In the same week the government performed its inelegant U-turn on cannabis drugs research body, the Beckley Foundation, drafted a new UN Convention on controlling cannabis

As a Class B drug, cannabis in the UK is classified alongside much more harmful substances like amphetamines. However, under the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, cannabis is actually scheduled with heroin. To many drug lobbyists, a more rational approach to drug control, such as recognising their relative harms, remains a remote ideal.

Lady Amanda Neidpath, Executive Director of the charitable trust the Beckley Foundation, has been working for some years, "to provide a rigorous independent review of global drug policy". The Foundation’s draft ‘Convention on Cannabis’ attempts to steer international and, consequently, domestic legislation from the reactionary to the realistic. If adopted by the United Nations, the Convention would revolutionise the control of cannabis around the world. Lady Amanda feels the debate about the drug has been stymied for many years and is long overdue.

She said, “I noticed how, at international drug policy meetings, cannabis was like the elephant in the room. It was never mentioned and seemed of no interest compared with heroin, crack and crystal meth. The United Nations estimate there are 166 million cannabis smokers in the world - so it is effectively the mainstay on the ‘War on Drugs’. If the leading nations of the world could agree to change this outdated regime of cannabis control then there would be an incredible impact on all the drug markets."

It will be far from straightforward to instigate such dramatic change - Lady Neidpath is under no illusions about the United Nations’ reputation as an extremely conservative institution, “It has been shown that it can take over thirty years to change a comma in an international convention,” she said. The Beckley Foundation’s Global Cannabis Commission has produced an accompanying report 'Moving Beyond Stalemate' which should certainly stimulate debate at a special meeting of the United Nation's Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna in March.

Although there is a mood for reform on drug laws in the United Nations some of the delegates have been living for some time in a world distinct from reality. The United Nations General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) held in New York in 1998 set the goal of eliminating all drug use, production and supply across the planet in just ten years. This hopelessly optimistic programme entitled, 'A drug free world - we can do it!’ defied all measures of political and social realism and could only prompt the response, “No, we can’t!” Drug use across the world has risen relentlessly throughout that period.

“Legal changes are always lengthy but for now we would be content for a significant group of countries to acknowledge the 1961 Single Convention is out-dated legislation and constitutes and unsustainable long-term position in terms of policy on cannabis. Policy-makers can then consider the options for change set out in our report,” she said.

Lady Amanda, 65, cuts a somewhat unlikely figure as a drugs campaigner; a former artist, she lives in a 16th century manor house, a few miles outside Oxford. Born into an aristocratic family, she has dedicated her life to exploring human consciousness. She studied Comparative Religion at Oxford and as an artist had her conceptual works exhibited in New York galleries. The Foundation, established in 2000, has embarked on a series of ground-breaking research programmes most recently with LSD.

Whatever international governments make of the direction the Cannabis Commission wishes to take drug control, there is no doubt over the quality of academia which makes up the Commission. The five authors are all eminent Professors from US, Canada and Australia; Robin Room and Peter Reuter, in particular, are among the leading figures in drug policy analysis in the world today.

The overall aim of the Commission’s work is to minimise the harms resulting from both the use of cannabis and the laws which control it and to allow individual countries the freedom to work out a system of regulation which bests suits their individual needs – even to the point of state production and licensed sale. As a general principle on enforcement, Lady Amanda is convinced, “there should be no custodial sentences for cannabis possession”.

When I ask her to summarise the report in just a few words she says, “To quote directly from our report I would say, ‘that which is prohibited cannot be regulated’. In other words banning a drug’s use outright does not give you the control a regulated market would provide.”

She confesses to being “dismayed” at the British Government’s toughening of the law on cannabis. “I, like all the scientists who advised the government, think it is a mistaken decision, made solely for political reasons. Ministers are inclined to talk about law changes which ‘send out a message’ to young people. Policies controlling the use of drugs, whether draconian or liberal, have little or no effect on the prevalence of use."

Lady Amanda and the authors of the report know they have an unenviable task in trying to overcome the familiar political inertia. President Obama has yet to declare where he wants to take drug policy and the US will be pivotal in deciding its future under the United Nations. In the meantime, the Beckley Foundation report gives policy-makers at least a hint of what modern drug control could look like.

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