Far be it for me to claim journalists should never change their minds. But I think the team at Independent News and Media are seriously confused. (And it is now just one team putting out the weekday and Sunday versions so I don’t think the ‘separate identity’ argument comes into it)

Two stories, seven months apart, calling for wildly different approaches to the issue of drugs. The Independent has gone to great lengths to turn itself into a campaigning “viewspaper”, so these contradictory standpoints are both backed up with editorial – for the upgrading of cannabis here and the legalisation of all drugs here.

I for one am with the second viewpoint – one which seems to be gaining support in some of the least likely places. Richard Brunstrom, chief constable of North Wales Police and a man the tabloids love to hate, today persuaded his police authority to support his calls for a repeal of drugs prohibition.
You don’t need to be an expert to see drugs are everywhere – at all level of society – and that it’s prohibition and not use itself that leads to people committing crime and putting themselves and others at risk in order to get or sell them.
Surely, age restrictions and licensed sale is the answer to the criminality and violence that can currently come with them. Plus proper treatment and counselling for those who are addicted...