US "If the drug is made legal, a lot of the "Gateway Drug' rational disappears."

I had not considered that scenario and now you have brought it up, I agree with you US.

Of the illegal drugs I can see how cannabis does fall into a different category to the harder drugs.

I would, at this stage, not support its legalisation but I would be open to hearing more about why it should be de-criminalised.

I said on a previous post I have no problem with it being used for medicinal purposes, in the same way as we grow opium poppies, but until such time as it does become "legal" (for everyday use beyond the "medicinal prescription") I remain a supporter of a law and order approach to its distribution and those who profit from that illegal distribution.

Col Rouge: << I had not considered that scenario and now you have brought it up, I agree with you US.

Of the illegal drugs I can see how cannabis does fall into a different category to the harder drugs.

I would, at this stage, not support its legalisation but I would be open to hearing more about why it should be de-criminalised. >>

Kudos to Col! It's brilliant that you evidently don't have a closed mind on this topic. My apologies for thinking otherwise.

It's now conclusively proven that Col is not a Dalek :)

Usual Suspect,
Well said, you read my mind.

Ted,
I understand what you are saying, and yes, chronic pain sufferers and people with illnesses should be focused on first.
Cannabinoids have shown to be very effective analgesics for the treatment of chronic pain and some specific illnesses and therefore they should be able to experiment with a large range of analgesics to be able to find the most effective one.

Individual and Col,
Great to see you have an open mind about this, Col. Thanks for the links.
Yes, Individual, I thought my children were receiving inferior drug education at school so I updated them myself.
Luckily, they have no interest in either legal or illicit drugs but I have never 'forbidden' them to use drugs- just to be open about it.

It’s simply incomplete education to ONLY tell kids ‘don’t use drugs’.
I see similarities between drug and sex education.
There’s abstinence-only education and comprehensive education which includes abstinence as the safest option.
We can tell teenagers they’ll be safest to stay away from drugs altogether, the reality is that teenagers sometimes ignore good advice and do want to experience so they still need to know what they should be aware of IN CASE they do use drugs, such as to not to combine cannabis and alcohol.

Fractelle,
I forgot to thank you for the article about hemp- I haven’t had the time yet to read it, will do so over the weekend as I find it very interesting that there are so many uses for hemp.

I’m glad that this debate on drugs has turned out very amicable- I thank you all for this very enjoyable discussion which, I feel, has perhaps almost come to an end.

For all our advances in technology and synthetic drugs, why are we so afraid of pot? Is it because at some point we've all deemed that to experience a high is a lack of self-control or that we don't want to see out children giggling over nothing at all?

Besides, it's all moot point because the real point of this article is the issue of cannabis for medicinal use. How does any of our convenient pills in bottles come about if not by the path and willingness to research something for its benefits and understand its harm.

Surely we all know what preceeded before morphine in the area of extreme pain relief.

I say throw away our fears for the unknown and at least give some funding to cannbis research.