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UK: Skunk cannabis may be reclassified
Alan Travis The Guardian
Thursday 19 May 2005 Drug experts will begin debating today whether stronger "skunk" varieties of cannabis should carry higher penalties for possession. The Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs, which meets in London, has been asked by the home secretary, Charles Clarke, for its advice on varieties of cannabis containing high levels of THC, the active ingredient. In his letter to the committee, Mr Clarke pointed it to these forms of the plant, known as skunk, which are often grown in nutrient-rich water. "I am aware the Dutch government are taking a particular interest in very high strength strains and are considering whether cannabis above a certain strength should be a higher classification," the home secretary said. The council is reviewing whether the recent relaxation of the penalties for cannabis possession should be reversed. Tony Blair told the Commons on Tuesday that he hoped the experts would produce their report within weeks, but those hopes are likely to be dashed. The council, which is chaired by a clinical pharmacologist, Sir Michael Rawlins, is expected to agree a timetable and terms of reference today for its review of the cannabis laws, which means that a final report is unlikely to be produced before December. The review was announced just before the general election campaign got under way following fresh claims of mental health problems caused by regular cannabis use and by the growing use in Britain of skunk. Mr Blair hinted strongly in the Commons that he could reverse the relaxation in the laws on cannabis: "If it advises us to change that decision, we will do so. If it does not, we will obviously have to consider that," he told MPs. The drug experts are likely to set up a committee to examine evidence from a New Zealand study which claims that regular use of cannabis can increase the risk of mental health problems later in life for those with a family history of mental illness. The council recommended the decision taken by the former home secretary, David Blunkett, to downgrade cannabis possession from class B to class C in January last year. In making that recommendation the experts took into account claims that regular cannabis smoking could exacerbate existing mental health problems but not the more recent academic evidence that it could trigger new problems. The reclassification meant that most adults caught in possession face a police policy of "confiscate and warn," while those under 18 are arrested and taken to a police station and given a formal reprimand. The proposal to introduce different penalties for different strengths of cannabis could cause practical problems for the police, who would have to distinguish between cannabis that they could arrest adults for possessing and weaker strains for which they could only issue an informal warning. Martin Barnes, the chief executive of DrugScope, a drugs information charity, said: "We are seeing stronger cannabis generally but the bigger problem is that cannabis is being used regularly by a younger age group, rather than it being stronger than in the past." Research in the US has reported that cannabis 10 times more potent than traditional strains has been appearing there. The average potency of cannabis consumed in Holland, where there has been an explosion in the homegrown market, has doubled, to about 16% THC. Research by the EU's drug agency last year suggested that the effective strength of cannabis consumed in Britain has remained unchanged at about 6% THC for 30 years. The study acknowledged that there has been an unknown increase in home-grown cannabis, which can be two to three times more potent, but more than 70% of the British market was taken by imported Moroccan hashish.
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