Eight senior Tory politicians have admitted smoking cannabis. Is it time to make the drug legal? Here are two opposing points of view.

YES: Gary Priest, a 39-year-old father of two from Sherburn-in-Elmet who has been a regular cannabis user for 20 years.

NO:Hugh Moir, a former policeman who works for London House Services Leeds and York, which offers a drugs screening service.

I FIRST tried cannabis when I was 15. I didn't think then 'yes, that's for me'. It just didn't seem to work for me. A few years went by and I grew up a bit. In my late teens I discovered alcohol. But I was one of those people who gets aggressive when drinking.

I had a problem. When I realised I had to stop drinking so much, I turned to cannabis.

It relaxes me. It doesn't make me want to jump out of windows and fly, and it doesn't destroy my brain cells.

I have been married for 20 years. My wife doesn't touch any drugs, including cannabis. But if you asked my wife what she would rather I did, drink beer or smoke cannabis, she would say the latter.

If you saw me when I'd smoked cannabis, you would see I was just a normal person. I don't seem any different.

I have got two children, aged 16 and ten. When they were youngsters my wife was quite happy to leave me in charge of them when I smoked cannabis.

Alcohol provokes violence. You go to any hospital casualty unit any weekend and it smells like a brewery. It's pathetic.

People don't fight on cannabis. Why do you think they call it dope?

Millions of people smoke cannabis. Users who are caught might get a £100 fine. It's another way of taxing it.

But if they legalised cannabis in this country I believe you could fund the NHS with the tax revenue.

I read an article which said 90 per cent of all drugs seizures are cannabis. That's 90 per cent of the drugs squad's time wasted, if you ask me.

I believe the police are there to catch major criminals like the bloke selling ecstasy and heroin to children, not to jail people for smoking a bit of dope.

I don't walk around the streets smoking it. I sit in my own home behind my own door. I take no other drugs whatsoever, and I have no interest in any other drug.

The police only know I smoke cannabis by battering my door down. In the last raid eight police searched my home for two hours to recover £3-worth of cannabis. Imagine how much money that cost.

I am 40 next birthday and I cannot get a job because of my criminal convictions for cannabis use. It's ridiculous.

Because drugs are illegal, the Government has lost control of the situation. It puts the control into the hands of the criminals.

If you legalise cannabis the Government regains control and would stop the criminals making a vast amount of money out of it.

What do you think?

Write to The Editor, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN

Fax 01904 612853

email: letters@ycp.co.uk

Speak Easy: 01904 567179