It seems that Home Secretary David Blunkett is seeking to change the cannabis laws.

No longer will young people (or anyone else who fancies, like, a blow, man) find themselves hauled through the courts for an act of minor hedonism some might say was on a par with going to the pub and ordering a pint of lager.

Considering the attitude of Mr B's predecessor Jack Straw, a hard line anti-dope fiend if ever there was one, this seems like one of the more striking of government U-turns.

Readers will remember the diverting little incident when Mr Straw's son had his collar felt by the Old Bill after being set up by an undercover reporter apparently attempting to score some pot (as I believe the vernacular has it).

You'd have thought this embarrassing episode might have made Mr Straw think again, but no. The lad was frog-marched down the nick and made to 'fess up to his disgraceful crime.

I suppose there will come a time when society fails to crumble as a result of Mr B's relative leniency and you may be able to pick up, like, y'know, an eighth from an attractive display case in your local coffee shop as per Amsterdam.

Maybe we shall go further and you'll find cut-price dope promotions shoulder to shoulder with the fags or the industrial strength cider at your friendly local supermarket.

Or considering that eating, like, the stuff man, is held to be considerably less harmful to your health than smoking it perhaps the promotions will be in the home baking section sharing shelf space with the self-raising flour and caster sugar.

I can picture it now: alluringly packaged, two-for-the-price-of-one offers with tempting Jamie Oliver recipes for pukka hash brownies and wicked space cakes on the back of the packet.

The Women's Institute market stall may never be the same again.

But seriously now. As long as cannabis remains illegal, whether it is classified A, B or C and whether possession of it is an indictable offence or not, its smuggling and distribution (other than the odd bit bit of 'percy' brought home from Nepal hidden in the unsavoury nether-regions of inveterate hippies) is still going to be in the hands of organised crime.

As long as the same gangsters who traffic heroin, cocaine and, indeed, desperate human refugees also traffic cannabis, society will remain in peril from the fall-out.

So, as Bob Marley was wont to sing, with a beatific and not entirely unstoned grin, perhaps we should 'Legalise It' altogether.

But let's not give cannabis licenses to the drinks conglomerates, eh? Taking into account the damage the legal drug alcohol does, terminating or wrecking far more lives than all the illegal drugs combined, I can't see how we'd be any better off.

'He started on cannabis' we will cry, 'but then he got on to the hard stuff. Soon he was drinking a bottle of vodka before he could get out of bed in the morning.'