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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Listen to the drugs experts
The Independent on Sunday
Sunday 25 Nov 2001 With barely a moment's pause, the debate about drugs has moved on from cannabis to ecstasy. The Association of Chief Police Officers, a body not noted for its liberal-mindedness, has called for ecstasy to lose its class A drug status and for the establishment of legal heroin injecting-rooms. It argues that ecstasy is less dangerous than other class A drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, and that injecting-rooms for heroin addicts would at least ensure that users received clean needles and informed health advice. The Independent on Sunday was campaigning for the decriminalisation of cannabis long before it became acceptable for David Blunkett to contemplate such a move. The case for a further relaxation of the laws is a powerful one, and to some extent logical. But the Association of Chief Police Officers is right to make its approval for such a move conditional on supporting evidence from the medical and scientific communities. So far the evidence is fairly thin. We also called for a royal commission to look into the cannabis question, and there are grounds now for the establishment of such a body to consider the laws relating to harder drugs. But royal commissions can be slow and cumbersome, and the all-party committee of MPs now inquiring into drugs laws is a credible alternative that is likely to lead to more effective recommendations. Open debate is vital, and those specialists with strong views should not be admonished for expressing them. Last week one of London's most senior police officers was rebuked by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for telling the committee that he was not interested in taking action against weekend "recreational users" of small amounts of cocaine and ecstasy. He argued that it was a waste of valuable police time, and that such drug-taking had no effect on the rest of the community or the user who returned to work on Monday morning. We don't accept the assumption behind that remark. For those who have no job to go to, drug-taking can take on a very different meaning. But there are many complex and sensitive issues relating to the legalising of so-called harder drugs, and those with experience on the ground - police officers and medical experts - must be allowed to contribute to the debate.
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