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What's with SNP's cannabis converts?
MARGO MacDONALD | Edinburg Evening News | 1/25/06

EITHER the SNP's health spokesperson has the shortest memory or the most brassy neck in the Scottish Parliament. Nothing else explains Shona Robison's late conversion to having a concern over the use of cannabis.

When I read of her deep concern at the lack of research into the use of the most commonly used illegal drug, I couldn't make up my mind whether to laugh or cry. She was one of the most vocal members of the SNP group of MSPs who opposed my efforts to have my motion debated on the need for research into cannabis in the first years of the Scottish Parliament's existence.

My proposal, that collected support from around 40 or so MSPs from across the party divide, was for the Scottish Executive to establish a commission to investigate the use of cannabis, from which we could have found out why most teenagers who experiment with the weed stop using it some time before they hit 30. We would have built up a picture of who uses cannabis, and why.

If the SNP had been genuinely concerned about getting effective drug use policies in place, we could have found why the great majority of cannabis users do not use it as a gateway to hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine.

And apart from using the information gained from such an investigation to better inform the policymakers and people working with drug users, we could have contributed our findings to the much sketchier research being undertaken in England, that informed David Blunkett's decision to reclassify the drug from B to C.

I may, of course, have missed it, but during the months leading up to Blunkett's decision two years ago, when everyone seriously concerned about drug use and abuse was engaged in public debate, I don't recall seeing Ms Robison or her SNP colleagues staking out their party's position on how cannabis should be classified.

Did the SNP query whether people using it should be treated by the police in Scotland as they would be if they lit up when on a visit to Brixton, for example, or whether they thought more research was called for?

Still, we must put aside any thoughts of bandwagons, by-elections and baiting the Scottish Executive over the new figures from information gathered on the number of patients discharged from hospitals, having had treatment for conditions brought about by cannabis use. Much more research needs to be done into the facts lying behind the bald statistic of the number of cannabis-related casualties in Lothian having risen from 45 to 136 in the period since the weed was reclassified and its legal status totally confused.

For example, what percentage of those treated for cannabis-related conditions had used "skunk" - the newer, stronger type on the market? Did they know they had used it? Were they aware of the difference between it and other strains of cannabis?

What age group is most commonly affected? How long had they been using? Had they started to use more cannabis because the reclassification indicated it was a safe drug? Was it because they had more money and the price of street drugs had fallen? What other drugs do they use?

As well as that sort of information gathering, we also need to put into context the new research showing cannabis to be a more dangerous drug than we had previously believed.

Among many others, I believed the weed to be less dangerous to the individual users' health than alcohol. It scored socially over the booze drug because nobody ever got fighting drunk when stoned. This was the clincher in persuading me it should be classified alongside baccy and booze, and sold under controlled conditions, to separate it from the hard drug suppliers.

But I began to question my own stand when cannabis - and research showing it capable of exacerbating existing psychotic behaviour and causing depression and anxiety - became stronger.

But wait a minute, where's the difference in that from the effect alcohol can have on some drinkers? What percentage of weekend cannabis users damage their concentration, or their lungs? And what percentage of the people becoming psychotic were heavy users of the heavy-duty skunk?

I think I'll re-table my motion. I wonder if the SNP's health spokesman and her colleagues will support it this time?

Brown's crossed the line in bridge debate

WE'LL probably need another bridge over the Forth. The investigations and the sums are being done right now.

If there wasn't a by-election in Dunfermline, Gordon Brown, like the rest of us, would have accepted the Scottish Executive's word that it wanted to see the whole picture before announcing new prices to cross the present bridge. Pardon me if I sit this one out until all the facts are known... and that'll be after Dunfermline has a new MP.

Fox is wrong to cross out the Saltire

COLIN FOX, the SSP leader, is one of my favourite people in the Scottish Parliament - and he has my support for his campaign for free prescriptions. The administration costs of the present payments system, never mind the inequalities, makes the case for him.

But he's as misguided as the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, who wants us all to plant a Union Jack in the garden, to suggest that the Saltire is old hat and unattractive to Asian Scots and other Scots by choice.

As one of the world's oldest flags, it's part of the clay that moulds us. It would be to deny our history to try and make it redundant. Far better to keep it as an enduring symbol of what we are, the contributions we're proud to have made to humanity, and the acts in which we take no pride but from which we can learn.

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"Those who do no harm to others should not be harmed by others..." Ethan Nadelmann
"Revolution is not a right, it is an obligation." John Locke
"Do SOMETHING besides argue emotions against the law, because it simply isn't a rational way to affect any type of change whatsoever. No offense intended, but your opinion on things is a moot point unless you take actions to change the law, rather than ramble about how unfair or injust it is." troublemaker_42
"'Just say no' to drugs, except those marketed by big pharmaceutical companies." Ignorant Politicians