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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Call For Sweeping Reform Of Drugs Law
ccguide Wednesday 29 Mar 2000 Pubdate: Wed, 2 Mar 2000 Source: Times, The (UK) Copyright: 2000 Times Newspapers Ltd Contact: Address: PO Box 496, London E1 9XN, United Kingdom Fax: +44-(0)171-782 5046 Website: http://www.the-times.co.uk/ Author: Richard Ford, Home Correspondent CALL FOR SWEEPING REFORM OF DRUGS LAW Jail terms for hard drugs users should be cut and abolished altogether for users of Ecstasy, LSD and cannabis, according to a review of drug laws published yesterday. The study makes the recommendations after concluding that there is "no evidence" that the present penalties deter traffickers or prevent the supply of drugs. The most controversial recommendation of the two-year inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is for reduced jail terms for possession of cocaine and heroin. It also calls for changes in the classification of Ecstasy, LSD and cannabis. Viscountess Runciman of Doxford, chairman of the inquiry by the Police Foundation, said: "We have concluded that the most dangerous message of all is that all drugs are equally dangerous. "When young people know that the advice they are being given is either exaggerated or untrue, there is a real risk they will discount everything they are told about the most hazardous drugs, including heroin and cocaine. "Imprisonment is not a proportionate response to the vast majority of possession offences. A prison sentence should be abolished as a penalty for most possession offences." The report recommends that prison terms be cut for people caught using Class A drugs, including heroin and cocaine, from seven years to one. Even then, it should be considered only after treatment and community punishment have failed. Ecstasy and LSD should be downgraded from Class A to Class B and penalties for possession cut from five years to a UKP1,000 fine. Cannabis should also be downgraded from Class B to Class C and prosecutions carried out only for persistent offending with a maximum fine of UKP500. The report recommended that people found growing cannabis for personal use should also receive a fixed penalty fine. In most cases cannabis possession would be treated with a police caution, warning or fixed penalty fine. It should no longer be an arrestable offence, although a senior police officer on the inquiry team gave a warning of the consequences. Dennis O'Connor, Chief Constable of Surrey, said that without the power to arrest, officers would not be able to question suspects about their supplies. He did not attend the report's launch. John Hamilton, Chief Constable of Fife, also on the inquiry, shared those fears. While lowering punishments for individual possession of drugs, however, it called for greater attention to drug suppliers and traffickers.It recommended a new offence of drug dealing, in which the courts would take into account a pattern of illicit dealing. Under the change, the person would be able to use the defence that they were supplying a small social group, such as friends or family, in answer to a charge of supplying Class B or Class C drugs. The inquiry calls for the creation of a National Confiscation Agency to seize the assets of drug dealers. It said that the present arrangements - under which courts order seizures - were ineffective. In 1997 the amount ordered to be confiscated was UKP5.6 million, one fifth of the amount confiscated in 1994. The average confiscation order was for UKP3,400, the lowest yet. The report outlines the scale of the drug problem in Britain, showing that between 1973 and 1996 the number of new and renotified addicts increased more than 1,000 per cent, from 3,022 to 43,372. It said that local studies estimated that the total number of addicts in Britain in the late 1990s was between 100,000 and 200,000. The great majority of people dealt with under the Act were accused of possessing illegal drugs and cannabis dominated those offences. The latest Home Office British Crime Survey estimates that 2.5 million people aged 16 to 29 took cannabis in 1997. In an attempt to deal with the problem of drug use by young people, the report says that nightclubs should provide first aid treatment and educational material about the dangers. A Mori poll for the report involving 1,645 people aged 16 to 59 found that 90 per cent judged heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy to be very or fairly harmful. Only one third thought cannabis to be as harmful as heroin and or cocaine. Half of all adults felt that the law should be changed so that cannabis use was no longer illegal. Only 0.5 per cent of people thought targeting cannabis users should be a police priority. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea
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