Welfare reform Sir: It is amazing that Ken Jackson can so elaborate a condemnation of something that does not exist ("Welfare Reform? We really don't have any choice", 2 January). He argues that Tony Blair is right not to defend the status quo, and he criticises those who do Just who does defend it? No one to my knowledge. So why does Ken Jackson - and various ministers - imply that critics of the Government's handling of welfare reform are against all reforms and for the status quo?It is one way of denigrating them. Since then other reports have concluded that cannabis is not addictive, does not lead to hard drug use, does not detrimentally affect memory or motor skills (including empirical testing of the effects on drivers), does not cause cancer or damage the lungs, and is not associated with any particular lifestyle.Maybe the arrest of Jack Straw's son has achieved something after all. Maybe now people will wake up to the fact that this unjust and unworkable cannabis law may eventually lead to the arrest of their own sons and daughters, for using a safe plant in preference to dangerous intoxicants, a crime without a victim.JACK GIRLINGChairmanCampaign to Legalise Cann-abis International AssociationNorwich.

In 1968, the UK Royal Commission, the Wootton Report, concurring with other major reports on cannabis, said that cannabis ought not to be illegal and its use did not pose unacceptable risks. Unjust cannabis law Sir: The Home Secretary, Jack Straw, says that if campaigners can show that cannabis is not a dangerous drug, then the Government may reconsider its stance on cannabis prohibition ("Straw's challenge over cannabis drugs", 5 January). The evidence has always been there. One of the few gifts of Opposition is the freedom to think and speak imaginatively and radically. It is time for a ferment of new Tory thinking - the bad ideas will have been forgotten by 2002 and the good ones need to be tested. Until that happens, Mr Hague and his colleagues are going to continue 1998 as unhappily as they have begun it..

We are into the ninth month since the election defeat and still the most vocal Conservatives are the old stagers of the Thatcher generation. That may not be practical politics in 1998, but it will be tremendously popular in the country in the years ahead. There are other ideas for the Tories to tackle, including a radical rethinking of the cost structure and delivery of higher education in the wired-up world; new ways of paying for the privilege of green countryside in a crowded island; and cheaper defence options.But, whatever policies are finally at the core of a reshaped Tory party, now is the time to start talking about them. So it would be bonkers of the Tory leadership to bind itself under all circumstances to the losing side.What they could be doing is arguing for a much less bureaucratic, and more politically open EU, with less power for Strasbourg and the Commission. The Tories are the pragmatic party, or they are nothing.Many would argue, of course, that monetary union will be ruinous. But our view is that, in any case, the combined power of the City, business leaders and a swathe of senior politicians of all parties will win the argument for EMU in the short term.