THE lobby for the legalisation of drugs to end the criminal control of their supply will no doubt be boosted by the research revealed on BBC1's Panorama programme tonight showing a widespread belief among the police that cannabis is harmless.

But can the advocates of legalised cannabis, encouraged by the manifest police tolerance, convince the majority that today's hard-drugs addicts did not start off by dabbling with supposedly "harmless" pot?

Unless they can, they will have a hard time selling their cause.

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