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UK: How Labour tried to shut me up as its drug policy went to pot Keith Hellawell The Sunday Times Sunday 14 Jul 2002 Twenty-four hours after the hardest decision of my life, I was sitting at home in Yorkshire when the phone rang. I had been expecting a call, but nothing quite like this one. It was late last month, and the previous day I had tendered my resignation as the government's special adviser on international drug issues, a position I had held for 12 months after stepping aside as its 'drug czar'. It was a job I was passionate about, despite the personal pressures and political game play that it often involved. But I am also a man of principle, and when it became apparent that the government was preparing to take a softer line on cannabis, I had found myself increasingly disillusioned. The good work of so many people was being allowed to slip away for no good reason, so I had decided to leave. It was in the wake of this decision that the call came. It was a civil servant from the Home Office, expressing her 'surprise' at my resignation. She asked me what it was that I wanted. It was a strange question, but one that was easily answered. I sought nothing. Again she asked: 'What do you want Keith? They'll give you anything.' What had she in mind? I do not know and I did not ask, but the message was clear: the government would do anything to hush me up. It wanted me silenced, out of the way, lest my departure should sour the grand plans for reclassifying cannabis that David Blunkett was set to announce. Within an hour a friend from inside the department rang to explain the chaos my resignation had provoked. 'Your letter has created mayhem,' I was told. 'They're frightened to death that you'll go to the media.' At the time I had no such intention. I resigned on principle, not as a publicity stunt, and have turned down large numbers of requests to speak in public. After my departure, though, I felt free to talk, and when the Radio 4 Today programme contacted me last week to invite me to comment on the impending drug announcement, I agreed. The rest, as they say, is history. During the course of the interview I announced that I had resigned. And so the government spin machine went into action. It briefed journalists that, despite being personally appointed by Tony Blair, I was not up to the job, that I had changed my mind on important issues, that I had lied, and much more. Has this government reached such a low ebb that it believes everyone is imbued with their own hidden motives? Has it forgotten that some people care about others and do things for other than selfish reasons? Is it so insecure that it is afraid to engage on the real issues and has to resort to character assassination? I fear the answer is yes on all accounts. Lest there should be any doubt about my views, I believe the government has made the wrong decision over the reclassification of cannabis and that many young people will suffer as a consequence. Cannabis is dangerous. It can cause anxiety, panic attacks and lack of concentration. It decreases learning ability and can cause permanent harm to memory. The number of people who seek treatment for their addiction to it is increasing year by year. A substantial percentage of people killed in road accidents have consumed the drug. It is more carcinogenic than tobacco and the more popular, genetically developed strains can be hallucinogenic. This aside, throughout my time spearheading the war on drugs I took the view that the cannabis debate was a distraction from the real issues. My priorities were those set out in the 10-year strategy, published in April 1998 under the title Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain. These outlined the need to help young people to resist drug misuse, to protect communities from antisocial and criminal behaviour and to enable those with drug problems to seek the treatment and counselling they needed. From my dealings with the prime minister and Jack Straw, the previous home secretary, I believed I had the support of the government. But it was clear that there were some politicians who saw softening the law as a popular move. In June 2001 the drug portfolio passed to David Blunkett, and within weeks rumours began to circulate about the new home secretary's desire to rethink the position on cannabis. I was deeply concerned. The government's drug policy was being undermined so I pressed the issue with civil servants who told me: 'The home secretary does not want anyone to say anything about this subject and we've been told to keep you out of the loop.' Naturally perplexed, I expressed my worries about the damage these tactics were causing in a letter to the home secretary, which I copied to the prime minister believing this was the only way to halt the process. The response was swift and, so I thought, conclusive. No 10 issued a statement which categorically denied that there would be any shift on cannabis. A number of newspapers recognised this as a slap in the face for the home secretary. Looking back I should have recognised that I had made a powerful enemy. But it was not until last autumn that I met Blunkett face to face for the first and only time. At this meeting he told me of his intention to seek the views of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) on reclassifying cannabis from class B to class C. I welcomed this initiative for further research, but at no point did I state that I approved of reclassification, for the simple reason that I believed such a move was wrong, and I still do. Yet this week, at a press briefing, the prime minister's official spokesman said that at my meeting with Blunkett, I fully endorsed his proposals for reclassification. It was later claimed that there were written minutes of this meeting to prove I supported him on the issue. I would be very interested to see such notes, for I know I did not express such a view. Furthermore, it puzzles me how I could have agreed with Blunkett on reclassification when he also claims that he had only made a final decision on the issue himself after receiving advice back from the experts, the ACMD among them, a full six months later. It simply doesn't add up. But then not much about reclassification does. Even the changes he has put forward this week lack clarity and common sense: he wants to put an illegal drug into a category with legal substances; he wants to remove a general power and replace it with a complicated matrix of half-hearted measures; he will retain a class B sentence for dealing in a class C drug. More importantly, he has created widespread confusion in the minds of law enforcement agencies and the general public. As witnessed this week, many people are asking: 'Why has he done this? What did he hope to achieve?' I wish I had the answers.
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