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UK: Blunkett Accused of Encouraging Drug Use

John Deane, Chief Political Correspondent

PA Newswire

Saturday 24 Jan 2004

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The Government's former drugs 'tsar' today accused ministers of
'encouraging' drug use among young people by reclassifying cannabis.

Keith Hellawell said he believed Home Secretary David Blunkett would come
to regret his initiative to reduce cannabis from a class B to a class C drug.

Mr Hellawell, who headed the Government's fight against drugs between 1998
and 2002, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think quite frankly it is
a nonsense, and the way that they have done it is a nonsense, and it is
causing so much confusion in people's minds that it will do this generation
and the future generation an enormous disservice.

'Some of the dangers of cannabis are far in excess of some of the synthetic
drugs.

'The real issue is that the Government has given a message that cannabis is
less dangerous than it was perceived to be, and they have given that
message at a time when every medical institution is saying 'we are worried
about the dangers, we don't know sufficient about it, and we believe the
dangers are even greater than we perceive them to be at the moment'.

Mr Hellawell said that when he sat on the principal advisory committee on
drugs, there was no momentum for reclassification.

'Certainly when I was on the committee there was no advice for this, and
there was no advice this time until the Home Secretary particularly asked
them to look at the subject.'

Mr Hellawell said reclassification, and its effect on police powers in the
field, had produced 'a muddle'.

He continued: 'Cannabis arrests have been steadily coming down within the
confines of the existing law. Why change it, why cause a problem, why cause
confusion, and why - I am sad to say - encourage in some respect greater
drug taking, particularly by young people, who don't know where they stand.'

Mr Hellawell said he believed that Mr Blunkett was 'driving the agenda'on
reclassification.

'I do not know why, only he will know, and I suspect he will live to regret
it ... It's a mystery.'

 

 

 

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