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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Straw And Prescott Hard Line On Drugs
Daily Mail Thursday 12 Oct 2000 Pubdate: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 Source: Daily Mail (UK) Website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ Author: David Hughes, Political Editor STRAW AND PRESCOTT HARD LINE ON DRUGS. TWO senior Cabinet ministers yesterday joined forces to warn against the dangers of legalising cannabis. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Home Secretary Jack Straw spoke out as the fall-out continued from the Tory climbdown on 'zero tolerance' towards the drug. An uncompromising Mr Prescott said: "The Government is absolutely right. I am a hardliner on drugs. I think cannabis leads to use of other drugs and I am against that. "I have seen what it does, both in my 10 years at sea and on the estates in my constituency, so I am not very tolerant of that." His tough message given during an official visit to Peckham, South London, echoed the Home Secretary who earlier gave a grim warning about the risks of cannabis use. Mr Straw insisted that the dangers should not be under-estimated while also agreeing that the police should focus on killer drugs. "Pharmaceologists and psychiatrists tell us that cannabis can have very severe short-term effects," he said. "The long-term effects include a very severe exasperation of mental illness and cancer. It is reckoned that cannabis is between two and four times as carcinogenic as tobacco. "If cannabis were legalised, then consumption of a drug for which the evidence is very strong that it is very harmful will unquestionably increase. In five or ten years people will say: 'Why have you done this? It has made us more unhealthy." He was speaking only hours after an eighth member of the Shadow cabinet, agriculture spokesman Tim Yeo, admitted that he had smoked cannabis at university and found it 'agreeable'. The row erupted at the weekend when Mr Straw's Tory shadow Ann Widdicombe announced plans for fixed $100 fines for anyone caught with cannabis. The Conservatives were then embarrassed when several shadow ministers admitted they had used the drug in their youth. Leader William Hague was forced to concede the policy needed reworking. The Home secretary has denounced Miss Widdicombe's zero tolerance proposals as 'mad' because they did not recognise the proportionate damage caused by illegal drugs. But Labour backbencher Paul Flynn, a long-time supporter of legalising cannabis, said: "Public opinion is ahead of the political cowardice shown by Labour ministers. "The brains of the Home Office ministers have undergone a mind meld. There is one brain and the only way to get new ideas into it is through a lobotomy. "I have tried every reasonable means to say that their two basic assumptions about drugs - that prohibition reduces use and that legality increases use - are false." A recent inquiry, led by drugs abuse expert Dame Ruth Runciman, recommended that cannabis should be reclassified from a class B to a milder class C drug. She said she hoped that Mr straw might still be persuaded to reconsider. "Our view is that cannabis is not a harmless drug, but in terms of the main criteria of harm - mortality, morbidity, relationship with crime, addictiveness etc - it is less dangerous than all the other main illicit drugs, or than alcohol or tobacco," said Dame Ruth. Yesterday it was also claimed that cannabis may not be as dangerous as alcohol for drivers. It is believed that test results from the Transport Research Laboratory at Crowthorne, Berkshire, indicating this have been passed to ministers. Meanwhile the Government is preparing to publish a report which is expected to reveal that the number of drivers found with drugs in their system jumped from 3 per cent to 18 per cent in the last decade.
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