|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Law in disorder
The Observer Sunday 25 Nov 2001 For some months we have been drifting towards a liberalisation of the law on cannabis with some police forces operating a no-arrest policy for possession. Last month the Home Secretary proposed that the drug be reclassified from Class B to Class C and that possession be a non-arrestable offence. Now things are moving faster. Senior police officers are arguing for legalisation of cannabis. Some, including the president of the Superintendents' Association, want 'shooting galleries' where heroin addicts can legally inject. Most controversial is the argument that the law should distinguish between addicts who commit crimes to feed their habits and 'weekend' users of ecstasy and cocaine. The police are right to point out the idiocies and dangers of enforcing the law and their arguments on use of police time are unanswerable. We welcome their pragmatic approach, even if, as Richard Ingrams points out on page 32, they are merely informing us of a policy they have been operating for some time. None the less, two things concern us. We cannot feel entirely comfortable with radical legislative changes being decided in the police canteen. Second, parents concerned at the ease with which their children can obtain ecstasy deserve more than an administrative shrug that the police do not have the resources to uphold the law. Unenforced laws bring all law into disrepute. The Home Secretary must act on mounting evidence that our drugs strategy criminalises the foolish while having little impact on the villains who run the £6bn drugs industry. There are sound arguments - ideological and now pragmatic - for decriminalising all personal drug use while carefully monitoring and controlling supply. That is the way official practice is heading. The Government should have the courage of its secret convictions.
After you have finished reading this article you can click here to go back.
|
This page was created by the Cannabis Campaigners' Guide.
Feel free to link to this page!