Pity poor Clare Short.

As the newly appointed shadow transport minister (and probably the most independent minded member of the Labour front bench team) she was forced by her leader to apologise, in the interests of collective responsibility, for espousing her long held views on the decriminalisation of cannabis.

If a radical review of the legalisation of drugs is ever to be debated again in the House of Commons, it must surely be the subject of a free vote.

Yet, even on the opposition front bench, what is perceived as a controversial view is stifled.One can assume that official Labour party policy on the issue is geared to both re-election and to meet the government's hard line on law and order with equal but hardly distinguishable ferocity.One does wonder, however, how contentious drug legalisation really is.

While a recent survey purported to show that 60% of respondents were against the legalisation of drugs many prominent individuals, both in and out of elected office, have already openly supported, at the very least, the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis.

And by no means all of them are liberals with a small or a large 'L'.

Over the last few years the open sandal brigade has joined in what the right wing would no doubt describe as an unholy alliance with Conservative backbenchers and senior police officers in supporting a radical re-think of our drugs laws.And sources tell me that the persona l views of senior politicians on both sides of the political fence do not necessarily coincide with their respective party lines.

If so, it is high time that senior public figures came out of the closet and expressed their genuinely held views.This is not a political issue, nor indeed is it a moral one.

The effect of narcotic and psychotropic drugs on society is a problem which society in its widest sense must confront.

The principal legal question that we must address is whether the criminal law is the proper forum for the control of drug use.

There has been national and international concern about the misuse of drugs for most of the 20th century and since the 1960s, drug misuse in the UK has been regarded as a major social problem.

Over the years the momentum of international concern has resulted in numerous international treaties and conventions to control the trade in, and possession of, drugs.

The UK, as a signatory to these various international conventions and protocols is required to impose national controls on listed drugs to at least the same degree as that required by the conventions.

The result was the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and its associated regulations which provide domestic controls for drugs.The arguments against easing up on the blanket prohibitions on possession of both 'soft' and 'hard' drugs have been too well rehearsed to require detailed repetition.

It is said that drug taking causes harm to the individual and harm to society and can result in public health consequences, the break-up of families, criminal behaviour resulting from drug use, and so on.Yet blanket prohibitions have failed to stem the misery and harm which they were designed to prevent and control.

In the same way that the death penalty did not deter would-be murderers, forcing drug users into a criminal ambience has done nothing to control drug or drug-related crime.

Since this is presumably the objective which society seeks to achieve, it must be time for a frank reassessment.

Unfortunately, frankness has never been the principal currency of politicians, particularly when faced with what they perceive to be an unpopular cause.In 1991 I was a member of a committee assembled by the law reform organisation Justice which considered and reported on the state of UK drugs law and made certain recommendations.

The committee consisted of drug specialists in all fields -- lawyers, doctors, drugs workers and police officers.

The recommendations (which were not taken up by the government) were relatively modest.

On balance, the committee came down against the legalisation of cannabis.

However, it recommended its downgrading in terms of penal consequence within existing law, to mark the recognition of its widespread usage and relative low level risk to the individual and society at large.Four years on my views have changed as, I suspect, have those of many other people.

I believe it is time to revisit the whole issue of the control of drugs by criminal law.

What we need is not a Law Commission but a Community Commission which is truly representative of society.

Our present predicament is too important and too immediate to be left to either the vagaries of politics or the intellectualising of lawyers.