The UK Government wants to reclassify cannabis - yet again! - this time upgrading it from a Category C to B drug, in order to 'send a message' that drugs are bad. The reclassification is not to warn us off becoming degenerate hippies and dropouts though - it's for the sake of our mental health. Is this a reasonable argument for greater restrictions, or should we be free to choose our own poison, whatever its ill effects? At our next Club Night, we will interrogate the rights and wrongs of the drugs debate. Are drugs a means to expand our horizons and experiences, or a harmless recreational choice? Should politicians use the law to send a moral message?

Speakers include:

Swaran Singh, Professor of Social & Community Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist, Health Sciences Research Institute, Warwick Medical School

Marcus Roberts, Director of Policy at DrugScope, the UK’s leading independent centre of information and advice on drugs. He is the author of a number of reports and briefings for the Beckley Foundation Drug Policy Programme, and Nacro’s report ‘Drugs and Crime – From Warfare to Welfare’, as well as the report of the Independent Inquiry on Drug Testing at Work (funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

Jamie Douglass, a contributing editor of Profile magazine, who previously conducted postgraduate research into drug cultures and has written for the Independent, Guardian and spiked. See his article in Free Society, Drugs reclassification: smoke signals

Date: Thursday 26 June

Venue: Old Queen's Head (Upstairs), 44 Essex Road, London N1 8LN. See details.

Time: doors open 7pm; debate begins around 8pm

Cost: free to Club members; £5 non-members (pay on the door). Join the Manifesto Club.

 Download a poster for this event [PDF].

From Reason magazine: High Comedies: Great moments in the drug war Kulturkampf