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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Government rejects drugs law reform
ITN Online
Wednesday 07 Feb 2001 The Government has been accused of complacency after rejecting the main findings of a landmark report on drugs. The Police Foundation inquiry, published last year said the penalties for possession of cannabis did more harm than the drug itself and called for a wide reclassification of drugs offences. Possession of cannabis should not be punished by imprisonment and both Ecstasy and LSD should be downgraded from Class A to Class B drugs, it said. But the Home Office has rejected most of the committee's main recommendations to the dismay of campaigners urging a clearer distinction between penalties on hard and soft drugs. Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, chairwoman of the independent inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act, condemned the Government's attitude.. She said: "All our most far-reaching recommendations have been rejected. "At no point has the rationale underlying the proposals been addressed. "We believe the Government is both mistaken and complacent in its response." The only major proposal not spurned by the Home Office in its detailed response to last March's report was the suggestion that people could escape charges of supplying drugs if they proved it was only for use by a small circle of friends. The inquiry team, which included two serving chief constables, called for cannabis to be reclassified from Class B to Class C - the same group as anabolic steroids. It would mean that cannabis possession would not be punishable by imprisonment. It also said people found cultivating a small number of cannabis plants should not face prison. But the Government said there were still fears about the health implications of the drug. The Home Office said: "Custody acts as an important backstop to ensure that defendants appear in court for a range of offences and as a way of helping to enforce other penalties such as fines or community sentences." The proposal to halve the maximum prison term for Class B drugs to seven years was also rejected. Danny Kushlick, director of drug law reform group Transform, said the Government had made an "outrageous decision which flies in the face of public opinion and commonsense". "It is a travesty that the Government has thrown it in the bin - and yet they can provide no evidence to show their regime is effective," he said. Mike Goodman, of the national drugs and legal advice service Release, welcomed the Government's pledge to look at relaxing the law on people who sell drugs to small groups of friends. Paul Betts, whose 18-year-old daughter Leah died in 1995 after taking Ecstasy, said: "I'm absolutely delighted - I had feared the Government was inching towards legalisation or decriminalisation."
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