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Cannabis users move to ‘home grown’

Research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlights an increasing tendency for cannabis users to grow their own supplies and suggests it may account for half of all consumption in Britain.

But it points to wide discrepancies in the way that police and the courts apply the laws against cultivation.

The researchers, at South Bank University’s Criminal Policy Research Unit and the National Addiction Centre at King’s College, London, surveyed 37 cannabis growers and split them into five different groups: sole-use growers, who cultivated it for their own use or use with friends; medical growers, who used it to relieve the symptoms of long-term conditions, such as multiple sclerosis; social growers, who wanted a good supply for themselves and friends; social/commercial growers, who also sold cannabis; commercial growers, cultivating it to make money.

Home secretary David Blunkett has announced that there will be on-the-spot warnings and confiscation when cannabis is reclassified as a Class C drug later this year. But there is uncertainty about whether the police and courts will treat cultivation for personal use as equivalent to possession.

Professor Mike Hough of South Bank University, co-author of the report, said: ‘Debate has so far ignored the issue of cultivation and the opportunities for careful reform, that would reduce the harm caused by dangerous drugs and drug dealing.’

Meanwhile, the May issue of The Lancet Neurology has a review outlining the potential therapeutic effects of cannabis, in anticipation of the results of randomised trials expected later this year investigating the possible benefits for people with multiple sclerosis.