Grassed
AN OXFORD DON claims his research on cannabis has been abused in the campaign for the decriminalisation of the drug. Against a background of increased pressure to scrap existing laws on cannabis, an article in The Independent on 20 October began with "cannabis is a safer drug than aspirin", referring to Dr Leslie Iversen's book The Science of Marijuana.
Dr Iversen who researched cannabis for the House of Lords in an inquiry in 1998 - is supportive of the decriminalisation campaign. But although The Independent's quotes from his book were in themselves correct, the overall tone of the article, he believes, was overwhelmingly in favour of legalisation, and alarmingly omitted aspects of his research that did not contribute to the legalisation campaign.
The article suggested that driving while on cannabis was relatively safe, although Dr Iversen feels strongly that it is very dangerous. It also quoted the extreme addictiveness of cannabis as being a 'myth'. This ignores the part in the book where he claims that 10% of cannabis users are dependent on the drug - as high a proportion as for tobacco. Then, reminding us that he is "a fellow of the prestigious Royal Society", the article went on to state "cannabis itself does not appear to cause cancer". Dr Iversen asserts, though, that it is too early to determine the carcinogenic effects of cannabis, as the drug has only been widely used for 20 years. This is because it took 50 years for scientists to realise that cigarettes caused lung cancer.
In an interview with the Oxford Student, Dr Iversen lamented that the subject of cannabis was being "abused by both sides of the argument" - with one side claiming that it is a completely safe drug and the other labelling it as "demonic" - when the truth was somewhere in between. He is in favour of the Dutch model of decriminalisation, which would allow safer ways of producing the drug and would permit its use for medical purposes, such as the large clinical trials currently underway on the use of cannabis to relieve the pain of multiple sclerosis sufferers. It is also "nonsense", he says, that 100,000 people last year should have been arrested in Britain because they were in possession of cannabis.
Currently, Oxford University's policy on drugs is strict: it will send down any student caught in possession. No amount of research showing the relative safety of cannabis is likely to change this, says Kirsty McNeill, OUSU President. This is as the University is bound by the law and not by considerations of risk to health.
26th Oct 2000