Cannabis campaign `is a red herring'

THE Government's "drug tsar" Keith Hellawell yesterday insisted that cannabis should remain illegal and branded campaigns for its legalisation "a red herring."

Speaking after 11,000 people marched through London for the Independent on Sunday's campaign to decriminalise cannabis, Mr Hellawell said the health and social effects of cannabis consumption ruled out liberalisation of Britain's drug laws. "Many people who are against it [cannabis law] sometimes feel, well, because there seems to be this weight of argument, or weight of numbers as I would put it, it must be all right - and of course it is not all right and it doesn't help," he said.

Mr Hellawell dismissed the Independent on Sunday's campaign as "a hindrance." "Campaigns tend to give one side of the story and of course they appear often to have weight of numbers because it is only people who are interested in doing what the campaign is pushing that respond to it. But what we get on the ground from workers, from addicts and from parents and lots of people who are saying `we don't want it legalised,' - so I think it (the campaign) is less than helpful frankly."

He said smoking cannabis had harmful side-effects. "We do not yet know how many people have driving abilities affected, what examination results are affected, how industry is affected by cannabis, therefore from my own point of view there is a risk factor which is as yet to be quantified."