Change is in the air, so now the question with cannabis is a practical one

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Lilley calls for cannabis to be available in shops

Warm response in Brixton as years of restrictions on pot go up in smoke

The debate about the legislation or decriminalisation of cannabis has moved at such a pace in recent weeks and months that it is no longer a question of if but when. Yet perhaps a more pertinent question is: how? Where would the drug be sold? Who could buy it? Who could sell it? These are practical, not philosophical, questions, and until they are properly addressed, the debate will take place in a vacuum. For its part, the Government, sadly, seems unable to confront the fact that change is in the air.

Four years ago, our sister paper, The Independent on Sunday, launched a campaign that helped to break the stalemate and moved the debate on legalising cannabis on to the national agenda. That campaign is now bearing fruit. The creation of a Royal Commission could help to establish the parameters of a change in the law.

The latest intervention by Peter Lilley, a beacon for the Tory right – and, more cautiously, by Michael Portillo – is a reminder that the Conservative Party is still capable of causing a stir for the right reasons. Ann Widdecombe's call for "zero tolerance" last year backfired when many of the Shadow Cabinet announced that they themselves had smoked cannabis. Mr Lilley's initiative, by contrast, is in the spirit of the times.

The Government, meanwhile, shows its unwillingness to face the inevitability of change by failing even to provide a spokesman to discuss the issue. And yet, any politician who seeks to set his or her face against the trend will be remembered, in this regard, as a latter-day King Canute.

The argument that cannabis is a "gateway drug" to harder and more dangerous drugs is still often heard – but is stupefyingly illogical. If a dodgy dealer offers both cannabis and heroin, cannabis may indeed be a gateway to worse things; but if the corner shop that offers cannabis also offers Kit-Kats, lager, and smoky-bacon flavoured crisps (or, as in Holland, coffee and cakes), then the gateway – though perhaps not ideal, in health terms – can hardly be seen as lethal.

Despite what some dewy-eyed supporters of change might suggest, that does not mean that decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis will reduce the overall drugs problem. Legalisation of cannabis will make the problems posed by other drugs neither better nor worse.

Nor can health be seen as the key issue. As the Lancet magazine noted: "Moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health, and decisions to ban or to legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations." Cannabis is less damaging to health than alcohol or tobacco – though the question of alleged positive benefits remains unclear; research published in the British Medical Journal this week suggests that benefits for pain relief may be overstated. Instead, the main argument in favour of legalising cannabis is dull – that there may be no good reason not to.

By the same token, there is little reason to rush helter-skelter towards a change in the law. The Royal Commission would allow us to take the time to get things right – including questions about where the drug could be sold, as well as the importance of "drug-driving" testing. Mo Mowlam, formerly responsible for the Government's drug policy, now advocates reform; senior police officers are equally relaxed. The change introduced in Brixton this week, whereby possession of cannabis is no longer an arrestable offence (a classic British fudge) is only one of many changes yet to come.

The question of "whether" is now almost obsolete. The Government must finally focus on the important how-where-and-when questions. What it cannot do is desperately and pointlessly look the other way.