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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: MPs Back Move To Reclassify Cannabis
Deborah Summers and Rob Crilly The Herald
Wednesday 22 May 2002 CANNABIS laws across Britain could be relaxed within months after an influential report published today backed David Blunkett's plan to downgrade the drug. In the biggest ever shake-up of the UK's drug laws, MPs approved the home secretary's plan to reclassify cannabis from class B to class C, meaning that possession would cease to be an arrestable offence. However, Mr Blunkett dismissed a similar call from MPs to downgrade ecstasy, the potentially deadly dance drug. The long-awaited home affairs committee report follows an announcement that ministers were considering tougher sentences for drug dealers who hang around school gates, and came on the same day the government announced new guidelines urging schools in England and Wales to make greater use of shock tactics in anti-drugs lessons. Ministers said they were "actively" considering creating a new offence of aggravated drug dealing after hearing from the police about how some pushers trawl for custom near schools and colleges. The tougher sentences could apply in Scotland. However, drugs workers and opposition MPs said the hardline message from a government which had already begun the process of reclassifying cannabis from class B to C could cause confusion. The Commons report also said ecstasy should be downgraded to rank alongside amphetamines rather than heroin and cocaine, while the prescribing of medical-grade heroin on the NHS should be extended. Safe injecting rooms or so-called "shooting galleries" - where addicts can go to use illegally-purchased drugs without fear of arrest - should be set up as a pilot programme "without delay" to get heroin users off the streets, MPs added. The 100-page document, which will be seen as a watershed in Westminster's approach to drugs issues, urged ministers to plough much more cash into "woefully inadequate" treatment programmes. Drug use was merely a "passing phase" for many young people which "rarely results in any long term harm", the report found. Mr Blunkett welcomed the "thorough and thought-provoking" document, but immediately ruled out any reclassification of ecstasy. "Ecstasy can, and does, kill unpredictably and there is no such thing as a safe dose," he said. "I believe it should remain class A. Reclassification of ecstasy is not on the government's agenda." He added that today's document contributed to the "sensible and adult" debate he called for last October. "It is important that we get the message across to young people that whilst all drugs cause harm not all drugs are the same," he said. "Some are more dangerous than others. We have to focus our attention on the most harmful drugs." The UK's 250,000 problematic drug users - mainly heroin addicts - are thought to commit a third of all property crime, spending an average of ?13,000 a year gained from crime to feed their habit. But Mr Blunkett voiced caution on some of the committee's recommendations on heroin. "I have already made it clear that I want to see an appropriate extension of prescribing heroin. However, there are no plans for injecting rooms," he said. The government will make a detailed response later in the summer after "seriously considering" the report, Mr Blunkett added. Damian Green, shadow education secretary, accused the government of sending out mixed messages. "The Department for Education is saying we are being tough on drugs, while the Home Office is saying it wants to relax drug laws," he said. Alistair Ramsay, director of Scotland Against Drugs, said he would be surprised if the home office decided to reclassify ecstasy, but welcomed the suggestion that heroin should be prescribed to addicts. "A properly controlled way of getting heroin users to a GP, who would not only be prescribing heroin but putting together a package of health measures for that individual, would mean that users would come into contact with other support services," he said. The result, he added, would be to reduce the high levels of crime associated with drug use. The report came as the parents of a heroin addict who decided to release pictures of their dead daughter to warn children of the dangers of drug abuse said the reaction from pupils had been "100% positive". Pictures of the body of 21-year-old Rachel Whitear dominated newspaper front pages and television screens when they were released last February. Her mother, Pauline, and stepfather, Michael Holcroft, from Withington, Herefordshire, allowed them to be included in a 22-minute film entitled Rachel's Story which the government has decided should be available to any school that wants to use it in drug education lessons. Ministers believe that the use of such "shock tactics" can play an effective part in helping to cut rising rates of drug abuse by children in England. The guidance for drugs education will apply only to schools in England and Wales but a spokesman for the Scottish Executive said many of the recommendations were already in place in Scotland. "We offer guidance to local authorities on the use of exclusions which makes it quite clear that serious offences, including drug dealing, should lead to exclusion," he said. "All schools in Scotland are asked to provide health education, of which drugs education is a part already." Janet Betts, whose daughter Leah died after taking ecstasy, said: "Young people won't know who the hell to believe or what to do. One morning they wake up to hear that pupils dealing drugs at school will be expelled and that they will be shown shocking images in drugs education lessons, then the next morning they hear that ecstasy is OK because it is no more harmful than valium."
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