Letter: Legalisation of cannabis: freedom of personal choice or exposure to risk?

Sir: For far too long, the argument against the legalisation of cannabis has rested on the canard that it inevitably leads to further, dangerous drug use.

On the contrary, it is the persistent and erroneous yoking together of cannabis and other prohibited drugs that promotes confusion among inexperienced and ill-informed users, and the notion that all banned substances must be similarly worth trying.

The legalisation of cannabis - and the public education programme that will accompany it - is urgently needed in order to establish the clear distinction that millions of satisfied adult dope smokers are already well aware of.

Incidentally, and further to your user's guide (2 March), if you smoke it in a pipe, you can safely avoid that lethal but legal additive, tobacco.

Yours faithfully,

ANTHONY WALTON

Hove,

East Sussex

2 March