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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Drug report hailed 'good news'
Mid Essex Evening Gazette Monday 27 Mar 2000 A CANNABIS campaigner has supported an official report which calls for reduced penalties for possession of soft drugs. The Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which was set up by the Police Foundation in August 1997, proposes a new offence aimed at targeting persistent drug dealers. And calls for greater confiscation of assets from traffickers. The Police Foundation, a charity which looks into organised crime, developed the report in response to growing realisation by drug workers that the just say no message does not work. The Drugs and the Law report does not suggest any drugs should be legalised, but it does recommend the classification of individual drugs and associated penalties should be changed to reflect relative risks. Under the recommendations, heroin and cocaine would still be Class A but Ecstasy and LSD would be moved from class A to class B - the same category as amphetamines. Cannabis would be transferred from class B to Class C. Don Barnard, a member of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance Party said, "it was a common sense approach." Mr Barnard, of Aetheric Road, Braintree, said: "We can no longer afford to keep chasing cannabis users. Last year 24,000 people went to court for using the drug." But Mr Barnard said he was sceptical anything would change because of the report. He said: "We have been calling for change for a long time but the Government does not want to listen."
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