|
Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
|
|
UK: Blunkett says drugs proposal is a gamble
Greg Hurst The Times
Thursday 11 Jul 2002 DAVID BLUNKETT admitted to MPs yesterday that his proposal to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug, which met only muted protests in the Commons, was a gamble. The Home Secretary said: 'There are not any certainties in dealing with drugs policies. If there were, we would have found them. And if (we had) I would be a lot less modest than I am this afternoon in putting forward the policy.' His comments, with a note of exasperation, came after Kate Hoey (Lab, Vauxhall) asked him whether he was certain that in ten or 20 years his announcement would not come to be viewed as 'the one where we got it wrong'. Ms Hoey said the police experiment in Lambeth, South London, of warning rather than arresting cannabis-users projected the message that cannabis was 'OK' and had led to more drug-dealers and people using cannabis in the area. Mr Blunkett said there was doubt over her claims, but it was a fact that dealing in class A drugs and street crime had both fallen by 10 per cent during the period. Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Home Secretary, attacked the reclassification of cannabis as a 'muddled and dangerous policy' that sent confused messages to the public and would do nothing to reduce drug use or criminality. There were serious arguments for legalising, licensing and taxing cannabis or for greater efforts to lead young people away from it, Mr Letwin said. 'Instead he has given control over cannabis to the drug-dealers with the police turning away.' Mr Letwin, whose relations with the Home Secretary are usually cordial, accused him of setting out to wrong-foot opponents and of buying off libertarians with a more liberal approach, yet appeasing the anti-drugs lobby by raising sentences for dealing. Simon Hughes, for the Liberal Democrats, whose policy is to legalise cannabis, supported its reclassification but said it was confusing that cannabis use would remain an arrestable offence where it was deemed a public order matter. Government backbenchers including Chris Mullin (Lab, Sunderland South), Dari Taylor (Lab, Stockton South), Brian Iddon (Lab, Bolton South East) and Tony Lloyd (Lab, Manchester Central) urged further relaxation of prescriptions to heroin addicts. Peter Lilley (C, Hitchin and Harpenden), one of the first Tories to have advocated the legalisation of cannabis, criticised the policy. He said: 'Surely steps to effectively depenalise the use or possession of cannabis at the same time as retaining or reinforcing penalties on its supply will do nothing to reduce demand for cannabis while continuing to drive soft-drug users into the arms of hard-drug providers.' Earlier, Iain Duncan Smith and Tony Blair clashed over policy on cannabis for the second week in succession at Prime Minister's Questions. The Conservative leader said that the reclassification of cannabis was being announced without proper debate or evidence and pointed out that Keith Hellawell, the Government's former drugs czar, had said in resigning that the move sent out the wrong message. Mr Blair said there were differences of opinion on all sides and within the community in Lambeth, but said it was absurd to say that this was being proposed without consultation.
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!