Cannabis: research offers a new, radical proposal

There have been only two documented deaths from marijuana overdose, contrasting with 200,000 deaths each year attributed to other illegal drugs, 2.5 million deaths annually related to alcohol and 5 million to smoking. So what? asks a report from the Beckley Foundation?

WHAT should we do to minimise the harm cannabis can cause to the health and welfare of users and to society at large? The answer, according to a report by a group of prominent academics and government advisers, is to change the law to allow the state to prepare and distribute the drug for recreational use.

This controversial proposal comes from a commission assembled by the Beckley Foundation, a British charity dedicated to exploring the science of psychoactive substances. "The damage done by prohibition is worse than from the substance itself," says Amanda Feilding, the founder of the Beckley Foundation.

The Beckley commission's ideas will be aired in March at a meeting in Vienna, Austria, of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs. The UNCND will report to a meeting of the UN general assembly later this year that will set international policy on drug control for the decade to come.

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