So I think certainly get it to MS sufferers get it to the terminally ill patients get it to the people with

So I think, certainly, get it to MS sufferers, get it to the terminally ill patients, get it to the people with certain cancers, for pain relief. For the rest of us, I think that just declassifying it rather than actually legalising it is where I stand now.Dame Helena Shovelton Chief executive of the British Lung FoundationOur recent report “Cannabis – A Smoking Gun?” found that smoking pure cannabis can be just as harmful to the lungs as tobacco. The most important issue to the BLF is that the public are fully aware of the health implications so that they can make an educated decision. Many people, especially teenagers, believe that cannabis is a healthy, “safe” alternative to tobacco.Yet tar from cannabis cigarettes contains 50 per cent more carcinogens than tobacco. And the health dangers of cannabis have substantially increased since the 1960s, because of the increased amounts of THC in the cannabis consumed today.But the BLF report is not about the moral rights and wrongs – or indeed the legalisation – of cannabis. Rather, it’s simply there to make sure that everyone is completely clear about the respiratory health risks involved. Respiratory health issues are often ignored in the cannabis debate, and the Government needs to consider implementing a public health campaign on the risks before it is too late.Commander Brian Paddick Police officer who introduced ’softly softly’ policy on cannabis in LambethThe legalisation of drugs is a matter for politicians, not police officers.

The issue for police officers is deciding what policing priorities should be, taking particular account of local views and resources. Cannabis is harmful and, like alcohol, taken to excess it can be very damaging. There is a need for reliable, credible and non-judgemental information to be more widely available, particularly to young people, such as the “drug-rap” initiative of DrugScope and the Black Police Association. Cannabis is clearly not as damaging as other controlled drugs, and, in terms of criminal penalties and its position in the police priority list, it should be lower than heroin and cocaine.

The Home Secretary is making difficult decisions around the reclassification of cannabis to ensure the law is reasonable and credible. Senior police officers need to be equally brave and make similarly difficult decisions to ensure consistency and proportionality of enforcement.Shane Collins Green Party drug spokesperson and licensee of the 5th March and Festival to Re-Legalise CannabisBanning cannabis, said the comedian Bill Hicks, is like claiming that nature made a mistake. Quite apart from being an astonishing act of human arrogance, the anti-cannabis laws also represent a violation of fundamental civil rights.It is a simple truth that if you prohibit anything for which there is a demand, you create a criminal market. That was learnt in the US during Prohibition in the Thirties, and is being painfully relearnt now in the UK.Prohibition does not work. How many more of our young people do we have to criminalise before we realise that? Britain has some of the harshest drug laws in Europe, and yet this country also boasts the highest rates of drug use. By now, more than half the population should, strictly speaking, be classed as criminals – because they have, at some point in their lives, smoked cannabis. Yet what the law of the land should do is reflect the will of the people.Isis Amlak Mature student and mother-of-twoWe as adults should be allowed to make choices about what we do to ourselves.