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UK: Clarke blasted for 'U-turn' on cannabis

Rosa Prince, Political Correspondent

The Mirror

Saturday 07 Jan 2006

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CHARLES Clarke was slammed yesterday for signalling he would reclassify
cannabis less than a year after it was downgraded to a Class C drug.

Critics accused the Government of muddling the drug laws by adding to
the public's confusion over the legality of smoking marijuana.

And the Home Secretary appeared to blame his predecessor David Blunkett
for the farce, criticising his decision to declassify cannabis to the
same level as the misuse of prescription drugs.

Saying not enough weight had been given to the impact on mental health
when the decision had been made to downgrade, Clarke revealed he would
decide within weeks whether to make the embarrassing U-turn.

The Home Secretary said: "People do not understand the impact of the
consumption of cannabis well enough and what the legal consequences of
consuming cannabis are.

"I am also very worried about the most recent medical evidence on mental
health."

But Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired a Police Foundation report
recommending downgrading cannabis from Class B to C, said there was no
evidence of an increase in the drug's usage.

She said of another reclassification: "It is very ill-judged and it
actually puts cannabis where it does not belong in the scale of relative
harm."

Martin Barnes, of Drugscope, added: "Since cannabis was reclassified,
there has been more debate about the harms and some indication that its
use has started to decline. It'd be difficult to explain why we have to
move it back to B."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Mark Oaten said: "The Government
should resist reclassification."

Only the Tories backed the move to return cannabis to a Class B drug.
Shadow home secretary David Davis said he "welcomed the Home Secretary's
recognition that there is new evidence about the dangers of cannabis".

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16552972&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=dope-on-the-ropes--name_page.html


 

 

 

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