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MPs To Press For Inquiry Into Cannabis
Sunday Telegraph (UK)
Sunday 04 Jan 1998 into the legalisation of cannabis. While he insisted yesterday that changing the law was not on the Government's agenda, backbench MPs said they planned to table a Commons motion to test support for a Royal Commission to look into the question as soon as Parliament resumed this month. Paul Flynn, the Left-wing Labour MP for Newport West, predicted that at least 30 colleagues would support the call - and said this would understate the true level of support since some of those who signed a similar motion halfway through the last parliament were now ministers. His move came as it emerged that the Mirror had a tape recording of the conversation between its reporter, Dawn Alford, and William Straw, the Home Secretary's 17-year-old son, in which Miss Alford is claimed to have discussed the purchase of cannabis from him. Allies of the Home Secretary questioned why the paper had not divulged the existence of the tape, made its contents public, or passed it to police, when there was a continuing investigation into the alleged drug deal. Labour MPs are concerned that the Mirror set out to "entrap" Mr Straw's son, using subterfuge and deceit - although the Home Secretary has expressed gratitude for the way the paper subsequently handled the affair. Piers Morgan, editor of the Mirror, refused to comment yesterday on the existence of the tape, saying that to do so would involve a discussion of evidence while the investigation was "on-going". Mr Straw spent much of yesterday with his family, leaving his home in Lambeth, south London, shortly before lunchtime with his wife Alice and William. Earlier, he made clear in a radio interview that the Government did not expect to shift from opposing decriminalisation of cannabis. He held open the possibility that a different view might be taken if campaigners for legalisation could prove otherwise. But failing this, he said, "there has been no evidence whatsoever to undermine the scientific evidence that this is a potentially dangerous drug and should not be legalised".
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