Pubdate: Thu, 20 Jan 2000
Source: Evening Express, Aberdeen (UK)
Contact:  Evening Express, Aberdeen, UK
Author: Hugh Robertson The Legalise Cannabis Alliance

DRUG POLICY PAIR WHO ADMIT USING CANNABIS

Sirs:
Given that two out of the three ministers in charge of drugs policy
have admitted smoking cannabis -- Mo Mowlam recently and Charles
Clarke in 1997 -- how can they justify the Government's policy of
criminalising other people who follow in their shoes?

The law does not differentiate between first-time and long-term
use.

If either minister had been arrested in their youth they may well have
been jailed and would almost certainly not be in the position they are
now.

I don't believe that either of them would have deserved a criminal
record.  And neither do the 80,000 people arrested each year in the UK
for exactly the same 'criminal' activity -- possession of cannabis.

H ROBERTSON
The Legalise Cannabis Alliance
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