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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Charity urges softer drugs penalties
Ananova
Monday 27 Aug 2001 A leading drugs charity has published a report which it says dispels long- standing arguments that drugs laws cannot be changed without breaching international treaties. Entitled European Drugs Laws: The Room for Manoeuvre, the report compares the UK's punishments for a number of lower-grade drug offences with those enforced in six other countries. DrugScope says the Government could change the drugs laws without breaking United Nations conventions on drugs. The charity is urging the Government to punish drug offences with civil penalties rather than jail. Comparing policy in the UK with France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland and Sweden, DrugScope says the Government could easily abolish imprisonment for drug possession and replace it with a system of fines or other civil punishments. Small-scale drug suppliers could also be dealt with by civil measures, it said. "For many years a major impediment to drug reform has been the belief that UN conventions restrict any change," said the charity's chief executive Roger Howard. "This study dispels the view that we are tied rigidly by the UN conventions and shows we have considerable flexibility within them to radically modernise our drugs laws. "We believe that civil penalties could run alongside the current UK system and probably in due course displace the criminal responses to certain drug offences. "The Government needs to decide if allowing otherwise law-abiding citizens to get caught up in the criminal justice system for possessing drugs such as cannabis is a proportionate response in the 21st century."
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