"If centipedes wore shoes,

Shoe-makers would be rich".

From The Proverbs of

Bachchoo-ka-Adda

Nov.06 : "My name is Farrukh and I am a ganjeri!" — er... not really, but that’s the way one would introduce oneself if, on the lines of Alcoholics Anonymous, there was a parallel organisation called Ganjaheads Guiltridden, Stoners Unstoned or Charsis Incognito. There doesn’t happen to be such an organisation and with the state of the law as it is, neither can there be. If I turn up at an AA meeting and confess to my addiction, I haven’t put myself outside the law. Similarly, if I go to a Give-up-smoking-tobacco clinic to get nicotinised by therapy or whatever else, I am legal. But anyone who signs up to a group such as the above invented ones is liable to end up on a police list of "charsis charged with drug abuse".

It would be tantamount to admitting that you are the user of a drug which is today in Britain classified in the "C category". There is a proposal from the government and the home secretary, Alan Johnson, to reclassify cannabis as a more dangerous drug, up there with Ecstasy, LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), cocaine and heroin. Before he presents such an amendment of the drug act to Parliament, however, Mr Johnson has appointed a committee of scientists to supply justification for the move.

Unfortunately for him, Professor David Nutt, the scientist he appointed to head the commission of enquiry into cannabis and its use, came to the opposite conclusion from the one Mr Johnson thought was politically expedient. The good professor concluded that cannabis was less harmful in very many ways than cigarettes and had, head for head, less bad effects on users than alcohol. He also came to the conclusion that the drug Ecstasy, used by the young as a spirit booster on evenings-out, was as dangerous as taking a ride on a horse — yes, some people would fall off and break their necks, but by and large the riders would return home whole.

Professor Nutt made these views public just when Mr Johnson was about to announce to the nation that he was going to reclassify cannabis as a dangerous drug and make the penalties for its use, which the police and the courts hardly ever resort to, compulsory, widespread and more severe. Mr Johnson’s political calculation is that most people don’t use cannabis in any form — ganja, charas or bhang (respectively grass, hash and "fresh leaf of cannabis sativa crushed and incorporated into a milk drink only in India") and the majority of these would be in favour of getting more censorious about other people’s pleasures. The votes from users are small in number if indeed the stoners can get themselves up on election day and be bothered enough to go to the polling booths.

Prof Nutt’s considered and publicly-expressed scientific opinion got him sacked. Mr Johnson dismissed him. This a bit like sacking your doctor if you don’t like the diagnosis. Or, perhaps, it’s more like changing from palmistry to astrology to get a more pleasing prediction for the coming week because there are respectable scientists and doctors who disagree with Prof Nutt on scientific and statistical grounds and think the home secretary is acting in a socially responsible way.

The sacking of Prof Nutt has caused other members of the government’s advisory board on the use of drugs to resign. They may or may not agree with the nutty analysis of cannabis, but that’s not their point in resigning.

They contend that the government either appoints scientists to put a considered point of view and takes heed of the advice or it doesn’t deserve the benefit of it.

In a more and more complex world, the information that scientists provide has huge political and financial impact. No government can make environmental policy without the advice of the various branches of science involved. The birth of nuclear armaments and power plants quintessentially required co-operation between politicians during the World War II and physicists. Politicians couldn’t say that "e" was equal to "mc (cubed)" if that was what would yield more votes.

The most blatant example of politicians playing fast and loose with science was President Tabo Mbeki of South Africa refusing to acknowledge that the HIV virus was responsible for AIDS.

One wonders also about Indian politicians consulting astrologers for auspicious days on which to hold elections or launch nuclear tests, though a little thought would establish that meteorologists’ predictions might be more useful in both contexts and astrologers’ divinations in this respect would be perfectly neutral — the fact that Mars is in Pisces won’t make a difference to the electoral or scientific outcome. Not so with Mr Mbeki and those dying of AIDS in South Africa.

With cannabis in the UK the matter is still in contention. In Sweden, which has strict laws against cannabis use, eight per cent of teenagers admit to using the drug. In Holland, which has legalised the use of cannabis, 28 per cent use the drug. In Britain the percentage of 16-year-olds using cannabis is 37. The figures indicate that the legalisation or otherwise of the drug is not the dominant factor in its appeal. The sub-cultures of the country dictate the attraction, availability and peer-respect for users.

As a student in British universities, I found both ganja and charas easily available, though they were at the time listed as "Class B substances". As a political agitator in and around black and Asian groups in Britain, one found it even more readily available. (I am not saying whether I ever inhaled!) As a TV executive, I found that the world around me persisted in substance abuse, only the substance seemed to be white rather than black, brown or green in colour.

I can say very candidly that the change in the law of cannabis use/abuse won’t affect me or anyone I know. My vices have moved on and consist largely of the fermented juice of the Sauvignon Blanc grape which the French, the New Zealanders and even our own Sula vineyards bottle and sell.

Farrukh Dhondy