THE WOOTTON RETORT





The Decriminalisation of Cannabis in Britain



by



Stephen Abrams





June 1997, revised August 1997;  version 1.01







Stephen Abrams was Head of the Soma Research Association and Joint-Managing

Director of Avalon Botanicals from 1967 to 1970. He was the author of the

Soma advertisement in The Times and a witness before the Wootton

Sub-Committee.







18, St. Luke’s Mews, London W.11. 1DF



tel/fax 0171-229-5271



E-mail: Steve.Abrams@btinternet.com





Summary



Up to the mid 1960s, the majority of cannabis offenders in Britain were

imprisoned. The law did not distinguish between cannabis and heroin or

between use and supply. The schedule of penalties encouraged imprisonment

of first offenders.



In July 1967, the Times published a full paged advertisement in support of

cannabis law reform. The advertisement described the existing law as

"immoral" and "unworkable" but stopped short of proposing legalisation or

"decriminalisation." The advertisement cited evidence that cannabis is "the

least harmful pleasure-giving drug, probably much safer than alcohol or

tobacco." It said that users of cannabis should not have to face the

prospect of imprisonment and that the law should be amended to abolish

absolute offences and to permit medical and research applications. The

advertisement was sponsored by the Soma Research Association and was signed

by sixty-five people, including Francis Crick, Graham Greene, nine doctors,

members of Parliament and The Beatles.



The purpose of the advertisement was to influence the terms of reference of

the so-called "Wootton Committee", the Sub-Committee on Hallucinogens of

the Home Office Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. The aim was to

persuade the Sub-Committee to go beyond their brief to report on cannabis

alone and to make proposals for law reform. One member of the Sub-Committee

signed the advertisement, and another allowed his name to be used to

solicit signatures.



In October 1968, the Advisory Committee submitted the "Wootton Report" on

Cannabis to the Home Secretary, James Callaghan. The Report was published

on his authority in January 1969. The "Wootton Report" endorsed the Times

advertisement and gave cannabis something close to a clean bill of health.

The Report concluded: "The long term consumption of cannabis in moderate

doses has no harmful effects." With respect to law reform, the principal

recommendation was a modest proposal that "possession of a small amount

should not normally be punished by imprisonment." To this end, the

Sub-Committee proposed that new drugs legislation should distinguish

between hard and soft drugs and that in the case of possession of cannabis,

the maximum penalty on summary conviction should be reduced from one year

to four months. Offences with a maximum sentence of six months or less

rarely incur prison sentences.



In 1970 James Callaghan introduced new legislation to implement the main

proposals of the "Wootton Report". This legislation was reintroduced by the

incoming conservative government and became law as the Misuse of Drugs Act

1971. The Act reduced the maximum penalty for possession by half, to six

months. When the legislation gained the royal assent, the Lord Chancellor

instructed magistrates to "reserve the sentence of imprisonment for

suitably flagrant cases of large-scale trafficking."



In 1976 the maximum penalty on summary conviction was again reduced by

half, to three months, one month less the maximum proposed in the "Wootton

Report".



In 1979 the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (the statutory

successor to the Advisory Committee) proposed further reforms whose effect

would be to remove the remaining powers of the courts to sentence offenders

to imprisonment. These proposals were reiterated in a second expert Report

on Cannabis, in 1982. The response of the Thatcher government was to move

in the direction of decriminalisation by introducing cautioning and

compounding (small on the spot fines for smuggling).



By the beginning of the 1990s, the majority of cannabis offenders were

cautioned and thus escaped without a criminal conviction. Cases which do

reach the courts normally result in discharges or small fines. Sentencing

guidelines prevent imprisonment of minor offenders.



When the Times finally came out for legalisation of cannabis, on the

twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soma advertisement, the leading article

said, "the law against cannabis is all but unenforced."



This straight-forward account of cannabis law reform in Britain has been

consistently denied by the media, politicians and drugs experts, who

maintain that the Times advertisement was a failed initiative for

legalisation, that James Callaghan firmly rejected the "Wootton Report",

and that the Misuse of Drugs Act increased the penalties for cannabis

offences.







The Implementation of the "Wootton Report"



On November 5th, 1981, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs

submitted an expert report on The Effects of Cannabis Use to the Home

Secretary, Leon Britain.(1) This report was published in June 1982 The

authors included the two leading critics of cannabis law reform, the late

Professor William Paton of Oxford and Professor Griffith Edwards of the

Maudsley Hospital. The report had to take into consideration its

predecessor, the so-called "Wootton Report" on Cannabis, by the Advisory

Committee on Drug Dependence, published in 1969.(2)



The first paragraph of the Report of the Expert Group cites the principal

recommendation for law reform in the "Wootton Report", the controversial

proposal that "possession of a small quantity for personal use should not

normally be regarded as a serious crime to be punished by imprisonment."

The Expert Group go on to say that this recommendation was "rejected by the

government of the day."



The "Wootton Report" made specific proposals to implement the

recommendation that users of cannabis should not have to face the prospect

of imprisonment. The Report suggested that comprehensive new legislation

should distinguish between hard and soft drugs; and that the maximum

sentence on summary conviction should be four months. Offences which carry

a maximum sentence of six months or less rarely result in imprisonment and

routinely incur small fines or conditional discharges. The Report noted

that under section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967 sentences of six

months or less were normally suspended.



Under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, distinctions were drawn between drugs

according to their dangers and between offences of use and supply, and the

maximum penalty on summary conviction was reduced, in the case of simple

possession, from one year to six months. When the Act received the Royal

Assent in 1973, the Lord Chancellor (Hailsham) gave clear instructions on

sentencing to magistrates. Cannabis users were to be treated with "becoming

moderation" and the sentence of imprisonment was to be reserved for

"suitably flagrant cases of large scale trafficking."(3)



Three years later, the penalty was again reduced by half, under the

Criminal Justice Act, 1976. This act was put before Parliament by the

Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins. By reducing the maximum penalty to three

months – one month less than the maximum proposed in the "Wootton Report" -

Jenkins was in fact completing a process he himself initiated as Home

Secretary in the first Wilson government, when, in April, 1967, he set up

the Sub-Committee on Hallucinogens in response to an appeal from the Vice

Chancellor of Oxford.



On December 15th, 1978, the Advisory Council sent a Report on The

Classification of Controlled Drugs and of Penalties to the Home Secretary.

This was published in June, 1979.(4) After carefully examining the

statistical evidence – which is disguised in the usual form of reporting -

the Council concluded that the law on cannabis was working as intended and

that users and other minor offenders were not being sent to prison. Having

kept the topic of cannabis under constant review and prepared two previous

reports for private circulation, the Council proposed further reform of the

law on cannabis to remove the status of possession of cannabis as an

"arrestable offence" (one for which a warrant is not required) and to

remove the remaining powers of the courts to deprive offenders of their

liberty.



The Labour government was not sympathetic to this proposal. The reaction of

the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, was to promote a very long article in

The Times by Ronald Butt on the 17th of March. The gist of it was that we

should all be grateful to the Prime Minister who, ten years ago, having

succeeded Roy Jenkins as Home Secretary, put paid to the "permissive

society" by decisively rejecting the outrageous proposals for liberalising

the law on cannabis in the "Wootton Report".



The Misuse of Drugs Act, 1971, which brought into effect the main proposals

of the "Wootton Report", was introduced by the Tory Home Secretary,

Reginald Maudling. However, it was only a reworking of bipartisan

legislation introduced by Callaghan in March, 1970, a few months before the

general election.



It appears, therefore, that James Callaghan did not, after all, reject the

proposals of the "Wootton Report", but was directly responsible for

implementing them. In fact, Callaghan made a statement of his intention in

a leak to the Sunday Mirror on February 1, 1970, a year after the

publication of the Report. This article said that Callaghan had "changed

his mind" on cannabis and decided that the penalties for possession had to

be cut. The article did not mention the "Wootton Report" but it did suggest

that the new penalty would be in line with the proposal made in a full

paged advertisement in The Times in 1967 that the maximum penalty for

simple possession of cannabis should be a relatively small fine of £25.



Ten years after the "Wootton Report", in 1979, in the run up to a general

election, Callaghan was not about to give-in to his advisors, as he had

done in 1970. However, the Council continued to press for reform of the law

on cannabis. The extensive review of potential health hazards led by Paton

and Edwards failed to demonstrate any proven health hazard resulting from

the long term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses. The 1982 Report

concludes, somewhat vaguely "… much of the research undertaken so far has

failed to demonstrate positive and significant harmful effects in man

attributable solely to the use of cannabis; nevertheless in a number of

areas there is evidence to suggest that deleterious effects may result in

certain circumstances…". (page 4)



The implications of this Report were considered by the Council at their

meeting on October 15th, 1981. In his letter to the Secretary of State,

submitting the Report of the Expert Group, the Chairman, Robert Bradlaw

noted that the Review of the Classification of Controlled Drugs and of

Penalties "recommended some changes, the effect of which, inter alia, would

be to remove the penalty of imprisonment on summary conviction for unlawful

possession of cannabis." He states: "The Council concluded there was

nothing in the Report of the Expert Group which gave any grounds for

reconsideration of its earlier conclusions; and that its recommendations

for amendments to Schedules 2 and 4 of the Misuse of Drugs Act remained

valid."



It is remarkable that a Report which starts off with a clumsy attempt to

imply that the "Wootton Report" was never implemented, ends up by

concluding, in effect, that the Wootton Committee did not go far enough.

Recall the recommendation of the "Wootton Report" was that "possession of a

small amount should not normally be regarded as a serious crime to be

punished by imprisonment." By contrast, the effect of the proposals

reiterated in the Report of the Expert Group would be to "remove the

penalty of imprisonment on summary conviction for possession of cannabis."

This is to delete the words "small amount" and "not normally" from the

earlier proposal.



The Thatcher government was hardly minded to reform the law on cannabis. On

the other hand, the consumption of cannabis had become widespread and

widely tolerated. The discreet reform of the law had removed the only

meaningful sanction to popular acceptance of cannabis - the threat of

imprisonment. The limited resources of the police had to be concentrated on

the trade, and, of course, the law provided much heavier penalties for

trafficking offences.. Another relevant fact was that the very meaning of a

criminal conviction had changed. There were so many arrests for cannabis

that most local newspapers stopped recording them; and also a small fine or

conditional discharge would in a few years be wiped off the record. 'Spent'

convictions were deniable. The overall number of arrests continued to rise,

but the proportion of users who managed to get themselves arrested

declined. Most arrests for minor possession offences were incidental to

searches of people suspected of trafficking or other serious crimes.



In silent recognition of these considerations, the response to the Advisory

Committee's proposals was far reaching. It was a strong move in the

direction of decriminalisation. Chief Constables were authorised to

"caution" offenders. That is to say, offenders who admit their guilt are

let off with a warning. They do not have to appear in court, and they do

not stand convicted of any criminal offence. By the beginning of the 1990s,

the great majority of minor cases of possession of cannabis were dealt with

outside the courts through cautioning offenders. Also, another device,

called "compounding" was introduced This describes a system of small on the

spot fines for smuggling small amounts. Smuggling is also sometimes dealt

with by means of the caution.



Cases which do reach the courts are normally dealt with by absolute or

conditional discharges, or by small fines. There are guidelines on

sentencing which prevent minor offenders being sent to prison. There is no

room for them in the prisons, and with a burgeoning prison population there

will be even less room in future.



In the annus mirabilis of 1967, when the issue of cannabis law reform was

first raised, the total amount of cannabis seized by police and customs was

296 kilos and 144 plants. By comparison, in recent years the average

quantity of cannabis seized has been in excess of 1,000 kilos per week. On

the assumption that the average user smokes cannabis two or three times a

week, this amount alone is enough to support half a million regular users.

Conventional wisdom is that seizures constitute no more than ten per cent

of the total. It is quite possible that that up to ten per cent of the

population have taken up the habit of smoking cannabis with some regularity

and that twice that number may not be averse to an occasional toke. The

available evidence of surveys indicates that support for

"decriminalisation" – whatever that means – or legalisation is running at

about forty per cent of the electorate. This is, of course, short of a

majority, but it is more support than the Tory party had at the general

election. Also, an in-depth study of drug taking in four UK cities

published in 1993 suggested that support for cannabis law reform was

"surprisingly high, given that neither legalisation nor the problems faced

by supply side control are issues which have as yet been addressed in the

public domain." (5)This study was cited by the Tory Home Secretary, Michael

Howard as proof of the opposite contention, that the issue of legalisation

is too unpopular to receive consideration.



On July 24th, 1992, the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soma advertisement,

The Times finally came out in favour of the outright legalisation of

cannabis. The leading article, by Simon Jenkins, noted that "the law is now

all but unenforced." And in January 1994, twenty-five years after the

publication of the "Wootton Report", the former head of the Metropolitan

Police Flying Squad, John O’Connor, wrote in the Daily Express that

"Cannabis has been a decriminalised drug for some time."







Hashish Fudge



In 1988 the issue of cannabis law reform resurfaced in the right wing

press. This probably began in America as a reaction to the Federal

Marijuana Statute which brought in long mandatory terms, including life

imprisonment, for relatively trivial offences. Public figures such as

Milton Friedman and the former Secretary of State, George Schultz

associated themselves with this protest. In Britain the Economist, the

Spectator, the Telegraph and the Independent came out in favour of the

legalisation of cannabis. Soon, Judge Pickles found himself as second

career as a cannabis activist. His was followed by several heavyweights who

now include Judge Wolffe, the Master of the Rolls, Britain’s senior judge.

There is also widespread support for reform in the police. Prominent

supporters include Keith Hellawell, the Chief Constable of Yorkshire, and

Commander Grieve, head of the anti-terrorist squad. Also, Eddie Ellison, a

former operational head of the Metropolitan Police Drugs Squad, has become

one of the most effective critics of prohibition. It is often said – for

example, by Simon Jenkins and the Revd. Kenneth Leech – that the police are

now leading the campaign to legalise cannabis.



Perhaps the highpoint of the apparent attempt to prepare public opinion for

legalisation was the Cannabis Weekend on Channel 4 television, which

broadcasts nationally. There were fourteen programmes about cannabis in one

day, including a Cheech and Chong movie; and the following day there was a

two hour debate, for which Professor Grinspoon was flown in from Harvard.

The debate was the subject of a phone-in which received about 150,000

calls. The phone-in vote was announced at the end of the debate – 91% in

favour of legalisation!(6)



Of course, it is not all one way traffic. There have been a spate of

articles and television programmes arguing that cannabis is an extremely

dangerous drug, possibly more dangerous than heroin. Most of this material

is a rehash of propaganda emanating from the U.S. anti-drugs establishment.

If this oscillation were deliberate, the conflicting signals would count as

an instance of Pavlov’s method of inducing neurosis experimentally. It is

in fact done in the name of "balance", as there is no longer a requirement

for individual programmes to consider both sides of an issue.



The Soma advertisement from 1967 is a familiar icon in Britain. It has been

reproduced hundreds of times in articles and television programmes. The

signatories are not barred from high office and honours. Francis Crick has

been awarded the Order of Merit, Jonathan Aitken was a minister in John

Major’s government, Paul McCartney has been knighted, and so on. Indeed, on

the 25th anniversary of the Soma advertisement, in 1992, the Times gave a

free page of advertising to Release, a charity funded by the Home Office

with the warm support of the police. In the run up to the 1992

advertisement, the press were quite insistent that Release, which began

life in 1968 as an "underground" organisation providing advice to young

people arrested for minor drugs offences, had itself been responsible for

the publication of the 1967 advertisement, or at least "inspired" it.(7)

Most of the serious national newspapers gave at least one page of

pre-publicity for the 1992 advertisement in The Times. This publicity was

coördinated by the Home Office Press Branch. Unfortunately, this

advertisement turned out to be something of an embarrassment. It verged on

illiteracy and made a number of irresponsible assertions; for example, it

cited an "expert" opinion that cannabis is less harmful than tea or coffee.

The signatories consisted chiefly of minor figures in journalism and pop

music seeking to enhance their "street credibility", retired academics who

no longer had to worry about grants, drug dealers and lawyers plying for

hire.(8) This establishment take-over was, in its way, a compliment to the

organisers of the 1967 advertisement, but it also contradicts the adage

that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.



Though the Soma advertisement is well remembered, it is also wrongly

remembered as a failed initiative for legalisation. Meanwhile, the "Wootton

Report" has been quietly consigned to oblivion. The twentieth and

twenty-fifth anniversaries of the Report were not even mentioned in the

British media. Indeed, one newspaper which vigorously supports the

legalisation of cannabis, the so-called "Independent", has never accepted

the existence of the "Wootton Report". For example, on July 22nd 1992 the

"Independent" had a page on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Soma

advertisement. The lead-in read: "On the 24th of July, 1967 sixty-five of

the famous liberal great and good signed an advertisement in The Times

calling for cannabis to be legalised and … nothing happened." The page

included a list of forty events following on after the publication of the

advertisement, but pointedly ignored the existence of the "Wootton Report"

and the reduction in penalties under the Misuse of Drugs Act.



When Lady Wootton died in 1988, at the age of 91, the work for which she

was best known, the controversy which dominated the news in January 1969,

was not considered worthy of mention in most obituaries. The Telegraph was

the only newspaper that got it approximately right:



     In 1967 her Report on soft drugs caused a considerable furore by

     its recommendation of more lenient sentences for offences

     involving cannabis, and was dismissed patronizingly by James

     Callaghan as "over-influenced by a lobby in favour of legalising

     pot." In 1970, however, Callaghan introduced legislation broadly

     in line with the Wootton proposals.



When a long television interview with Lady Wootton was shown posthumously

on BBC television, the subject of drugs was not raised, but a voice-over

made the astonishing claim that "In the sixties she campaigned for the

legalisation of cannabis."



Over time, the view has become entrenched that James Callaghan rejected the

"Wootton Report" decisively and finally. The most remarkable statement of

this position has come from Denis Thatcher’s friend Lord Deedes, who was a

member of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. He wrote in the

Telegraph, on December 15th, 1992:



     The last public debate on the subject took place in 1969, when

     Baroness Wootton, then chairman of a Sub-Committee of the

     Government’s advisory body, recommended a lightening of the

     penalties for possession of cannabis. As a member of the same

     body, I remember that I thought her arguments persuasive but

     politically unattainable. We discussed this amiably until Jim

     Callaghan, the Home Secretary, denounced her proposals in the

     House of Commons, and that was that.







A Modest Proposal



To understand the hostility of the establishment, it is necessary to look

in a little more detail at the Report itself and its background. The

‘modest proposal’ for law reform, Swiftian though it may have been, was

not, in itself, an insult to public opinion. However, the Sub-Committee

made a serious tactical error by refusing to introduce a distinction

between possession and trafficking offences and proposing that the maximum

sentence for cases heard on indictment should be reduced from ten years to

two years (with unlimited fines).(9)This does not square with their main

intention:



     For the foreseeable future, however, our objective is clear: to

     bring about a situation in which it is extremely unlikely that

     anyone will go to prison for an offence involving only possession

     for personal use or for supply on a very limited scale. Par. 90



Furthermore, the option of legalisation was rejected by the Sub-Committee

when it was put to a vote. In an article in the Sunday Times on the 12th of

January, 1969, Lady Wootton said: "Even those who wanted to legalise

cannabis, even the people who signed the Times advertisement, admit that

legalisation is not practical." (10)



Fortunately, the debate was about the "pot smoker's charter", to quote a

famous headline in the Daily Express. By defining separate offences of

possession and trafficking and increasing the penalties for trafficking

whilst decreasing the penalties for simple possession, the 1971 Act

recognised that cannabis had become big business and that enforcement

priorities would henceforth be directed to trafficking. The Act promoted

the notion of decriminalisation. But the proposal by the Advisory Committee

to reduce the penalties on indictment was daft, as it points to a free

market dominated by thugs. The Soma advertisement avoided the issue of

supply, but in evidence to the Sub-Committee, on December 5th, 1967, I

argued that the trade in cannabis should be nationalised and that

advertising should be prohibited. The idea was that the trade should be

tolerated, not promoted.



The real significance of the "Wootton Report" lay not in its proposals for

law reform but in its assessment of the dangers of cannabis. The Report

undermined the rationale of the Dangerous Drugs Act by providing cannabis

smoking with something close to a clean bill of health. It gave a green

light to the consumption of cannabis. Paragraph 29 of the Report says:



     Having reviewed all the material available to us we find

     ourselves in agreement with the conclusions reached by the Indian

     Hemp Drugs Commission Report appointed by the Government of India

     (1893-4) and the New York Mayor’s Committee on Marihuana (1944)

     the "the long term consumption of cannabis in moderate doses has

     no harmful effects."



Paragraph 67 goes on to say:



     The evidence before us shows that:



     An increasing number of people, mainly young, in all classes of

     society are experimenting with this drug, and substantial numbers

     use it regularly for social pleasure.



     There is no evidence that this activity is causing violent crime

     or aggressive anti-social behaviour, or is producing in otherwise

     normal people conditions of dependence or psychosis, requiring

     medical treatment.



     The experience of many other countries is that once it is

     established cannabis-smoking tends to spread. In some parts of

     Western society where interest in mood-altering drugs is growing,

     there are indications that it may become a functional equivalent

     of alcohol.



     In spite of the threat of severe penalties and considerable

     effort at enforcement the use of cannabis in the United Kingdom

     does not appear to be diminishing. There is a body of opinion

     that criticises the present legislative treatment of cannabis on

     the ground that it exaggerates the dangers of the drug and

     needlessly interferes with civil liberty.



It is important to understand that the conclusions of the "Wootton Report"

are still tenable. The 1982 Report of the Expert Group did not refer

directly to the findings of the ""Wootton Report"", but the extracts cited

above show the authors were mindful of this material and careful not to

contradict it.



On the 11th of November 1995 The Lancet published a leading article which

called for the legalisation of cannabis. The first sentence of this article

was a close, if slightly incautious paraphrase of paragraph 29 of the

"Wootton Report": "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful

to health." The final sentence adds: "Sooner or later politicians will have

to stop running scared and address the evidence: cannabis per se is not a

hazard to society but driving it further underground may well be."



Still, it is remarkable that even for the authors of this appeal, the

"Wootton Report" remains unmentionable. The wonder is that James Callaghan

ever authorised its publication. In fact, he seems to have been reluctant,

but perhaps his hand was forced by threats of resignation from the

Sub-Committee. These threats made headlines in the Evening News in November

1968, a few weeks after the Report was sent to the Home Secretary. This

leak was beneficial to John Lennon who was tried the following day for a

cannabis offence. He got off with a relatively small fine of £150.







The Wootton Committee



The Soma advertisement drew its force from a impressive list of

signatories, headed by Francis Crick, who won the Nobel prize for

discovering the structure of DNA, and Graham Greene. The others included

Professor Alasdair MacIntyre, John Piper, nine doctors, members of

Parliament and the Beatles, then at the zenith of their influence. The

advertisement described the existing law as "immoral in principle and

unworkable in practice." It stopped short of advocating legalisation, and

said nothing about the supply side. It did, however, call for the abolition

of absolute offences, as well as for an end to imprisonment of minor

offenders. The advertisement also called for a legal framework to permit

research into all aspects of cannabis use, including its medical

applications.



The advertisement was inserted with a specific purpose, to influence the

terms of reference of the "Wootton Report". The hallucinogens

Sub-Committee, chaired by Lady Wootton, was appointed to report on both

cannabis and LSD. They began by restricting their discussion to the

psychopharmacology of both drugs. It was hoped that the advertisement would

help to persuade them to go beyond their brief to report on cannabis alone

and to broaden the scope of their enquiry, to give proper consideration to

the social aspects of cannabis use and to make specific recommendations for

law reform. One of the signatories, the sociologist Michael Schofield, was

a member of the Sub-Committee, and another member, Dr. Nicholas Malleson,

the Director of Student Health in the University of London, permitted his

name to be used in soliciting signatures. According to Schofield, they were

the only members of the committee who were initially sympathetic to

cannabis law reform. It follows that Lady Wootton required some

convincing.(11)



There was no expectation that the members of the Sub-Committee could be

persuaded of the relative harmlessness of cannabis. They would have to

persuade themselves. The petition was founded on the belief that there was

a consensus of informed medical opinion on cannabis and that the

Sub-Committee would discover it.



Following publication of the "Wootton Report", there were attacks on the

competence of the Sub-Committee. Quintin Hogg was quoted in The Times, on

January 9th, 1969: "A less suitable committee is impossible to imagine.

Half the subcommittee are doctors and there is not a judge, or anybody

practising at the criminal bar, among them."



The eleven members of the Sub-Committee were K. J. Barraclough, a

stipendiary magistrate and Chairman of the Poisons Board; Dr. Thomas

Bewley, a psychiatrist in charge of the addiction clinic at Tooting Bec

Hospital, the Secretary and later President of the Society for the Study of

Addiction; Peter Brodie, Assistant Commissioner of Scotland Yard in charge

of the C.I.D., also Vice President of Interpol; Dr. P. H. Connell, a

psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital; Dr. J. D. P. Graham, Professor of

Pharmacology at the University of Wales; Dr. C. R. B. Joyce, Head of the

Department of Pharmacology at London Hospital Medical College, later

Director of Research at Ciba, Switzerland; Sir Aubrey Lewis, Emeritus

Professor of Psychiatry at the Maudsley; Dr. Nicholas Malleson, a

psychiatrist, Reader in Student Problems and Head of Student Health at

London University, also the most experienced LSD therapist in Britain; H.

W. Palmer of the Glaxo Pharmaceuticals Company; Timothy Raison, Editor of

New Society, later Tory MP, Minister of State for Home Affairs; Michael

Schofield, a sociologist who had conducted several studies for the Home

Office; and Baroness Wootton, a distinguished social scientist, a serving

magistrate, Governor of the BBC, veteran of several Royal Commissions.



On the day the "Wootton Report" was published, the Guardian Diary described

the second paragraph, which it made a point of reproducing, as a "rare and

specific tribute to a lobby." Another journalist later suggested that Lady

Wootton drafted it "with the air of a nun who suddenly finds herself

entered for the ‘Miss World’ contest":



     Our first enquiries were proceeding - without publicity - into

     the pharmacological and medical aspects when other developments

     gave our study new and much increased significance. An

     advertisement in the Times on the 24th of July 1967 represented

     that the long asserted dangers of cannabis were exaggerated and

     that the related law was socially damaging, if not unworkable.

     This was followed by a wave of debate about these issues in

     Parliament, the Press and elsewhere, and reports of enquiries

     e.g. by the National Council for Civil Liberties. This publicity

     made more explicit the nature of some current "protest" about

     official policy on drugs; defined more clearly some of the main

     issues in our study; and led us to give greater attention to the

     legal aspects of the problem. Government spokesmen made it clear

     that any future development of policy on cannabis would have to

     take account of the Advisory Committee's report. Accordingly, we

     decided to give first priority to presenting our views on

     cannabis."



Callaghan seized on this paragraph in his denunciation of the "Wootton

Report", in the Parliamentary debate of January 27th :



     I think it came as a surprise, if not a shock, to most people

     when that notorious advertisement appeared in the Times in 1967

     to find that there is a lobby for legalising cannabis. The House

     should recognise that this lobby exists, and my reading of the

     Report is that the Wootton Sub-Committee was overinfluenced by

     this lobby. I had the same impression as the Rt. Hon. and learned

     gentleman (Quintin Hogg), that it was compromise at the end; that

     those who were in favour of legalising 'pot' were all the time

     pushing the other members back, so that eventually these

     remarkable conclusions emerged, that it would be wrong to

     legalise it but that the penalties should be reduced.



     The existence of this lobby is something that the House and

     public opinion should take into account and be ready to combat,

     as I am. It is another aspect of the so-called permissive

     society, and I am glad that my decision has enabled the house to

     call a halt in the advancing tide of so-called permissiveness.



     … it was wrong for the Committee to take one drug, look at it in

     isolation from the whole complex and background, and bring

     forward recommendations in the way they did.



Articles in the Evening Standard (February 3rd) and other newspapers said

that the Chairman of the Advisory Council, Sir Edward Wayne and Lady

Wootton were both contemplating resignation to mark their protest against

the Home Secretary's insulting remarks in Parliament. On February 5th The

Times published a joint letter from them, which said, in part:



We regard this statement as offensive to our distinguished colleagues and

to ourselves, and particularly to the eminent medical men who signed our

Report, and we particularly deprecate the implication of the emotive word

'lobby' in this context.



Callaghan's dismissal of the Report turned out to be a smokescreen. Despite

his protestations, comprehensive new drugs legislation was drawn up

embodying the main recommendations of the "Wootton Report". The legislation

introduced a three tiered classification of drugs according to their

dangers. The Home Office insisted on introducing a distinction between

trafficking and possession offences. The maximum penalties for possession

of cannabis were to be reduced by by fifty per cent, to five years on

indictment and six months on summary conviction.(12) Within a year the

legislation was through the Home Affairs Committee. It was at this point,

on the 1st of February, 1970, that the "absolutely outrageous press leak"

appeared in the Sunday Mirror:



     DRUG LAW SHOCK Jim Changes his Mind. Penalties for 'pot' smokers

     to be cut.



     Home Secretary James Callaghan has had a dramatic change of mind

     on drugs. He has decided that people who smoke 'pot' should no

     longer be punished as severely as those using heroin. He has gone

     further by deciding that the penalties for possessing both hard

     and soft drugs should be cut.



     ... Mr. Callaghan only a year ago championed the cause of holding

     the line against drug permissiveness. ...Last year Mr. Callaghan

     denounced what he called "a notorious advertisement" in the Times

     - signed by many public figures including the Beatles - which

     urged that possessing cannabis should either be legalised, or at

     most punishable by a fine of not more than £25.



Crossman's diary entry for Thursday February 26th says that Callaghan had

come back to the cabinet to say that "he now proposed not to have any

reduction at all in any penalties on cannabis." Crossman notes that this

was unusual. "One usually only brings things to Cabinet when there is

disagreement at a Cabinet Committee." As the discussion continued "it

became absolutely clear that the issue was whether to kowtow to public

opinion or not." The Cabinet divided. "Every member of the cabinet who had

been to university voted one way and everyone else voted the other way."

Wilson voted with the antis. Having been outvoted by a clear majority,

Callaghan published his Misuse of Drugs Bill on March 11th.







Oxford, The Rolling Stones and the Beatles



The Sunday Mirror article had tacked onto the end of it a so-called "blob",

a brief note to the effect that Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful had been

arrested and charged with possession of cannabis. This is a poignant

addition which brings the story full circle. This tale marks the beginning

of the process that led to the Soma advertisement and the "Wootton Report".



On Sunday February 5th, 1967, the mass circulation News of the World ran a

page one article on "Pop Stars and Drugs" which used Jagger’s name and

photograph. That evening he appeared with Quintin Hogg on the Eamon Andrews

chat show. Jagger told Hogg that he too had been to university, and seemed

to get the better of him. Then, it seemed, he got above himself and

announced, impulsively, that he would sue the News of the World for libel.

The newspaper panicked and went to the Scotland Yard Drug Squad. The head

of the Drug Squad, Chief Inspector Lynch later said privately that he

refused to act. He said that he was not expected to stamp out cannabis, but

to keep its use under control. If he arrested Mick Jagger every lad in the

country would want to try some pot. He was, after all, head of the drug

squad, not head of the Lynch mob.



As is well known, the News of the World had more success with the local

police in West Wittering, where Keith Richards lived. In the subsequent

trial, Jagger's counsel, Michael Havers (later Lord Havers, also Mrs.

Thatcher's attorney general in the "Spycatcher" case) alleged that the

newspaper used an agent provocateur. The arrests were made on February

12th, but the story did not break until the 19th. Only the Telegraph named

those arrested: Keith Richards, charged with the absolute offence of

permitting premises to be used for smoking cannabis, and Mick Jagger,

charged with possession of a few tablets of amphetamine. George Harrison

has said that the Beatles were at the party and the police waited until

they left. The case was set down for hearing before Judge Block on June

27th.



The News of the World article was a response to a page one lead in the

rival Sunday paper, the People, the previous week: "Drug Sensation in

Oxford." This was sparked by a claim in an article on mine that as many as

five hundred Oxford undergraduates smoked pot and that the University

hadn’t noticed.(13) This account of "The Oxford Scene" was reasonably

sober; it was described as "sane and balanced" by the Times Literary

Supplement and quoted by Professor Grinspoon in his book Marihuana

Reconsidered. However, the Head of my college, Alan Bullock, had asked me

to remove the estimate of the number of users. He said the press would

"have a field day with it." That was exactly what was intended. It would be

a challenge to the stereotype of the dope fiend and help to bring the

subject of cannabis law reform into the open.



Following publication of the People lead, an article in The Times said that

my claim that "at least 500 undergraduates and a few dozen dons" smoke pot

"has been rejected by police, proctors and dons." The Times quoted the view

of the Senior Proctor, Dr. Robin Fletcher, that my figures were "grossly

exaggerated." : "The article could create a very bad image of the

University. It is unfortunate for a number of reasons." A similar article

in The Telegraph quoted the view of "a senior member of the university who

is concerned with investigations into student health problems" : "I would

be surprised if the number of people using drugs habitually in the

University is more than about twenty." This official was presumably D. C.

M. Yardley, (recently Local Ombudsman) who was Dr. Fletcher's predecessor.

The Telegraph stated that Dr. Yardley had led an investigation of

undergraduate drug use the preceding year and concluded that no more than

fifty students were involved. No more than thirty took drugs with any

degree of regularity. In the Cherwell lead on February 1st, Dr. Yardley's

view of the danger of cannabis is quoted: "The nervous system of regular

pot smokers is shot to bits. They are mental wrecks." In The People he is

quoted: "All but those with the strongest minds will end up seeking bigger

and better 'kicks' from heroin and like drugs. Within the university and

nationally, any move to bring about the acceptance of hemp must be

fought."



The matter was resolved by the University Committee on Student Health,

which included several heads of colleges. I was invited to give evidence to

the Committee on February 15th. They accepted my claim that as many as five

hundred undergraduates had used cannabis. I made the point that the problem

was hardly confined to Oxford and asked the Committee to press the Home

Secretary to institute a government inquiry into the status of cannabis and

LSD. The Chairman of the Committee was Alan Bullock (now Lord Bullock,

formerly Vice Chancellor of the University). He told me that my suggestion

that the University should press for a Home Office inquiry had been

accepted and invited me to assist him in drafting the letter to this

effect, which was sent on to the then Vice Chancellor, Kenneth Turpin on

February 28th.



The Report of the Committee on Student Health was published on April 3rd

and reviewed in The Times the following day. The Times article says, "At

the Health Committee's suggestion, the Vice Chancellor of Oxford

University, Mr. K. C. Turpin, is to ask the Home Secretary for an urgent

national enquiry into the dangers of drug taking." It said the university

was concerned at the numbers which might be experimenting with cannabis.

The following article by Nicholas Lloyd appeared in the Daily Mail:



     The pot takers. 500 Oxford students use marijuana



     About 500 Oxford undergraduates smoke marijuana,, says a

     committee of dons. The Committee was set up to report on the

     health of students at the university. In a letter to Kenneth

     Turpin, the Vice Chancellor, it say that an independent claim

     that about five per cent of the 10,000 students take drugs is

     probably correct.



     But it maintains that the situation at Oxford is not exceptional

     and that a similar proportion of students at other universities

     take drugs. The committee, headed by Mr. Alan Bullock, Master of

     St. Catherine's College, says that drug taking is a national

     problem. It calls for a full investigation into the effects of

     different drugs and says that public policy could then be based

     on scientific fact instead of prejudice.



     On Tuesday students at St. Catherine's College passed a motion by

     24 votes to 4 in favour of making marijuana - known as 'pot' -

     legally available.(14)



On the 7th of April, the Home secretary, Roy Jenkins, announced the

appointment of an investigation led by Baroness Wootton. She was to head a

"Sub-Committee on hallucinogens" of the Advisory Council on Drug

Dependence, appointed in December 1966, enacting a recommendation of the

Second Brain Report the previous year.



The founding of Soma was announced in the Oxford undergraduate paper

Cherwell on February 1st. The plan to advertise in the Times was launched

four months later, following the imprisonment on minor cannabis charges of

John Hopkins ("Hoppy"), a member of the editorial board of the underground

newspaper International Times (IT), on June 1st. At a meeting of his

friends the following day, I said that I had come to London two weeks

earlier to organize Soma and that I hoped to challenge the law on cannabis

by placing an advertisement signed by eminent people in the Times. (Barry)

Miles, another member of the three man board, said he thought he knew where

the money might be found.(15) Miles was the proprietor of the Indica

bookstore, where IT was edited. His partner, Peter Asher, was half of the

pop duo "Peter and Gordon". Peter Asher’s sister, Jane, was Paul

McCartney’s girlfriend. McCartney had several times contributed small sums

to keep IT going. By the end of the day he had offered to guarantee the

cost of the advertisement, which was £1800.



"Sgt. Pepper" had been released the preceding day. The Beatles were in

trouble. Earlier in the year the single "Strawberry Fields"/"Penny Lane"

suggested that they had become enthusiastic proponents of LSD. "Sgt Pepper"

reinforced this impression. McCartney had also given an ill-advised

interview to Life magazine. The Beatles had, it seemed, pissed on their

clean but image as explicitly as the Rolling Stones had pissed on a garage

forecourt in 1965.



The establishment was ready to send the Rolling Stones to prison. Now it

looked as if the Beatles would be next. Something had to be done to get

them off the hook. Nobody wanted them arrested, but it was difficult to see

an alternative. However, the effect of the advertisement would be to change

the issue from LSD to pot, and to associate the Beatles with leading

figures in the arts and sciences in a legitimate protest from 'within the

system.' It is not in any way surprising that McCartney was willing to back

the advertisement or that Rees-Mogg was willing to publish it.



Matters came to a head at the end of the month. After a sensational trial,

Richards and Jagger were found guilty on June 29th. Richards, who was a

first offender, was sentenced to a year in prison for the absolute offence

of permitting cannabis to be smoked in his home, with or without his

knowledge. No forensic evidence was produced. Jagger was sentenced to three

months for possession of four amphetamine tablets known as "black bombers",

normally available to him on prescription. Richards and Jagger were

released on bail the following day.



The scandal raised by this case ensured that The Times would accept the

advertisement and that the Beatles would come up with the money to pay for

it.



On Saturday the 1st of June The Times published Rees-Mogg’s famous leader,

"Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?" An article published in the Times

twenty-five years later by Jonathon Green, a self-called "expert", asserts

that this leader "inspired" the publication of the Soma advertisement.(16)

But by the beginning of June the project had been underway for a month, the

Times had signified its willingness to publish, and the text had been

passed to Mike McKinnerny, who contributed a distinctive layout. In any

case, Rees-Mogg's leader did not address the issue squarely. The editor of

the Times was moved by the spectacle of Jagger in handcuffs, but he ignored

the monstrous verdict against Keith Richards. The article did not mention

cannabis at all. Butterflies do not light on weeds.



The official history of The Times asserts that the issue with the butterfly

leader was handed to Jagger in prison by a warder with the advice that he

could now expect to be released on bail. In fact, Jagger and Richards had

been released the previous day. Rees-Mogg might even be accused of climbing

onto a bandwagon of protest, motivated in no small part by the opportunity

the case afforded to challenge the sub-judice rules which restrict press

comment on ongoing cases.



The advertisement was scheduled for publication on July 17th. However, the

Times started to get cold feet. The advertising manager, R. Grant Davidson,

put back publication for a week to check the signatures. On the eve of

publication, he demanded payment in advance. The Beatles were in France,

filming the "Magical Mystery Tour." I rang the only person I knew in the

Beatles organisation, Peter Brown. He immediately sent round his personal

cheque for £1800 in a taxi. My understanding is that he was reimbursed out

of a Beatles advertising account.



The advertisement finally appeared on Monday the 24th of July. It was

mentioned in Parliament the same day and on the Friday, July 28th, it was

the subject of an Adjournment Debate in the House of Commons, proposed by

Paul Channon. The Minister of State, Alice Bacon said that the issues

raised in the advertisement would be considered by the Wootton

Sub-Committee, and she committed the Government to taking their Report into

consideration in framing new legislation.



On Monday, the 31st of July, a week following publication of the

advertisement, the conviction of Keith Richards was quashed on appeal.

Jagger’s conviction was upheld, but the sentence was reduced to a

conditional discharge.







Notes



1. Report of the Expert Group on the Effects of Cannabis Use. Home Office

Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Home Office, 1982; ISBN-0-86252

031 2; 62 pages.



2. Cannabis: Report by the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence. Home

Office, HMSO, 1968; SBN 11 340080 2; 79 pages. Distributed,anuary, 1969.



The Report was prepared by the Sub-Committee on Hallucinogens, whose

Chairman was Baroness Wootton of Abinger



3.The Times, 12 October 1973



4.. Report on A Review of the Classification of Controlled Drugs and of

Penalties. Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Home Office, 1982



5.. Drug usage and drugs prevention: the views and habits of the general

public. M. Leitner et al. Home Office Drug Prevention Initiative, 1993; p.

181.



6.. A pamphlet was published in connection with this adventure: Pot Night,

Channel 4 Television, 1995; ISBN 1 85144 129 8; 36 pages. The pamphlet, its

cover printed on hemp paper, includes gems such as this: "By 1968, the

'Legalise Pot' campaign had become such a cause celebre that the

Conservative government of the time appointed a Home Office select

committee chaired by Baroness Wootton, to look at the 'cannabis question'.

By the time Baroness Wootton presented her finished Report (published in

January, 1969) a Labour government, led by Jim Callaghan was in power …"

(my italics), p. 9. This is from an article by Sean O'Hagen, who writes for

the Times and the Guardian.



7.. Release came into existence in the summer of 1967, with some assistance

from the organisers of the Soma advertisement. However, there is no mention

of Release that summer in the 'top people's paper, as the Times styled

itself, or even in the pot people's paper, International Times. It is also

worth pointing out that none of the fashionable lawyers later associated

with Release signed the Soma advertisement. In fact, not one member of the

legal profession was prepared to lend their name to this initiative. Also,

the claims made by Release that their witnesses had a decisive impact on

the Sub-Committee are palpably untrue. The names and affiliations of the

witnesses are listed in Appendix 4 of the Report. A rhapsodic article by

Nicola Murray in the Times on the day the Release advertisement appeared

claims that following the publication of the Soma advertisement Miss Coon,

the founder of Release, appeared with Lady Wootton on the popular programme

"Any Questions" and apparently gave such a good account of herself that she

was invited to give evidence and bring along her underground friends. In

fact, Miss Coon did not appear on "Any Questions". She did appear with Lady

Wootton on a different programe in 1968, after the Wootton hearings were

concluded. This appearance was heralded by an article in the Times Diary.

Apparently someone noticed that Release had missed the boat. Release was

provided with an invented pedigree when it became official in 1972. The

claim to have inspired the Soma advertisement was first made in the Fifth

Anniversary Policy Statement and in the text of a projected advertisement

on the fifth anniversary of the original. The claim that Release gave

evidence to the "Wootton" Sub-Committee was first made in a study funded by

the Rowntree Trust: Release: a progress report 1972 by Jeremy d'Agapeyeff

(section XII). The issue of cannabis law reform was handed to Release in

the expectation that they would use it for fund raising and turn it into a

children's crusade.



8. No one who signed this advertisement was permitted to see the text

beforehand. On the other hand, it may be that no one asked to see it.

Sixteen of the signatories to the Soma advertisement signed again in the

expectation that it would be all right on the night. Francis Crick was not

invited to sign. Everyone who was invited to sign was sent a copy of the

1967 advertisement. These copies were doctored by the ISDD, who removed the

line near the top which reads, "This advertisement is sponsored by

Soma.(Acquisition number 15019) The ISDD version was also used in the

Channel 4 "Pot Night". These copies have been distributed to the media

since July, 1969. Sir Harry Greenfield, the Chairman of the ISDD, was

apparently infuriated by the fact that a month earlier I had revealed, in

an article in Richard Branson's magazine Student, that he was Vice

President of British-American tobacco.



 9. One member of the Sub-Committee, P. E. Brodie, an Assistant

Commissioner of Scotland Yard, expressed the reservation that the maximum

penalty should only be reduced by half, to five years. (p. 35).



10.  The 1969 Prospectus of the Soma Research Association bears this out:

"A Soma delegation gave oral evidence to the Sub-Committee. We took the

view that prohibition appeared to be an ineffective and socially damaging

method of controlling the misuse of cannabis. However, we argued that

realistic decisions about the long-term control and possible legalisation

of cannabis could not be made on the basis of existing knowledge.

Additional research was required, but could not be undertaken because the

law prohibited research in which cannabis was smoked."



Soma was incorporated as the Soma Research Association, Ltd. The Council

consisted of Francis Crick; Francis Huxley; Dr. R. D. Laing; The Revd.

Kenneth Leech; Dr. Anthony Storr; Professor Norman Zinberg and the present

author. The Secretary of Soma was Donald Aitken. Other staff included Derek

Blackburn, psychologist; Adam Parker-Rhodes, pharmacologist and Dick

Pountain, chemist. Ian Dunbar was Medical Director of Soma and Sam Hutt was

Medical Correspondent. In addition to its information program, Soma was

engaged in research with THC and had a medical program, for which the Home

Office made available extract and tincture of cannabis.. (In 1967 the Home

Office authorised the import of 254 kilos of high grade cannabis from

India.. The Dangerous Drugs Act did not permit the medical use of raw

cannabis (marijuana and hashish) but purified forms of cannabis, percolated

in alcohol, could still be prescribed up to 1973.)



11. However, he may not be a reliable witness. Schofield says (p.76) that

the sub-committee was appointed in April 1967 to review the evidence on

cannabis. In fact, paragraph one of the Report states that the

sub-committee was appointed "to examine the question of misuse of cannabis

and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).in the United Kingdom and problems

arising." The second paragraph, cited above, states that the publication of

the Soma advertisement and the ensuing debate gave their study "new and

much increased significance" and led them to report on cannabis alone,

rather than in conjunction with LSD. This paragraph prompted Callaghan's

assertion that the Report had been "overinfluenced" by the "lobby"

responsible for "that notorious advertisement." Callaghan would also have

taken into account the fact that one member of the sub-committee; e.g.

Schofield, signed the advertisement and thus compromised his impartiality.

In any case, Callaghan was quite explicit in stating, in the parliamentary

debate, that "it was wrong for the Committee to take one drug, look at it

in isolation from the whole complex and background, and bring forward

recommendations in the way they did." Schofield avoids mentioning the

second paragraph of the report and Callaghan's assertion that the

sub-committee went beyond its brief. He also avoids mentioning that he

signed the advertisement. He does not mention Soma, though he refers to

various underground organizations such as Release and the Bit Information

Service and to the underground press.



If the advertisement did not influence the terms of reference of the

"Wootton Report", if the sub-committee would have reported as they did in

any case, then it becomes possible to argue, as was done in an unsigned

article in the ISDD magazine Drugs in Society. (no.3, vol.1, December,

1971) that the activities of Soma "undermined the political credibility of

the Wootton Report" by giving the subject of cannabis an unwonted

notoriety.



In general, Schofield was something of an embarrassment. He was among the

least well informed members of the sub-committee, but he boasted, "I

personally have read over two thousand books, articles, papers in learned

journals before starting to write this book." (p.12) Schofield was also a

member of the sub-committee on Search and Arrest, chaired by William

Deedes. His behaviour there was so obstreperous that he was locked out of

the meetings for as time.



Schofield was also guilty of intellectual theft. For example, in 1969 I

demolished the claim of Professor Paton to have proved by an inductive

probability argument that ten per cent of cannabis smokers go on .to become

heroin addicts. This article, in the second issue of Student, is cited by

Professor Grinspoon in Marihuana Revisited.(pp. 248-9) Schofield uses my

argument (pp.105-7) without attribution.



12. This concession should be considered in connection with Quintin Hogg's

attack on the "Wootton" Report in the Parliamentary debate. He said: "Any

reduction in the maximum sentences for cannabis will be taken to mean that

we are on our way to legalising this particular drug." The fifty per cent

reduction in the maximum sentence for possession under the 1971 Act led to

his remarkable instruction (as Lord Hailsham, Lord Chancellor) to

magistrates, that cannabis users were to be treated with "becoming

moderation" and should not be sent to prison.



13. Stephen Abrams – "The Oxford Scene and the Law", The Book of Grass, ed.

George Andrews and Simon Vinkenoog, Peter Owen, London, 1967.



14. In October the Oxford Union passed a motion calling for the

legalisation of cannabis. Dr. Laing and I argued the case in favour. We

were opposed by Ann Mallahieu and Professor Paton..



15.The third member of the board was Michael Henshaw, an accountant, who

became the accountant of Soma and played an important role in the

organisation of the advertisement.



16. Green claims his account is more authoritative than mine because he was

one of the signatories to the advertisement. He is quoted in the

"Independent" to the effect that his name was left off by mistake "the

second time they published it." (22 July 1992) The advertisement only

appeared once, and Green was a boy of nineteen who was not remotely

connected with the project. Apparently he points to the fact that the line

following Graham Greene, where he thinks his name deserves to be, is

corrupt, consisting only of the letters dsh, apparently an honour accorded

to Graham Greene carried over. However, dsh is the artistic signature of

the late Dom Sylvester Houedard, a monk of Gloucester Abbey and a well

known concrete poet. I didn't use my own name for the simple reason that it

would not have contributed to the force of the advertisement. Anyone who

knew who I was would have said, "he would, wouldn't he." Also it gave me an

excuse to leave off the names of various people who wanted their names on

the list because they thought it would do them some good.