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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: One simple message: law is being relaxed but drug is still
Alan Travis, home affairs editor The Guardian
Friday 23 Jan 2004 Government ads aim to end confusion A big government advertising campaign to dispel the confusion surrounding the change in cannabis laws and targeted to reach more than 80% of Britain's teenagers was launched by the Home Office yesterday. Radio advertisements will be carried on 48 national and regional stations in England promoting the "one simple message" that although the cannabis laws are being relaxed next week it is still a harmful drug that remains illegal. Separate campaigns will run in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The campaigns will backed up by the distribution of more than 2.5 million leaflets explaining the impact of moving cannabis from class B to class C in the schedule of illegal drugs. The initiative will be accompanied by a police campaign to promote a similar message to adults and an internal police campaign to ensure that all officers are aware of the changes in the law. Police advertisements setting out the change in the law as it affects adults are to appear in the Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Guardian and News of the World. The Home Office drugs minister, Caroline Flint, said that the radio ads and the leaflets had been months in the making. "They have been fully researched and tested with young people to make sure the message is both effective and credible to our target audience," she said. "It is particularly important that we get the message across to young people that cannabis remains illegal and that under 18s will still be arrested for possession. "Using the radio ads alone we expect to reach 81% of 15- to 17-year-olds and 41% of adults." The home secretary, David Blunkett, defended the decision to reclassify cannabis, saying there was little point in pretending to young people that it was as dangerous as crack cocaine and heroin. The change, which comes into effect next Thursday, was first recommended by the government's advisory committee on drug abuse more than 20 years ago. Mr Blunkett dismissed criticism earlier this week from the British Medical Association which said that chronic cannabis smoking can increase the likelihood of heart disease, lung cancer, bronchitis and emphysema. The home secretary claimed this was a reversal of the BMA welcome that greeted his announcement two years ago that the law would be relaxed. He insisted that the government was not sending out a confused message. He said: "I want a transparent, non-variable, understandable policy across the country, where we as politicians take hands-on responsibility for the decisions about classification, and therefore the response, whether the police go for class A dangerous drug pushers and users that kill or whether we go for small possession of cannabis." Currently, individual forces adopt their own policies towards cannabis possession. "It is also important that we respond to the cry from some families of drug users who said to me that if you confuse our children by saying pretty much that cannabis is the same as crack or heroin, when they take cannabis and find out it isn't, they don't believe the message when they go on to heroin and crack," Mr Blunkett said. Further mixed signals from Downing Street on drugs policy include the latest "blue skies" thinking from Lord Birt, who has reportedly suggested prison sentences of up to seven years for heroin use. Such a move would meet resistance, not least because the further criminalisation of addicts contradicts current thinking on treatment rather than prison. Meanwhile the British Lung Foundation said it welcomed the government's advertising campaign on reclassification, but reminded people of the health risks involved. Its chief executive, Dame Helena Shovelton, said: "Research carried out by the charity found that smoking cannabis alone can cause severe lung damage. "We understand that some people with long-term chronic conditions may smoke cannabis for medicinal purposes, but it is vital that people are fully aware of the dangers." Learning a lesson - From next Thursday cannabis will be reclassified as a class C drug, which covers the least harmful of the illegal drugs, including GHB, anabolic steroids and tranquillisers such as Valium. - It will remain illegal to have, give away or deal in cannabis. Possession with intent to supply is also illegal, as is growing cannabis plants. Dealing and possessing with intent to supply will still carry a 14-year maximum sentence plus an unlimited fine. - The penalties for possession are changing. The maximum prison sentence is being reduced from five years to two. New police guidelines will mean that what happens to most of the 90,000 people a year who are currently arrested for cannabis possession will change. - If you are over 18 and the police find you with cannabis it is likely that it will be confiscated and you will be warned. But if you are smoking a joint in a public place, or near where there are children, such as a school, or where public order is at risk, you will be arrested and possibly fined. Those repeatedly arrested for cannabis offences will be prosecuted. - If you are under 18 and it is your first offence of cannabis possession you will normally be arrested, taken to a police station and given a warning or reprimand. But if you have been caught before, you will either be given a final warning or be charged. When you get a warning you are referred to the local youth offending team. - It remains illegal to pass drugs among friends or allow people to smoke cannabis in your home; and if you are caught smoking cannabis in a club the police will have the power to prosecute the landlord or the club owner. --=======15E43D0=======--
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