up smoking cannabis since they have been taking more pragmatic measures towards drugs.

It has been said already, that Tobacco & Alcohol are the harmful drugs, yet it is they that are legal & profitable to the government.

Three people are sent to prison each week for cannabis possesion I beleive. This is deplorable, they are not a threat to society. No, sorry, the government has lost the moral high ground it claimed to have on this issue.

Legalise all drugs by Regulation.

What about the Cantania Report amongst others.
Jill Harris
Dagenham

Regardless of these meaningless, generalised conclusions being bandied about regarding the effects of Cannabis on people's health, the fact is that prohibition does more harm to society than any and all drugs or herbs put together. Considering the proven, inevitable consequences of prohibition in creating a vicious black market, increasing the attractiveness of "forbidden fruit" to young people, and in crippling of the sustainable, organic agricultural economy, in my opinion, anyone who continues to push prohibition is a sociopath. Unless we recognise the damage being done to the environment by prohibition, then mankind's addiction to toxic, chemically-based economics will continue to steer us all toward synergistic collapse of Earth's integrated operating systems.

I smoke cannabis.........and have done since age 13.......by age 15 i was smokeing 20 pounds worth a day........Now............i say upgrade it to B........ make it A if ya want........im now schitzophenic..........thers no evidence of it in my family......or signs from when i was younger....my finger goes stright to WEED.......if making it Class B stops just one person going threw this then im all for it........


there illagl for a reason

and as for holland........come back in 5-10years and that'll be one messed up country


DONT ENCOURAGE CANNABIS!

Anon. Just about all the evidence shows that in the vast majority of cases, when people who have 'problems' (and very, very few people do) refrain from smoking dope, they very quickly completely recover from the 'problems' - ie in a matter of days or a week or two.

Chris, actually I thought recent studies show that nearly half of those that suffered cannabis-induced psychotic symptoms went on to develop schizophrenia and over two thirds suffered from a psychotic illness such as depression.

It's very easy to use 'research' to say just about anything they want it too. The reason that it is causing so much confusion amongst the public is that what the papers and our politicians are telling us about so called cannabis induced psychosis is not what we are experiencing in reality. I have used cannabis for 25 years and have led a perfectly normal life I have mixed with literally thousands of cannabis users in that time from the UK to Greece and I have never yet met anyone who has been caused along term problem. Their has been no 'proof' that cannabis can CAUSE mental illness.

Anon: You say that by the age of 15 you were smoking B#20 worth a day. That's B#140 per week. Where did you get you're money from? Did you buy B#20 worth every day, or were you buying it in ounces or what? What you are saying in effect is that you were smoking a fifth or a quarter of an ounce every day. Right? Why don't I believe a single word you're saying? MY "finger" goes straight to a propagandist telling porkies! (What strains were you smoking?).

To Steve, York, I agree not enough research has been done on cannabis. I can only go off my sons' friends and what has happened to them. Some of them are daily heavy users, arriving at lectures/school lessons on dope. They are all for legalising cannabis and a lot see it as harmless fun. The ones that have been on it a few years have tried to commit suicide, been hospitalised and are on anti depressants. It's a shame because they are brilliant students, A/B at A level maths, cannabis didn't affect their ability to get good results just their ability to get on with life.