Pubdate: Fri, 04 Oct 2002
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author:  Owen Bowcott

LEGALISING CANNABIS 'WOULD BREAK TERRORIST LINK'

The government could afford to take the political risk of legalising 
cannabis as a first step to breaking the link between drugs and terrorism, 
Mo Mowlam said yesterday. Speaking at a London conference on the Colombia 
drug problem, Ms Mowlam, who as Cabinet Office minister was responsible for 
drugs policy between 1999 and 2001, dismissed the government's 
reclassification of cannabis, announced earlier this summer, as unworkable.

"[It is] the young person's drug of choice. It's ridiculous that it's 
illegal. It's making young people break the law, and not helping anybody. 
You can buy it, smoke it, but not sell it. It doesn't make sense."

Last month Ms Mowlam used an article in the Guardian to explain her 
conversion to legalising the drugs trade on the grounds that illicit 
profits fund paramilitaries in Colombia, and perpetuate conflicts and civil 
wars around the world. After it appeared, she said, she received nearly 700 
emails - all but half a dozen supportive.

"Most governments have failed in trying to deal with the problem," she told 
the conference. "We have to take radical action. There are people who 
support it in both [main] parties but there's not enough to get a change. 
There's a great electoral fear [that legalisation] is not going to be a 
vote winner.

"I believe you can go for legalisation of cannabis first of all. If you 
legalise, you won't do away with the market immediately, but you dent it 
severely. It has the advantage that you can regulate and control it 
[through tax]."

The outgoing Colombian ambassador, Victor Ricardo, said: "Colombia cannot 
carry on this fight on its own. This problem is not only the responsibility 
of producing countries."
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MAP posted-by: Beth