Yet perhaps a more pertinent question is: how? Where would the drug be

Yet perhaps a more pertinent question is: how? Where would the drug be sold? Who could buy it? Who could sell it? These are practical, not philosophical, questions, and until they are properly addressed, the debate will take place in a vacuum. For its part, the Government, sadly, seems unable to confront the fact that change is in the air.Four years ago, our sister paper, The Independent on Sunday, launched a campaign that helped to break the stalemate and moved the debate on legalising cannabis on to the national agenda That campaign is now bearing fruit. The creation of a Royal Commission could help to establish the parameters of a change in the law.The latest intervention by Peter Lilley, a beacon for the Tory right – and, more cautiously, by Michael Portillo – is a reminder that the Conservative Party is still capable of causing a stir for the right reasons. Ann Widdecombe’s call for “zero tolerance” last year backfired when many of the Shadow Cabinet announced that they themselves had smoked cannabis. Mr Lilley’s initiative, by contrast, is in the spirit of the times.The Government, meanwhile, shows its unwillingness to face the inevitability of change by failing even to provide a spokesman to discuss the issue.

And yet, any politician who seeks to set his or her face against the trend will be remembered, in this regard, as a latter-day King Canute.The argument that cannabis is a “gateway drug” to harder and more dangerous drugs is still often heard – but is stupefyingly illogical. If a dodgy dealer offers both cannabis and heroin, cannabis may indeed be a gateway to worse things; but if the corner shop that offers cannabis also offers Kit-Kats, lager, and smoky-bacon flavoured crisps (or, as in Holland, coffee and cakes), then the gateway – though perhaps not ideal, in health terms – can hardly be seen as lethal.Despite what some dewy-eyed supporters of change might suggest, that does not mean that decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis will reduce the overall drugs problem. Legalisation of cannabis will make the problems posed by other drugs neither better nor worse.Nor can health be seen as the key issue. As the Lancet magazine noted: “Moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill effect on health, and decisions to ban or to legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations.” Cannabis is less damaging to health than alcohol or tobacco – though the question of alleged positive benefits remains unclear; research published in the British Medical Journal this week suggests that benefits for pain relief may be overstated. Instead, the main argument in favour of legalising cannabis is dull – that there may be no good reason not to.By the same token, there is little reason to rush helter-skelter towards a change in the law.

The Royal Commission would allow us to take the time to get things right – including questions about where the drug could be sold, as well as the importance of “drug-driving” testing. Mo Mowlam, formerly responsible for the Government’s drug policy, now advocates reform; senior police officers are equally relaxed. The change introduced in Brixton this week, whereby possession of cannabis is no longer an arrestable offence (a classic British fudge) is only one of many changes yet to come.The question of “whether” is now almost obsolete. The Government must finally focus on the important how-where-and-when questions. What it cannot do is desperately and pointlessly look the other way.. I am down in the south of Spain at the moment; I’ve come here to hide out from my publishers because I’m late delivering my new collection of short stories.

I am down in the south of Spain at the moment; I’ve come here to hide out from my publishers because I’m late delivering my new collection of short stories. There’s a lot of us down here who’ve gone past our deadlines. Louis de Berni?s is in hiding in Malaga because he’s two years late delivering Captain Corelli 2, and Helen Fielding is dodging about in the hills above Mijas.
You see, the problem is that publishers have done so many books of reminiscences by lovable 1960s criminals during the last few years, they have now started imitating the criminals’ methods – any complaints about your advance and John from accounts will come down and give you “a little talking to”; if you start blabbing about the sales figures you are likely to be on the wrong end of a slapping.It is a little known fact that Kingsley Amis was thinking of switching publishers, so his old firm got their retaliation in first, and now there’s a little bit of the foundations of the Millennium Dome that will always be Sir K.A lot of people complain about the monotony of the food in Spain but I like it; at least it’s honest about being all the same, not like Italy. Don’t get me started on Italian food alright? I mean it’s not too bad in Britain because they have to vary it a bit for the British market, and a lot of Italian restaurants are run by Egyptians and Icelanders masquerading as Italians anyway.But when you are actually in Italy, it’s all a different story, let me tell you. You go into this restaurant, right, and they appear to have all these hundreds of different dishes on the menu that you’ve never heard of and, if you’re like me and you’ve pretty much eaten everything in the world twice, even the really horrible things, then you get really excited, But when you ask them what they are, all the exotic dishes turn out to be pasta but in different shapes.”This evening sir we have a very special dish of farfalagoo.” “Ooh that sounds great, what is it?” “It is pasta in the shape of underpants in a tomato sauce.” “Oh ummm.” “We also have a wonderful dish of quandoquadochinni alla quandchinni con quandochini.” “Ooh that sounds great too, what’s that ?” “Well, Signor, it is pasta in the shape of the French Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, in a tomato sauce.