---

Regulation of Cannabis

May I, too, welcome the tone of my right hon. Friend’s statement, which rejects the moral outrage that we hear from Opposition Members and insists on an evidence-based approach? Frankly, our education programme will be credible and will work only if people accept the basis on which it is formed. Like others, I have a lot more faith in giving young people credible messages through an education programme than I do in criminalising a generation of people who do not believe that criminalisation will deter them, or their peer group, from using cannabis.