It’s high time Britain had another conversation about cannabis | Letters

The findings of the London Drugs Commission are welcome after a decade or more of static drug policy in the UK (Worried about weed: should London follow New York and decriminalise cannabis?, 31 May). While the report focuses on London, the suggestions resonate across the UK and beyond.Cannabis was reclassified from class B to class C in 2004, reducing the penalties for possession, after the home secretary (David Blunkett) took the advice of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Unfortunately, the Labour government asked the council to reconsider its advice based on protests about the risks of cannabis to health. The council, headed by Sir Michael Rawlins, confirmed its advice that the drug should stay in class C

A novel idea for men’s emotional growth | Letter

Sarah Moss’s contribution to your debate (‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists?, 31 May) strikes at the heart of the matter: the issue is not whether men are being published, but whether they are reading – and being supported to develop emotional lives that fiction can help foster.As a researcher on men’s health behaviours, I see growing evidence that restrictive models of masculinity – stoicism, self-reliance, emotional detachment – are linked to poorer mental and physical health outcomes. Literature offers an antidote: access to emotional nuance, empathy and self-reflection. But boys are rarely encouraged to see reading in this way.As a teenager, I rarely discussed books with male friends, even though I secretly read them

Jamie Oliver attacks Essex council for not recognising dyslexia as special need

The celebrity chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver has said he is “disgusted” by his native county of Essex for not formally recognising dyslexia as a special educational need.Discussing his new documentary on dyslexia, Oliver claimed Essex county council did not want “to spend the money” on young people diagnosed with dyslexia, a neurological learning difficulty affecting reading and writing.“I’m disgusted by my county of Essex,” Oliver told a panel including the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, on Thursday. “I come from Essex. I was born and bred in Essex and [went to school] in Essex … and they’ve decided to not recognise dyslexia

Key takeaways from world’s largest cancer conference in Chicago

Doctors, scientists and researchers shared new findings on ways to tackle cancer at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference.The event in Chicago, attended by about 44,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions on this year’s theme, Driving Knowledge to Action: Building a Better Future. Here is a roundup of the key studies.An immunotherapy drug could help some cancer patients live years longer without the disease getting worse or coming back, a trial found.Pembrolizumab, sold under the brand name Keytruda, kept head and neck cancers at bay for five years, compared with 30 months with standard care

Free school meals extended but winter fuel changes could tax dead pensioners’ families

Bereaved families of tens of thousands of dead pensioners could be pursued by tax officials to recoup winter fuel payments under a new system being explored by the Treasury, the Guardian has learned.In a further attempt to win public support and quell Labour backbench concerns, ministers are announcing on Thursday that all pupils in England whose families claim universal credit will be eligible for free school meals under an expansion of the scheme.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, confirmed on Wednesday that more pensioners will get winter fuel payments reinstated this year after weeks of uncertainty over the government’s decision to make a U-turn on scrapping the benefit.Ministers are looking at restoring the payments as a universal benefit and then recouping the money when high-income pensioners fill in their tax returns, as creating a new means test would be a highly complex option.However, government insiders are concerned about a time lag of at least six months between the payment of up to £300 being made and it then being clawed back

EHRC commissioner calls for ‘period of correction’ on trans rights after legal ruling

Transgender people must acknowledge a “period of correction” of rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights”.Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who was speaking in a personal capacity, said she believes the fault lay with trans lobbyists.However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.A director of the trans campaign group TransActual said Reindorf’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful