Ignorant Clegg

Nick clegg’s stand to decriminalise cannabis as a key part of his party’s election manifesto just proves a point on how ignorant he is as to the effects cannabis can have on users.

The lives of users can change in such a short time span — which affects not only the user but also their families.

Recently updated research shows it can lead users on to more devastating drugs and studies show a 24 per cent greater risk in users ending up with psychosis, schizophrenia and other problems that could remain with them for life.

Surely that is enough reason to turn our backs on this demented career politician?

it’s more important to raise the alarm and awareness among the younger population that if you use it, you are gambling with something that could devastate your life for ever.

Don’t we highlight the real risks of smoking, drinking, gambling and taking so- called legal highs to educate them about the dangers of their use?

Hospitals, pubs, public transport and buildings and the like have all banned smoking in an effort to reduce the number of users and protect the wider population.

if keeping cannabis use a chargeable offence helps in the process of stopping users, even if it helps just one life, isn’t that worth it?

There is a big drive on sex education for an ever younger group of children. if that is deemed so important by the politicians, then apply the same zest to school children on the use of cannabis and other harmful substances. i think Messrs clegg and Branson, with the views they share, should get out of their protected environment.

Go and meet some of the families of users and users themselves whose lives have been destroyed. i can only imagine that those who promote decriminalisation have been users in the past — and maybe still are in the present — but have managed to avoid the effects. Well, lucky you.

But if smoking tobacco is a known carcinogen, smoking cannabis must cause similar effects. combined with what it can do to the mind, any sensible person would hold different views to eliminate its use.

i thought one aspect of being a politician was helping to protect the public. if that is the case, then those politicos whose minds are addled — and there are many in all parties — should leave the arena at this coming General Election

PENNY DAVIES, Kelso, Roxburghshire. i’M iNcENSED at Nick clegg and Richard Branson declaring that no one should be convicted for carrying drugs for their own use (Mail). They’re a pair of sanctimonious asses.

Have they ever spoken to parents of drug users? Try being a parent whose kids are stealing from you, lying to you and generally making the family’s life hell because they need their fix. Even charities who deal with drug users daily say they’ve got it wrong.

i hope neither of them have to go through what my husband and i went through with our son, who is still an addict, albeit clean at the moment.

i hope no child or grandchild of theirst becomes entangled in the life of a drug user. Unfortunately, the chances are quite high because drugs area so readily available.

Anyone who has any doubts about thet damage that being addicted to drugsd can do should ask the families who deal with it daily. Facts and figures may lie, but we parents don’t.

GINA SCOTTING, Lancing, Sussex.