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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Lib Dems back legalisation of cannabis
Reuters
Saturday 09 Mar 2002 LONDON (Reuters) - The Liberal Democrats say members have voted in favour of adopting the legalisation of cannabis as party policy. Delegates at the party's spring conference also voted to end imprisonment for possession of any illegal drug, including heroin and cocaine. The party's Home Affairs spokesman Simon Hughes said the policy change had been carefully researched and denied it would deepen the drugs problem. Speaking to Sky News, he said: "The present drugs law isn't working. We have drugs use coming to younger and younger people in Britain. We have more and more addicts. "People when they hear the arguments and see the evidence... will say thank goodness a party is being honest with us." Delegates at the conference had been asked to consider the case for decriminalisation of cannabis, which would have allowed personal use of the drug without the threat of imprisonment, but went one step further by backing legalisation. "It is right now to seek for cannabis to be legalised so that it can be regulated like alcohol and tobacco and taken out of the hands of the criminals," he told Sky. "We need to help the addicts and deal with the dealers," he added. He said the party had realised, like many of its European counterparts, that drugs policy needed a re-think. He called for international discussion and agreement on moving towards a policy of legalisation. Delegates at the conference also supported a motion to downgrade ecstasy from a class A to a class B drug and called for doctors to be given the power to prescribe heroin to addicts. The policies will now be included in the party's manifesto at the next election.
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