Pubdate: Mon, 22 Nov 2004
Source: Evening Standard (London, UK)
Copyright: 2004 Associated Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/914
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?207 (Cannabis - United Kingdom)

UP IN SMOKE

WAS THE GOVERNMENT RIGHT TO RELAX THE LAWS ON CANNABIS POSSESSION?

New figures on cannabis seizures will come as no surprise to the many 
people who advised the Government against loosening the law on possession 
of the drug. Since the Government re-classified cannabis in January of this 
year, the number of people caught with cannabis by the Metropolitan Police 
has risen by a third - suggesting a substantial increase in those using it.

When the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, first announced his intention to 
loosen the law, community leaders in areas like Brixton spoke out against 
reclassification - they knew the effects the change would have. Senior 
police officers warned that it would send a confusing and mixed message, 
especially to young people.

As an internal Met consultation noted, it also sent a confused message to 
the officers who have to police the law every day: not surprisingly, it has 
led to confrontations with youths who insisted that they were not breaking 
the law by using the drug.

The effect has been to make it harder the enforce the law: possession of 
cannabis is not normally an arrestable offence, yet it is no legal.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that cannabis reclassification was 
largely political in its intention - a sop to the Labour left at a time 
when Mr Blunkett, a man to whom personally drugs are anathema, was 
offending them with security crackdowns and tightening up on asylum seekers.

Worse, it is very hard to see how the change has either helped police in 
London or improved the neighbourhoods where it is now legal for people to 
wander around puffing clouds of cannabis smoke.
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