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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Softer cannabis rules seen
Kate Kelland Reuters
Wednesday 22 May 2002 LONDON (Reuters) - Rules on cannabis are almost certain to be eased after politicians, police and medical experts urged a less punitive approach to the drug enjoyed by around five million people across the country. A report published on Wednesday called on the government to face reality, relax rules on cannabis and ecstasy, and follow Swiss and Dutch models by offering heroin addicts safe fixes in a network of "injecting rooms" . Home Secretary David Blunkett has already said he is inclined to downgrade cannabis to the lowest risk Class C drug category, making possession of it in small amounts a non-arrestable offence. But wary of headlines in the tabloid press screaming about ministers "going soft" on heroin users who rob and steal to feed their habits, he has rejected calls for more radical moves. Since Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's government is largely made up of ministers who were teenagers in the hippie drugs heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, easing up on cannabis rules is an almost inevitable -- although some say very late and still tentative -- step. SMOKED, INHALED AND ENJOYED Unlike former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who famously said he had smoked dope but "did not inhale," Blair and many of his ministers have been resolutely tight-lipped about their own experiences of the drug used by millions across Europe. But one former cabinet minister, Mo Mowlam, went public, saying she had tried cannabis -- and unlike Clinton did inhale. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was forced to face the reality that up to 35 percent of teenagers have tried cannabis at some time when his own son was caught buying pot in a pub by an undercover reporter. And eight leading members of the opposition Conservatives admitted two years ago that they had tried dope. Former agriculture minister Tim Yeo even said he enjoyed it. Experts say this trickle of admissions -- coupled with report after report showing Britons are among the highest users of cannabis in Europe and many studies saying the drug's dangers are minimal, has led to the softer approach. But it is as far as the government is likely to go. "In the end, politicians are very fearful," Roger Howard, director of the Drugscope charity, told Reuters. FEAR OF POPULIST BACKLASH He said fear of a populist backlash among conservative so-called "middle England" voters whose support Blair fought hard to win when he led his party to power in 1997 after 18 years in opposition would stop any truly radical moves. Wednesday's report by a committee of MPs called for ecstasy -- the "smiley face" drug taken by thousands of night clubbers across Europe every week -- to be downgraded to a Class B drug, ranking it less dangerous than cocaine and on a par with amphetamines like speed. But a taste of the angry response to such proposals came immediately as the right-wing Daily Mail ran a double-page spread under the headline "storm over soft stance on drugs" with pictures of seven young women who died after taking ecstasy. Blunkett took the hint and forcefully ruled out any move: "Ecstasy can and does kill unpredictably and there is no such thing as a safe dose," he said in a statement on Wednesday. He added there were no plans to respond to calls for "safe injecting rooms" for heroin addicts -- schemes which have been set up in the Netherlands and Switzerland to try and get addicts off the streets.
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