Hague: The war against marijuana has been lost

EXPECTING police to rid the streets of recreational cannabis is futile, William Hague said last night.

The former Tory leader said the war on the drug had been ‘comprehensively and irreversibly lost’.

Following Cabinet discussions about medicinal cannabis, Lord Hague went further and said the Prime Minister should be ‘bold’ and introduce a ‘major change’ in policy.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague added: ‘The idea that this can be driven off the streets and out of people’s lives by the state is deluded.

‘Cannabis is ubiquitous, and issuing orders to the police to defeat its use is about as up to date and relevant as asking the Army to recover the Empire. The battle is effectively over.’

He said the case of Billy Caldwell had provided ‘one of those illuminating moments when a longstanding policy is revealed to be inappropriate, ineffective and utterly out of date’.

He said the case was ‘beyond ridiculous’ and the fact that the Home Office had ‘backed down’ was proof that the law had become ‘indefensible’.

He added: ‘It must now be asked whether Britain should join the many other countries that permit medicalgrade marijuana, or indeed join Canada in preparing for a lawful, regulated market in cannabis for recreational use as well.’

He said only crime gangs benefited from ‘the rise of a multi-billion-pound black market for an unregulated and increasingly potent product, creating more addiction and mental health problems but without any enforceable policy to do something about it’.

He added: ‘When a law has ceased to be worth enforcing to many police as well as the public, respect for the law in general is damaged.’

‘The battle is effectively over’