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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Blunkett hints at drug law rethink
Andrew Sparrow The Telegraph
Monday 09 Jul 2001 DAVID BLUNKETT, the Home Secretary, responded to the growing clamour for reform of drugs laws yesterday by hinting that the Government might consider the case for decriminalising cannabis. He said he had no intention of changing Government policy "out of the blue". But he welcomed the debate on drugs policy because he was "open-minded". Jack Straw, his predecessor, always ruled out decriminalisation. Campaigners welcomed Mr Blunkett's comments as a sign that the Government had shifted its position in a subtle but significant way. As Mr Blunkett spoke, Sir David Ramsbotham, the outgoing Chief Inspector of Prisons, became the latest establishment figure to call for the legalisation of some drugs. Lord Baker, the Conservative Home Secretary from 1990 to 1992, also spoke in favour of decriminalising cannabis. He told a Sunday newspaper: "To fill our prisons with people who are cannabis users is a bum use of the prisons." . Mr Blunkett's comments were his first response to the debate on decriminalisation which has been in the headlines since Peter Lilley, the former deputy Conservative leader, called in an article in The Daily Telegraph for cannabis to be sold through licensed outlets. When the article appeared on Friday, Downing Street, following Mr Straw's old line, said the Government's opposition to changing the law was clear and unchanged. It would not even say that it welcomed the idea of a debate. But Mr Blunkett said: "There is room for an adult, intelligent debate. It is not, 'Are you for or against?' It is, 'Let's think; let's consider; let's not be pushed by articles in newspapers or hysteria.'" Asked if he was willing to consider change, he said: "I am interested in the debate that is taking place because, I hope, I am an intelligent human being. I have no intention of making a change in Government policy out of the blue and if I have anything further to say on the issue I will do so in a considered fashion in my own time." Mr Blunkett added that "the clear message we have to send out to young people is that drugs are bad for you". Pro-reform MPs were encouraged. Paul Flynn, a Labour backbencher, said: "This is very different from anything that Jack Straw said. There is at least a willingness to listen. Under Jack Straw they ruled out discussion, let alone any change of policy. The policy was to put your head under the pillow and hide." Mr Lilley said the debate was at last "moving in the right direction". Pointing out that the Government had approved a police experiment in Brixton, south London, where anyone found in possession of cannabis would receive a verbal warning instead of facing caution or arrest, he said: "The Government has been all over the place. Tony Blair says he has got to uphold the law and protect his children, but it does not apply in Brixton, where black children can be exposed to these sorts of drugs." Sir David came out in favour of decriminalisation in A Parting Shot on Prisons, a programme being broadcast on Radio 4 tonight. He said: "The more I think about it and the more I look at what is happening, the more I can see the logic of legalising drugs, because the misery that is caused by the people who are making criminal profit is so appalling and the sums are so great that are being made illegally. He added: "I think there is merit in legalising and prescribing, or whatever, so that people do not have to go and find an illegal way of doing it." Explaining that his views had changed on the basis of what he had learnt in his job, Sir David said: "I have come a very long way through exposure to what the drug culture has done to the people I am seeing in prison, their families and the community from which they come." Although the current round of media comment was prompted by Mr Lilley's article, a debate has been running on the subject for some time and there is much evidence that public and establishment opinions are changing. This month Keith Hallawell, the former police chief appointed by the Government to spread the word on the danger of drugs, said he no longer accepted that cannabis was always a "gateway drug" to the use of heroin. An opinion poll for The Independent on Sunday yesterday showed that, while the majority of people still opposed legalisation of cannabis, resistance to change was weakening. The survey by NOP found that 51 per cent opposed legalisation, compared with 37 per cent who were in favour. The last time that NOP conducted such a survey, in 1996, the figures were 66 per cent against legalisation and 26 per cent for.
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