Pubdate: Mon, 4 Feb 2008
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2008 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: Duncan Campbell, The Guardian
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

THE DRUG LAWS DON'T WORK

The Real 'Softies' Are the Politicians Who Refuse to Engage in a 
Sober Debate on Cannabis

Fifty years ago, Lenny Bruce, the American comedian who was pursued 
relentlessly by the police for his drug use, remarked that cannabis 
would be legal soon, "because the many law students who now smoke pot 
will some day become congressmen and legalise it in order to protect 
themselves". Since then we have had at least two US presidents and 
countless congressmen who have used drugs, but changes in the 
punitive US drugs laws seem as remote as ever.

In Britain, many cabinet and shadow cabinet members have admitted to 
using cannabis but, rather than relaxing the laws concerning the 
drug, they are planning to tighten them. Today the Advisory Council 
on the Misuse of Drugs is due to hear evidence on whether or not 
cannabis should be reclassified from class C up to class B. The 
council considered this issue in 2005 and concluded then that 
"although cannabis is unquestionably harmful, its harmfulness does 
not equate to that of other Class B substances either at the level of 
the individual or of society". This time the hearings are pointless. 
Gordon Brown and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, have already 
indicated that they are minded to reclassify the drug upwards, 
whatever the council has to say. Brown has said that "drugs are never 
going to be decriminalised". The received wisdom, inside the cabinet 
and among much of the media, is that it was an error on the part of 
the then home secretary, David Blunkett, to reclassify cannabis down 
from B to C in 2004, because it "sent the wrong message". And the 
increased strength of hydroponically grown skunk is cited as one 
reason for the change. The sunny climate in which Rosie Boycott 
launched a legalise cannabis campaign in the Independent on Sunday in 
1997 has clouded over. The IoS itself has recanted and issued an apology.

There is no dispute that cannabis can cause significant harm. 
Teenagers, heavy users and those with a predisposition to mental 
health problems are at risk. No one denies that. Transform, one of 
the most rational of the organisations monitoring UK drug laws, will 
be submitting evidence to the advisory council, saying that "the fact 
that [cannabis] is produced and supplied via a profit-driven 
underground criminal market has been the driver for the increasing 
prevalence of more potent strains, which deliver increased 
profit-to-weight ratios".

Some senior former police officers, like Tom Lloyd, former chief 
constable of Cambridge, have also argued for a change in the laws. 
"This is about taking the control of drugs in this country out of the 
hands of criminals and into the hands of responsible authorities," 
Lloyd has said. Many still in the police privately agree.

But it would take a brave politician to suggest a sober debate on 
cannabis, let alone the whole basis of the drug laws. The Lib Dems 
and the Green party still favour that debate. The former's policy is 
to seek "to put the supply of cannabis on a legal, regulated basis, 
subject to securing necessary renegotiation of the UN conventions". 
It opposes the government's decision to reclassify regardless of what 
the ACMD has to say.

But what of the two main parties? Shadow cabinet member Alan Duncan 
wrote in the book Saturn's Children that "logic suggests that the 
only completely effective way to ameliorate the problem, and 
especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry 
into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all 
dangerous drugs, or at the very least decriminalising their 
consumption". In 2002, the home affairs committee examining drugs 
policy recommended that "the government initiates a discussion within 
the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways - including the 
possibility of legalisation and regulation - to tackle the global 
drugs dilemma". David Cameron was a member of that committee. But 
this is not Conservative policy now, nor will the party dare to offer 
it for debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. It now backs 
the government on reclassification.

It is time for politicians to take a deep breath and say in public 
what many say in private: that the drug laws are not working, that 
the illegal trade is responsible for much of our most corrosive 
crime, and that it is time to have a debate nationally and 
internationally about addressing the catastrophic effects of 
prohibition. Reclassifying cannabis upwards is a grandstand gesture 
with no relevance to those whose lives are damaged by drugs or by the 
drug laws that compound and exacerbate that damage. The country does 
face an urgent addiction problem. But the name of our addiction 
problem is alcohol. If the government wants to send messages, the 
first message should be in a bottle.

The real "softies" when it comes to drugs are the politicians who 
refuse to engage in debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. So 
now, instead of that debate, we appear to be heading towards Reefer Madness II. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake