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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Editorial: Straw's Unsure Touch
ccguide Monday 03 Apr 2000 Pubdate: Mon, 3 Apr 2000 Source: Daily Telegraph (UK) Copyright: 2000 Telegraph Group Limited Contact: Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ STRAW'S UNSURE TOUCH JACK STRAW, the Home Secretary, has misjudged the public's mood on whether there should be a debate on the legalisation of cannabis. Last week, in response to the publication of Lady Runciman's report, Drugs and the Law, Keith Hellawell, the Home Office drugs "tsar", made it clear that Mr Straw would be ignoring all but the most insignificant of the Runciman committee's proposals. This rebuttal was poorly judged. It is clear that the report asked sufficiently important questions to warrant a public debate and not a knee-jerk dismissal from the Government. It was presumably after realising this that Mr Straw decided to write an article in yesterday's News of the World to alter the initial impression he gave that he did not want to discuss drugs further. Rapidly backtracking from his position last week, Mr Straw tried to reverse the impression that he opposes further debate, declaring that he was "always up for a debate on what we do to tackle drugs" and that he welcomed the Runciman report. He went on to state the case against legalisation, on the grounds of both law and order and public health. The Home Secretary had, it seems, reckoned without the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. While not advocating legalisation of cannabis, Sir John Stevens none the less said that London's police have more serious crimes to tackle. "With robberies and murders up," he said, "cannabis cannot be a priority." Undermanned and demoralised after the allegations of institutional racism made in the Macpherson report, the Metropolitan Police certainly does have greater concerns. Yet it should not be forgotten that Macpherson received strong support from Mr Straw. This episode joins a growing number of cases in which Mr Straw has not only mistaken the public mood in his pursuit of an authoritarian image, but also displayed an unwillingness to use the considerable powers he has as Home Secretary. From passports to Pinochet, his touch has been unsure. It took a hijack at a British airport to bring public disquiet over the asylum laws to his attention. He played up the Macpherson report. He makes light of the threat to the English legal system posed by the incorporation of the European Convention on human rights, but also resists more open government. In short, he has succeeded in irritating or alienating most sections of society. Not surprisingly, Mr Straw has been wary of navigating the treacherous political currents surrounding the question of legalising cannabis. But the surge in drug-related crimes, the fact that cannabis has now crossed the generation gap, and the evidence of its use as a valuable palliative in terminal illness, all make a debate necessary. He received sympathy for his handling of his own teenage son's brush with the law over cannabis, but shows little understanding of other parents in a similar predicament. He says he wants a debate on drugs, but shows no interest in the arguments and no sensitivity to the public mood. Drugs is a subject on which the public, particularly parents, want to be taken into the confidence of the authorities, in the unprejudiced search for a solution. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck
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