Subj: UK: Cannabis law to stay 



PubDate: 12 July 1999



Source: BBC Online





Cannabis law to stay 



A senior Cabinet official has rejected a leading Scottish 

judge's call for a review of sentencing policy for cases 

involving cannabis. 



Lord McCluskey, who is Scotland's longest serving judge, 

questioned whether cannabis caused as much harm as alcohol 

and tobacco. 



And he raised doubts over sentencing, saying it often failed 

to act as a deterrent. 



But Cabinet "enforcer", Dr Jack Cunningham, speaking on BBC 

Radio Four's Today programme, said that while the judge's 

comments about sentencing would be studied, the law would 

not be changed. 



Easing laws on cannabis would merely lead to greater 

problems in controlling other drugs, he argued. 



"There is no doubt that if you were to legalise cannabis - 

make cannabis freely available on the streets - it would 

simply facilitate the work of drug pushers and drug dealers 

to get into areas where young people in particular are to 

push other drugs," he said. 



Lord McCluskey said a rapist could expect to receive six 

years in jail while someone convicted of importing a £1m 

worth of cannabis was likely to receive a sentence four 

times as long. 



Importation of cannabis 



Speaking at the Law Society of Scotland's 50th anniversary 

conference in Edinburgh, he told delegates: "If you import 

cannabis you get 25 years - is importation of cannabis four 

times as bad as rape? 



"There is a vast amount of evidence that suggests cannabis 

is not a danger to life. It's certainly not the same kind of 

crime that rape is. 



"And do the penalties we impose deter? The statistics tell 

us absolutely plainly that they do not. Deterrence in my 

view has no role at all." 



The judge also questioned why police were "chasing" cannabis 

users and suppliers, and alienating youngsters by turning 

them into offenders. 



He said: "The police can't devote resources to chasing 

heroin users who are doing real harm. Police resources are 

diverted away, so are prison resources. 



"A Royal Commission should be set up to look at the issue of 

decriminalisation. 



"We should hear the people themselves who are going to raves 

and consuming this stuff." 



However, the judge received support from a Labour MP who has 

been vocal in calls for a change in the law. 



Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West and a member of the Welsh 

Assembly, said: "The judge is saying in public what most 

informed experts say in private - that cannabis laws 

needlessly criminalise the majority of young people." 



"Even the Drug Czar, Keith Hellawell, has admitted that 

cannabis use is 'normal' among young people."