Pubdate: Wed, 24 Oct 2001
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209

A COMMON-SENSE MOVE TO RELAX THE CANNABIS RULES

The home Secretary's announcement that he is asking for cannabis to be 
recategorised a class-C drug is a belated concession to reality, but still 
very welcome. For the first time in this country, the possession of 
cannabis will cease to be an arrestable offence. If the results of a pilot 
project in the London borough of Lambeth are now replicated across the 
country, this change should have the effect of reducing antagonism between 
otherwise law-abiding citizens, young people especially, and police on the 
streets. It should also permit the police to concentrate their always 
limited resources on more serious offences. These more serious offences 
include possession of such drugs as "crack" cocaine and heroin, the use of 
which has risen even as drug-taking among the young generally has started 
to fall.

Equally welcome is the progress announced yesterday towards legalising the 
medicinal use of cannabis. If the drug is found to ease the suffering of 
those afflicted by certain diseases in a way that other - legally 
prescribed - drugs do not, doctors should be able to prescribe it. Their 
patients are often poor and chronically, if not terminally, ill; they need 
no further obstacles placed in their way.

It will be several months before the bureaucratic wheels turn and give 
David Blunkett's change of mind legal force. But complaints of 
inconsistencies in policing from one district to the next will doubtless 
decline at once now that the "common sense" approach has the Home 
Secretary's official blessing.

The change of policy has its limits. Cannabis will remain a classified 
drug. Smuggling and dealing will remain serious criminal offences. No one 
in authority is suggesting that cannabis is actually good for you; the line 
between legal and illegal drugs is being held. The Government is merely 
recognising that cannabis should rank along with anabolic steroids and 
certain other drugs as undesirable, but not so socially pernicious that 
valuable police time should be spent on dealing with it. The contradiction 
between tolerating consumption and punishing suppliers is something that 
will have to be addressed in the future.

We are troubled, however, by one niggling question. Was it by chance that 
such an eye-catching development was made public towards the end of a day 
that also saw the Commons debate on "spin-meisterin' " Jo Moore? It is such 
seemingly politicised timing that makes journalists, and the voting public, 
so cynical.
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