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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Clarke orders review of Blunkett move to downgrade cannabis
Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor The Independent
Saturday 19 Mar 2005 The status of cannabis as a class C drug is under review following alarm in the Government at reports that Britain is being "flooded" with forms of the drug that are far stronger than the social drug of the 1960s. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, was immediately accused of a drugs policy climbdown as he ordered the urgent report yesterday. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, said it was a "total humiliation" for the Government and amounted to an admission of failure in the controversial decision by Mr Clarke's predecessor, David Blunkett, to downgrade the classification of the drug from class B to C last year, so that police treated its possession as a less serious offence. The Home Secretary wrote to the chairman of the expert body that recommended the changes to the law in 2004 asking it to review evidence of new links with mental illness and the problems caused by "skunk", a more powerful form of the drug. Critics of the change in the law, including Kate Hoey, a former minister with an inner London seat, said it had led to more drugs on the streets and confusion about policing. Sir John Stevens, then the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, asserted there was "a massive amount of muddle" surrounding the changes. The first sign that Downing Street was ready to order a review of its cannabis policy came when Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary and Mr Blunkett's predecessor at the Home Office, said at a recent Labour Party event: "It was done for good reasons but we may need to rethink if we have to review it in the light of experience." Mr Clarke ordered the review in a letter to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, chairman of the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) who recommended the reclassification of cannabis to a class C drug in 2002, which led to the change in the law in 2004. In the letter to Sir Michael, the head of clinical pharmacology at Newcastle University, the Home Secretary said new evidence had been produced since the last report on the links between cannabis use and mental problems. Mr Clarke cited the report of Professor Jim van Os of Maastricht University. "Cannabis use moderately increases the risk of psychotic symptoms in young people but has a much stronger effect in those with evidence of predisposition for psychosis," it said. Mr Clarke also asked the ACMD to look into the growing strength of some forms of the drug called "skunk". "I am aware the Dutch government is taking a particular interest in high-strength strains and are considering whether cannabis above a certain strength should be a higher classification." The change in the law has led to fewer cannabis users being arrested for possessing the drug. It has been mistakenly believed that smoking the drug was no longer an offence. But official guidelines state that users should be arrested if: the drug is smoked in public or in the vicinity of a school; public order is threatened; the person is a repeat offender; or is under 17. Professor Robin Murray, head of psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, claimed that up to 80 per cent of all new psychotic cases were reporting a history of cannabis use. The Government's former "drugs tsar", Keith Hellawell, warned the reclassification of cannabis would "encourage ... greater drug taking, particularly by young people who don't know where they stand". He said the move would "do this generation and the future generation an enormous disservice". Demand for cannabis has exploded in the wake of the relaxation of drugs laws, police claim. "We are now recovering tons of the drug at one time and that is something we were never doing before. The decision to reclassify was wrong," a senior officer connected to the Met's organised crime unit said. Mr Blunkett said: "I welcome the review which will avoid this important issue being misused and will enable a rational and sensible debate to continue, informed by the best scientific evidence and advice." Mr Clarke was opposed to changes in the drug classification when he was police minister at the Home Office.
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