What kind of message would legalising cannabis send to young people?

SIR – William Hague’s call to legalise cannabis (Comment, June 19) is profoundly unhelpful to those who are leading universities, as I do currently, and to those who are leading schools, as I did for 20 years.

Decriminalising cannabis is good. However, legalising it will only create more problems. I am trying to run Britain’s first “drug-free” university at Buckingham. I believe all universities should be drug-free, and that all schools should aim to follow suit.

The aim is to run a regime where the language and culture change, so that taking cannabis and other drugs is no longer “cool” but sad – where students learn much more about the damage that drug-taking does to themselves and their communities, and where much more is done to help them find natural and harmless ways to enjoy their lives to the full.

Sir Anthony Seldon Vice-chancellor University of Buckingham

SIR – We believe that Lord Hague is

right to say that the war on cannabis has been “irreversibly lost”.

The Adam Smith Institute has estimated that legalisation, regulation and taxation of cannabis would raise at least £1 billion a year for the Treasury, while the Taxpayers’ Alliance has suggested that nearly £900 million could be saved from police, prison, court and NHS budgets through legalisation. Britain could use a “cannabis dividend” to expand access to addiction treatment centres and reduce waiting-times for mental health services on the NHS.

Ensuring the safety of citizens is the first duty of government. Prohibition of cannabis is failing to keep Britons safe. Pushing people into the hands of gangs that peddle drugs on the black market risks their safety and gives cash to criminals. Users have no way of knowing the potency of the cannabis they consume, which varies wildly depending on where they get it from.

With cannabis legal in some form in a majority of US states, and Canada preparing to legalise recreational cannabis fully, we believe that the status quo is unsustainable. The Government should appoint a Royal Commission to look again at how cannabis is treated under the law and consider legalisation.

Crispin Blunt MP (Con) Michael Fabricant MP (Con) Lord Lilley (Con) Professor David Nutt and 17 others; see telegraph.co.uk

SIR – Lord Hague says that the war on cannabis has been “comprehensively and irreversibly lost”.

The war on murder has also been lost. Will he recommend that it is legalised too?

Graham Glasse Lavenham, Suffolk

SIR – Why is it that can I spend five days in hospital on diamorphine (which is pure heroin and very pleasant), but a child can’t be prescribed a cannabis derivative to treat epilepsy?

Angus Erskine Muthill, Perthshire