Minister: Treat cannabis like alcohol

Cannabis should be treated in much the same way as alcohol and tobacco, with health warnings against smoking it "to excess", a government minister said today.

The call by junior Home Office minister Bob Ainsworth will be taken as a further softening of the Government's line on drugs and comes after Home Secretary David Blunkett announced the effective scrapping of criminal penalties for possessing cannabis.

The Government may also extend the scope of its national drugs rehabilitation programme to cover alcohol and tobacco.

The new stance was spelled out in a Commons debate on drugs policy when Mr Ainsworth was asked if the health message on cannabis would appear more credible if coupled with warnings on alcohol and tobacco.

He said: "We need to get a message through to young people that to take any of these in excess is dangerous."