Pubdate: Sun, 20 Mar 2005
Source: Independent on Sunday (UK)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/208
Authors: Cole Moreton, Katy Guest, Sophie Goodchild and Andy McSmith
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

AS IF DOPE SMOKERS WEREN'T CONFUSED ENOUGH ALREADY

Charles Clarke's intention to review David Blunkett's decision of a year 
ago to downgrade cannabis to a class C drug has left Britain's five million 
users, not to mention police, medical experts and politicians, more unclear 
than ever. Is the government U-turn due to genuine health concerns over the 
drug's link to mental illness, or has it got more to do with the coming 
election?

Walking through clouds of blue cannabis smoke, the policeman did not know 
what to do. "You just don't have time to stop everybody, not in a place 
like this," he said at Camden Lock in north London yesterday. "It's all 
over the place."

Smoking your own dope is unlikely to get you arrested since the then Home 
Secretary, David Blunkett, downgraded cannabis to a class C drug just over 
a year ago. But now his successor, Charles Clarke, looks like reversing 
that decision. Smokers are totally confused.

"Everybody thinks dope is legal," said the officer, who did not want to 
give his name. "It isn't. it's illegal. Now they're changing the 
classification back again. I don't think they know what they're doing."

The beat bobbies patrolling among the market stalls at Camden were ready to 
arrest anyone who looked under 18 for smoking a spliff in the street. "They 
want to stop the kids doing it. Adults, we'll take it off them and give 
them a warning. But you always have to explain that it is illegal."

The smell of burning cannabis wafted all the way down Camden High Street. 
Rubbery and aromatic, it mingled with the smell of joss sticks and 
three-for-two falafels. Along the main drag there were sweetie-coloured 
waterpipes and cannabis lollies for sale, Rizlas in every size and colour 
and "fresh magic mushrooms" sweating in the afternoon sun.

"We're hoping this reclassification won't get through before the election," 
said one stallholder, morosely. Another had good reason for wanting the 
drug to be legalised. "If you gave people a choice you would stop the black 
market," he reasoned, "and you would stop the really sleazy element that 
you find selling cannabis as a cover for much worse."

Why is it changing now, everyone wanted to know. The cynical answer is that 
there is an election coming up and Labour is trying to head off a Tory 
charge that it is soft on drugs. Officially, the Home Office says the 
change of mind is in response to recent medical studies that suggest heavy 
use of cannabis may lead to increased risk of psychotic symptoms. A senior 
source inside the Home Office said the decision to ask for a review of last 
year's downgrading had also been motivated by concerns over the damaging 
effects of super-strong variants of skunk cannabis.

There are more than five million cannabis users in this country and drugs 
experts say only a fraction have been affected by mental health problems as 
a result of their habit. They are still in danger of arrest, however - 
whatever the smokers of Camden think. Days before David Blunkett announced 
the reclassification in January 2004 he received a visit from the 
Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and his colleague in charge of the 
Met's anti-drugs unit. They persuaded Mr Blunkett to add a clause allowing 
officers the right to arrest anyone found in possession.

Unfortunately, a widely publicised experiment in Lambeth had already led 
smokers to believe they were safe. Officers there had been encouraged to 
warn people caught with cannabis for personal use, instead of arresting 
them. The controversial exercise was led by Brian Paddick, now a deputy 
assistant commissioner with the Met, who told The Independent on Sunday 
yesterday that his non-arrest policy had been "the right decision at the time".

He backed the change of mind, however: "If there is more recent research 
then clearly it would be appropriate to review the decision in light of that."

Mike Trace, the Government's former deputy drugs tsar, was surprised about 
the timing of the review but said Mr Clarke was right to ask the Advisory 
Council on the Misuse of Drugs to do the work rather than leave it to 
ministers. "I'm surprised that having made a brave decision about 
reclassification they are messing about with this again," he said. "We have 
known about skunk for years. The studies have only shown results in a 
small-scale way."

Dame Ruth Runciman, who chaired an influential committee that called for 
reclassification, said: "I'm not aware that any significant evidence has 
come forward to justify relooking at cannabis after such a short space of 
time. People forget that it still attracts one of the highest penalties 
compared with the rest of Europe: two years in prison for possession and 14 
years for trafficking. A law which is credible to young people is more 
valuable to education than a law which is palpably at odds with their 
experience. More punitive punishment is not going to solve mental health 
problems."

Calls for the decriminalisation of cannabis date back to the 1960s, when 
John Lennon and Paul McCartney attended a rally in Hyde Park and were 
howled at by the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Protesters were arrested for 
throwing flowers. Supporters of decriminalisation published a full-page 
advertisement in The Times in 1968 signed by many establishment figures 
including the future (disgraced) Tory minister Jonathan Aitken. The same 
newspaper carried a leader when Mick Jagger was arrested for possession, 
comparing the prosecution to the breaking of a butterfly upon a wheel.

The first mainstream political party to tackle the issue was the Liberal 
Democrats, whose annual conference voted for a change in the cannabis laws, 
to the horror of then leader Paddy Ashdown. He refused to answer a question 
about whether he had ever taken dope. When Clare Short suggested in a TV 
interview in 1995 that Labour should rethink the cannabis laws, she was 
made to go to the party leader's office to apologise to him in person. That 
was before Mo Mowlam became the first prominent Labour politician to admit 
trying the drug.

The mood was changing. In 1997, when The Independent on Sunday launched its 
own campaign for the decriminalisation of cannabis, an IoS poll revealed 80 
per cent of the population was in favour. The campaign was endorsed by many 
prominent people including the financier George Soros, who called it "an 
important and courageous initiative". Other supporters included then EU 
Commissioner Emma Bonino, Germaine Greer and Anita Roddick, campaigner and 
founder of Body Shop. Even the Townswomen's Guild came out in favour by a 
huge majority in a vote of its 80,000 members. A British Medical 
Association report favoured decriminalising a drug it considered to be safe.

More than 16,000 people attended a rally in Hyde Park, many of them people 
in wheelchairs who said the drug helped ease their pain. There were no arrests.

In the late 1990s, a Lords committee on science and technology concluded 
that cannabis could contribute to psychotic illness but without being the 
single cause of this.

Jack Straw, as Home Secretary, took a hard line on cannabis, both before 
and after his son, Will, was exposed by the Daily Mirror for offering to 
supply one of its undercover journalists with a spliff. Ann Widdecombe, 
then Shadow Home Secretary, decided to outdo Mr Straw with a speech to the 
2000 annual Tory party conference, in which she said that teenagers caught 
with cannabis joints, even if they were only for personal use, would be 
given criminal records. This policy was vehemently opposed by Tory 
modernisers. Ms Widdecombe was humiliated when eight members of the Shadow 
Cabinet admitted to The Mail on Sunday that they had experimented with 
cannabis when they were young.

Charles Clarke was a Home Office minister when David Blunkett proposed 
changing cannabis from class B to class C, and he opposed the idea. Now he 
is Home Secretary, and the trend towards liberalisation is being reversed 
with a passion - thanks to a mixture of medical research, experience on the 
ground and hard political expediency.

Frank Dobson MP, whose constituency includes Camden Lock, said yesterday: 
"When I was Health Secretary I was advised that cannabis was more 
carcinogenic than tobacco to smoke, that it was more toxic than alcohol, 
and that it could trigger mental illness. When the Government reclassified 
the drug, it unfortunately gave the impression that smoking cannabis was 
sort of all right. I have spoken to head teachers who have told it made the 
problems worse."

Down beside the canal yesterday, the smokers were well aware of the 
borough's reputation. "We're from South Africa," said Nando. "But we came 
to Camden specially to buy it. I could show you - approach anyone in the 
high street and if they don't have any they'll tell you who does."

Nando had been smoking since he was 12 - more than half his life. But he 
was worried. "My grandfather has been smoking since he was 25," he said. 
"His mental capacity is not what it should be. His capacity for reasoning, 
his memory span. Now they're messing with the genetics of cannabis, making 
extra strong skunk. I will have to stop, eventually."

Under a bridge a little further on, more people were confused about the 
legal status of the drug they were smoking. Ali, a teenager, said: "They 
didn't legalise it; they changed the class to make it like mushrooms or 
poppers or something. I don't know, but I know everybody does it."

One smoker, at least, knew that what she was doing was illegal. But it 
would not stop her. "I can't imagine anyone being remotely affected by what 
class of drug it is," sniffed Lizzie. "It's like being scared to go over 
the 30mph speed limit when every other car on the road is doing 40," she 
added, casually sparking up another joint rolled in liquorice paper. "They 
can't prosecute everybody, can they?"

WHAT THEY SAY

'I think it's safe for medicinal uses'

Michael Holroyd (biographer): "I do not know if there is new scientific 
evidence that would warrant looking at it again. If there is new evidence 
then it should be. I've always thought that, for medicinal purposes, there 
is no doubt. For recreational uses, perhaps not a strong skunk, but with 
ordinary cannabis, I would like to think it is not harmful."

'Good arguments on both sides'

Max Clifford (publicist): "In the current climate, with an election soon, I 
can understand the decision. The problem is that, if you talk to experts, 
you get good arguments on both sides. In my experience of arthritis, there 
are quite a lot of people I know of whose life has been radically improved."

'Half-way house policy is difficult'

Fay Weldon (writer): "I think this kind of half-way house is very 
difficult. I'd like to take a totally liberal line and you hope that 
rationality will prevail. But when I hear that the Government wants to 
reclassify skunk, I think 'thank God, because it drives young people mad.' 
But it's gone so far now that it's going to be rather like stopping hunting."
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