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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: British charity to mount major review of drugs laws
Reuter Monday 25 Aug 1997 LONDON (Reuter) - Britain's 25-year-old drugs laws that make possession of even a small amount of cannabis a crime are to undergo a thorough review in the light of a growing drug culture among young people. The Police Foundation charity said Monday the two-year inquiry will look at the effectiveness of the 1971 laws. The study will be carried out by a committee including police, lawyers and academics and may propose revisions to the law. "Youth culture and the drugs issue have moved on since 1971" said Barry Irving, director of the Police Foundation, an independent research charity. "We realize that this is a sensitive field but independent and objective review is long overdue. Legislation is designed for a particular time and set of problems. Periodic review is essential," Irving said. The review was welcomed by police and by charities who work with drug addicts. Ian Oliver, Chief Constable of Grampian police in Scotland, said he hoped it would look into the need for more treatment and detoxification centers. "I really believe we are approaching, if we have not already arrived at, a watershed which is whether or not we accept that drugs cannot be removed from society to a greater or lesser extent -- in which case we are talking about damage-limitation and not harm-reduction,'' Oliver told BBC radio. A report last month by a drugs charity found that nearly 90 percent of young people attending raves or dancing at nightclubs in the London area planned to take drugs during their evening out. Ecstasy and cannabis were the most popular drugs used by teenagers and nightclubbers questioned in the report.
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