] Subj: Calls for debate
] Date: Thursday 24th April

Source: The Scotsman, Edinburgh, Scotland
Contact: >Steel says drug ban is a failure
> 
>Sir David Steel, the elder statesman of the Liberal Democrats, said
>yesterday that prohibition of soft drugs had been a failure and that
>politicians were not qualified to deal with the subject.
>
>On ITN's lunchtime news, Sir David, whose son Graeme was jailed for
>nine months in 1995 for growing cannabis plants worth 30,000 UKP at his
>Borders cottage, said:
>
>"Politicians are not in the best position to pontificate on this
>subject.  It is largely a generation problem and that's why we are
>realistic in the Liberal Democrats by saying let's have a Royal
>Commission as we had on the issue of embryo research."
>
>