Stories behind the news

THE headline “Cannabis clampdown” yelled out at us this week, in response to strong indications from Whitehall that it is about to be reclassified as a Class B drug after an official review.

Well, we told you so. Almost the moment that cannabis was classified as a less-dangerous Class C drug in 2004, the evidence began to pour in that the drug was a causal factor in mental illness, and Body&Soul highlighted (and has continued to point out) how the still developing brains of adolescents can be particularly at risk.

The culmination of this cascade came last July when The Lancet published a big review, concluding that the risk of psychosis increases by roughly 40 per cent in people who have used cannabis, and up to 200 per cent in the most frequent users. Almost simultaneously, Gordon Brown ordered a fresh review into whether the downgrading of the drug had been correct.

Something had to be done. It’s not that drugs such as cannabis – or alcohol or cigarettes, for that matter – are intrinsically good or bad. But how they are judged, and how tightly they are regulated, is a reflection of society’s attitudes. And in a culture where behavioural and moral norms are increasingly liquid, medical evidence is becoming an evermore potent force in shaping what is acceptable, and what is not.

It’s the medical facts that are rightly turning the tide against cannabis. It certainly hasn’t been fears of a dope epidemic, since the proportion of young people using the drug has fallen in the past three years.

Many parents will be relieved about the reclassification of cannabis, not because of tougher penalties on those found in possession but because it sends out a clear message: cannabis is bad for you.

Next comes the difficult bit: a proper, honest education for teenagers on the facts about smoking dope will potentially do far more to discourage it than reclassification alone. But young people have notoriously sensitive bullshit detectors. That means addressing the fact that, yes, dope does bring some transitory rewards too. And that our society is currently horribly inconsistent in the messages it sends out about what is good and bad.

How much easier it might be to explain that medical evidence is the key determinant of our strong line on drugs if the principle were consistently applied. What class of drug, one wonders, would apply to alcoholic drinks (given the huge amount of evidence of their medical harm) were they not a vast, tax-coffer-swelling industry? A Whitehall line to feed teenagers on that particular poser would be much appreciated.

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