Pubdate: Fri, 20 Jan 2006
Source: Herald, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 The Herald
Contact:  http://www.theherald.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/189
Author: Neil McKeganey

NOW LET THE REAL DRUGS DEBATE BEGIN
	
When Charles Clarke revealed yesterday that he had decided to leave 
cannabis as a Class C drug rather than move it to Class B, he was 
drawing to a close a process that had taken three years to complete 
and involved two expert reviews by the Advisory Council on the Misuse 
of Drugs and virtually a rainforest of advice from mental health 
charities, drugs experts, journalists and others.

Early signs that he was going to move cannabis back to Class B led to 
the suggestion of possible resignations from the advisory council, 
which had recommended leaving the drug in Class C. Who would have 
thought that the alphabetical listing of illegal drugs would have 
been a possible resigning matter? For many of those with a 
professional or personal interest in cannabis, the 
alphabetti-spaghetti of how it was to be classified would have seemed 
bizarre in the extreme.

We have in the UK some of the highest levels of drug use recorded 
anywhere in Europe, with more than 350,000 heroin addicts, possibly 
as many cocaine addicts, double that number of ecstasy users and more 
than two million cannabis users.

Some 70% of crime is linked in some way to drug abuse and governments 
spend UKP12bn every year responding to the problem.

In the face of those numbers, the preoccupation with cannabis 
classification can seem arcane in the extreme - especially when it 
could hardly matter less to those using it. The argument that the 
harms of cannabis, though profound for a few, are not so widespread 
as to justify placing the drug in Category B has held the day. But 
medical harm is only one of the reasons for placing drugs in one 
category or another.

No less significant is the symbolism of what our drug laws tell us 
about how we view certain substances. Leaving cannabis as a Class C 
drug unquestionably sends out the message to young people that they 
need not be as concerned about using the drug as they might have 
been. It also sends out the message that the government itself is 
less concerned with cannabis than it has been in the past. Cannabis 
for sure is a lot less harmful than heroin or cocaine. Nevertheless, 
it is the illegal drug that is most widely used in the UK and the 
drug that has become so normal a part of the world of young people as 
to hardly rank as a drug at all. It is also the drug which for a 
significant minority of young people will lead to them developing 
significant mental health problems.

Acceptable, perhaps, if those young people are someone else's sons or 
daughters; much more shattering when it is your child who has gone 
off the rails and the statistics on relative risk offer no comfort at all.

The government announced a national educational campaign warning 
young people of the dangers of cannabis.

But that was a recommendation made more than two years ago by the 
advisory council when it proposed moving cannabis from Class B to 
Class C. It will, in all probability, have only limited impact on 
young people's behaviour.

When the decision to move cannabis to Class C was announced, there 
were those in Scotland who were sceptical, including a number of 
senior police officers who stressed that, as far as they were 
concerned, policing cannabis was "business as usual". That position 
was tenable only so long as there remained the possibility that the 
decision might be reversed.

In the light of the home secretary's decision, Scotland will be 
expected to apply the Westminster ruling on cannabis every bit as 
vigorously as elsewhere in the UK.

With the debate on cannabis classification now over, the big 
questions on tackling the UK drug problem can now assume their 
rightful position at the forefront of our attention.

Those questions include: How are we going to reduce the harms of 
illegal drug use? How are we going to reduce the number of people 
using illegal drugs?

How are we going to tackle drug-related crime?

How are we going to protect communities from the ravages of 
widespread drug abuse?

And how are we going to secure the assets of drug dealers making tens 
of millions of pounds from Scotland's drug problem.

Twenty years ago in Scotland we hardly had a drug-abuse problem 
worthy of the name. Now we face a situation of more than 50,000 
addicts and a drug problem that is killing hundreds of our young 
people year in, year out . It is a problem that is extracting a 
terrible toll in lives lost, communities undermined, and families destroyed.

If we don't get on top of this problem then we may well ask where we 
think we might be in in 10 or 20 years.

In Scotland, we have our own drugs minister and our own expert 
advisory group on drug matters.

Yesterday, each of these individuals and thousands of others were 
waiting to hear what the home secretary had decided on the 
classification issue.

There will be those who welcome the decision he has taken and there 
will be those who view that decision as a missed opportunity. There 
will also be those who ask the question of whether it is right that 
we should be looking to London for clarification of our drug laws or 
whether we should seek to ensure that it is our politicians and our 
Executive that are shaping those laws.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman