Pubdate: Wed, 24 Oct 2001
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Richard Ford, The Times Home Correspondent

SOFTENING OF ATTITUDE PROMPTED LAW U-TURN

DAVID BLUNKETT executed one of the Government's biggest U-turns when he 
announced a major relaxation of the law on cannabis yesterday.

Almost two years ago Labour, fearful of being portrayed by middle England 
as 'soft on drugs', rejected most of the findings of a review of drug laws 
carried out by Viscountess Runciman of Doxford. Her investigation into the 
1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, the legal template for defining the social 
disapproval and addictive nature of certain drugs, recommended moving 
cannabis from a category B to a category C drug.

However, with cannabis the most widely used drug in all age groups, the 
existing law was increasingly seen as having little credibility. The 2000 
British Crime Survey found that 44 per cent of 16 to 29-year-olds had used 
cannabis at some time in their life; 22 per cent had used the drug in the 
last year, and 14 per cent in the last month.

Chief constables, particularly those with large inner city areas, were also 
complaining that huge amounts of police time was devoted to dealing with 
cannabis offences. In 1999, 120,000 people were dealt with for drugs 
offences; 68 per cent of them were up for possession of cannabis. Police 
who arrest someone for possession of cannabis take between two and three 
hours to process them.

By recategorising cannabis as a class C drug, officers will no longer have 
to spend hours dealing with offenders. Someone found in possession of 
cannabis will either be cautioned, given a formal warning or issued with a 
summons to appear at court.

It is likely that police will only arrest people found with cannabis if 
they are discovered to have a large amount or are persistent offenders. 
Under an experiment in Lambeth, South London, drug users found with small 
amount of cannabis are no longer arrested but are let off with a formal 
warning, a process that only takes ten minutes of an officer's time.
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