Paris - A government-commissioned report published yesterday concludes that drinking is a far worse health hazard than smoking cannabis. The report, by the state medical research institute, INSERM, and foreign experts, which was published by Le Monde, questions French laws that place few restrictions on drinking but ban cannabis.
It identifies alcohol, heroin and cocaine in the group of substances most dangerous to health. Tobacco, psychotropic drugs, tranquillisers and hallucinogens are in a second group, with cannabis well down the list of substances categorised as posing relatively little danger.
The report, commissioned by the France's junior Health Minister, Mr Bernard Kouchner, is embarrassing for the government just a few days after President Jacques Chirac and the Prime Minister, Mr Lionel Jospin, rejected calls to decriminalise soft drugs.