Cannabis ‘less harmful than alcohol or tobacco’

CANNABIS use is less harmful than drinking or smoking cigarettes and should be legalised, according to a report released in Britain yesterday.

The Beckley Foundation’s Global Cannabis Commission says banning the drug has backfired and calls for a “serious rethink” of drugs policy. The ban has had little or no impact on supply and has turned users into criminals, they say.

“Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco,” they write.

“Historically there have only been two deaths worldwide attributed to cannabis, whereas alcohol and tobacco together are responsible for an estimated 150,000 deaths per annum in Britain alone.

“Many of the harms associated with cannabis use are the result of prohibition itself, particularly arising from arrest and imprisonment,” the authors conclude. Legalising cannabis, or dope, would allow it to be regulated and make it easier to stop children using it.

They write: “It is only through a regulated market that we can better protect young people from the ever more potent forms of dope, known as ‘skunk’.”

Cannabis was downgraded to class C in 2004, making police unlikely to arrest people carrying small amounts.

But British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has pledged to reclassify the drug to class B to avoid “risking the future health of young people”.

Mental health experts warn that stronger, more damaging strains of dope have become widespread.