Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2013
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Copyright: 2013 Associated Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/108
Authors: Vanessa Allen and Ben Spencer
Page: 1

I'VE TAKEN CANNABIS SAYS CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER

Shock Admission From UK's Top Doctor

ENGLAND'S most senior doctor yesterday admitted she had taken
cannabis.

Professor Sally Davies also appeared to question the policy of
treating drug abuse as a criminal offence.

Dame Sally, the chief medical officer, said she had experimented with
cannabis three or four times at university but stopped after suffering
hallucinations.

She has previously claimed that criminalising drugs deterred addicts
from seeking medical help.

Dame Sally has also said she would be 'ready with quite a lot of
advice' if ministers decided to decriminalise some drugs.

Mental health charities have warned that any move to liberalise
Britain's drugs laws could increase the use of cannabis, which has
been widely linked to psychological problems.

Dame Sally, 63, recently named as the sixth most powerful woman in
Britain, revealed she had tried cannabis baked into cookies while
studying medicine at Manchester University in the late 1960s and early
1970s.

The Government's most senior medical adviser said: 'I never smoked, so
I couldn't smoke joints, but I did have some cookies until on the
third or fourth occasion I had hallucinations and I have never touched
it since.

'I think I understood through that what my father said to me when I
told him I was going to try it. He said drugs de-civilise you, you
stop being a civilised person.'

Dame Sally, who was appointed as England's chief medical officer in
2010, has always stopped short of supporting the decriminalisation of
any illegal drugs.

But she has repeatedly questioned whether the Government's policy on
drug use should be driven by the Home Office, with its inevitable
focus on law and order, or by the Department of Health.

Interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions yesterday, she said: 'Of
course it's a medical problem, addiction is a medical problem and it
becomes a public health problem and then our society is choosing to
treat that as a criminal justice issue.'

Giving evidence to MPs on the science and technology select committee
in January, she said: 'I think we have a health problem and we would
do well as a nation to look at it as a health problem.

'I think there's quite a lot of evidence from other countries, and
science, about how you could go about that.'

Her comments drew criticism from anti-drugs campaigners. Peter
Stoker, of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: 'When people
say they want it treated as a health matter what they really mean is
they want it decriminalised.

'There are health implications to using cannabis but there are also
social and legal problems.'

Mary Brett, of charity Cannabis Skunk Sense, said: 'Lots of people try
it at university but it would have been helpful if she could have said
that cannabis now is much stronger and more dangerous than when she
tried it.

'She is the chief medical officer, she ought to have included some
kind of warning to children not to try it.'

Around two million people in Britain use cannabis, according to the
Royal College of Psychiatrists, and half of all 16 to 29-year olds
have tried it at least once. But recent research has suggested the
drug can be linked to psychotic illnesses.

The Home Office has resisted numerous calls for the radical
liberalisation of Britain's drug laws, including from its own advisers.

Professor David Nutt was sacked as chairman of the Advisory Council on
the Misuse of Drugs after he criticised the decision to upgrade
cannabis to a Class B drug in 2009.

Dame Sally admitted her highprofile role, which has a salary of more
than UKP200,000, could be difficult when her personal beliefs did not
match policy.

But in a wide-ranging interview, she also said she had deliberately
cut down on drinking wine since her appointment because of official
guidelines.

She said: 'I have never hidden the fact I enjoy a glass of wine but I
try not to be photographed now with one, and I do drink less because I
have read the evidence and I am persuaded of it .'

Dame Sally, who lives with her third husband and their two daughters
in Islington, North London, was named as the sixth most powerful woman
in Britain by BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour in February.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'The UK approach is to consider
drug use as both a health and criminal issue and so the chief medical
officer is not saying anything new.'
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