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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Ministers avoid debate as drugs use explodes
Reuters Wednesday 10 Jan 2001 Lady Ruth Runciman -- author of a report last March which suggested cannabis and ecstasy laws be relaxed -- criticised ministers for avoiding the issue. Runciman said she was disappointed they would not be attending a major drugs conference organised by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the UK's largest social policy and development charity. "The issue of a mature and rational, national debate -- whether (ministers) are ready or willing to go into that -- is open to question given the current response," Runciman told the BBC. But a new readers' survey by popular music magazine, Mixmag, shows that recreational drug-use is growing with an estimated 750,000 clubbers a week now using drugs and mixing potentially lethal drug cocktails. Over last year, the average intake of ecstasy -- the designer drug of choice in the 90s -- has gone up to three or four pills per session from two to three in 1999. Now, lesser-known drugs such as Ketamine (K)-- derived from a veterinary anaesthetic -- and Gamma Hydroxybutrate (GHB)-- otherwise known as liquid ecstasy -- are increasingly used in clubland. Costing up to 50 pounds for a gram or wrap, almost a third of those surveyed had used "K" in the previous month, compared with less than four percent in 1999. The research showed that information on how to make GHB from industrial cleaning fluids and caustic soda was readily available on the internet. By far the most widely used drug was cannabis, however, with 98 percent of surveyed readers saying they had tried it. Such widespread use may add fuel to Runciman's suggestion that cannabis be demoted to a Class C drug and that police lose their power to arrest suspects for carrying it. But the British government has yet to give an official response to Runciman's report. Home Secretary Jack Straw has rejected the report's proposals for relaxing soft-drug laws, while Tony Blair said, as a parent, if he were asked if cannabis should be legalised his answer would be: "Not on your life". "I am against legalising drugs," Blair told an audience in Bristol, during a question and answer session on Tuesday. "I think it would be very dangerous... particularly for young people." Runciman said at Wednesday's conference she was concerned the government would "cherry-pick" the calls for tighter anti-trafficking and anti-dealing laws from the report and ignore the rationale behind the proposals to relax police action on cannabis users. "Our proposals are firmly located in the common sense and undogmatic middle ground between unrealistic legalisation on one side and an unwinable "war against drugs" on the other," Runciman said.
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