THE Liberal Democrats yesterday become the first mainstream political party to call for the legalisation of cannabis. In a landmark vote at the party's spring conference, delegates voted in favour of licensing shops to sell cannabis in plain packaging and with health warnings to adults in Britain. Householders would also be allowed to cultivate marijuana and harvest the drug for personal consumption. said the MP had offered advice at last Thursday's meeting but was not planning a formal, paid relationship with the Seattle-based Privateer Holdings. [continues 165 words]
A new drug called MDAI is being advertised across the internet as a replacement for "miaow miaow". Miaow miaow, or mephedrone, became illegal in Britain this weekend after the Home Office pushed through legislation classifying it as a class B drug. But analysts at the Psychonaut Research Project, an EU funded-organisation based at King's College London which monitors the internet for new trends in drug abuse, said MDAI could replace the drug as a popular 'legal high'. Paolo Deluca, a co-principal investigator, told the Observer: "Websites are already starting to promote MDAI and this could become the next popular product." [continues 117 words]
The Government's leading drugs expert is listed as an adviser to a charitable foundation, headed by an aristocrat, which promotes medicinal use of LSD. Professor Les Iversen, the head of the official Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), is named on the website of the Beckley Foundation, run by drug liberalisation campaigner Lady Neidpath, who has admitted taking mind-altering substances and accepts hers sons my smoke cannabis. The ACMD is at the centre of a row over the regulation of 'legal high' drug mephedrone - known as Meow Meow - which the Government recently announced it would ban. [continues 439 words]
One in 20 15 year-olds in Britain has tried cocaine, according to a new report. The figure means Britain is at the top of the European league when it comes to illegal drug use amongst teenagers, says the study. Five per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds in Britain have dabbled in cocaine - that's around 75,000 teenagers. The only other European country to have such a huge cocaine problem is Spain, where more young people and adults were found to have taken the drug than anywhere else in the world, including America. [continues 192 words]
Police officers are being issued with a list of almost 3,000 slang words and phrases associated with illegal drugs, in order to stay one step ahead of criminals. Here are letters A to B The document has been drawn up by the Police National Legal Database (PNLD) for use by all forces in England and Wales. A copy of the list has been obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation. This is the list of 2,875 words and phrases relating to the drugs trade that is issued to officers. [continues 1458 words]
GOVERNMENT HELPLINE TELLS CHILDREN 'CANNABIS IS SAFER THAN ALCOHOL' Children calling the Government's drugs helpline are being told that cannabis is safer than alcohol and that ecstasy will not damage their health, an investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has found. Advisers manning the "Frank" helpline are informing callers they believed to be children as young as 13 that alcohol is a "much more powerful drug than cannabis" and that using the illegal drug recreationally is not harmful because it "doesn't get you that high". [continues 4688 words]
A recommendation to downgrade Ecstasy is expected to be put to the Home Secretary by her own drug advisers later this month. Home Office sources believe The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) will call for the drug to be moved to Class B, even though it was blamed for at least 30 deaths last year. However Jacqui Smith will almost certainly dismiss the official recommendation and keep the drug as Class A alongside the most dangerous substances such as heroin and cocaine. [continues 306 words]
By the time the shooting ended, the A73 south of Nijmegan was littered with bullet casings, and one man lay dead in his car with another sprawled wounded in the passenger seat. The survivor refused to talk to police, even though a hired assassin had pursued his vehicle shooting at it without hitting for several miles before finally catching up and riddling it with automatic fire. Commuters were horrified, but the murder in September was wearily familiar to detectives who have dealt with 25 gangland-style killings in suburban southern Holland over the past three years. [continues 1085 words]
Conservatives lambast 'lax approach' by ministers after big drop in prosecutions since drug was downgraded, writes Ben Leapman The number of cannabis dealers brought to justice has slumped since the Government relaxed the law on possession of the drug. Justice Ministry figures show a 29 per cent decline in the number of suspects brought to court on dealing charges and a 60 per cent fall in the number jailed. The Conservatives said that the figures, which were released in response to parliamentary questions, clearly demonstrated that ministers were taking a "lax approach" to the issue. [continues 400 words]
Relaxation of the law on cannabis has fuelled organised crime in the UK, police chiefs will tell an inquiry panel this week. The Association of Chief Police Officers will urge the Government to reverse its decision, taken three years ago, to downgrade the drug from class B to class C status. Senior officers will present evidence to a hearing of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, the independent body asked by Gordon Brown to review the reclassification. Critics claim that downgrading the drug sent out a "soft" message about its use. [continues 244 words]
Enforcing the law on Class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine has become a low priority for police as they concentrate on trying to achieve government targets. Known addicts are seldom searched when officers spot them in the street, even though it is a serious offence and many addicts are involved in petty crime to fund their habits, according to a study funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. It found target-setting and a move towards visible street patrols had lessened the focus on problem drug use. [continues 56 words]
Britain's multimillion-pound attempt to battle the drug trade in southern Afghanistan has been a failure, the country's first vice-president has claimed. Afghanistan's opium harvest has more than doubled in the past two years Afghanistan's opium harvest has more than doubled Ahmad Zia Massoud has taken the unprecedented step of speaking publicly about his country's drugs problem in an exclusive article for The Sunday Telegraph, warning that despite Britain's efforts, the poppies have spread "like a cancer". [continues 236 words]
I have no doubt that the efforts of Britain and the international community in fighting the opium trade in Afghanistan are well-intentioned and we are grateful for their support. But it is now clear that your policy in the south of our country has completely failed. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been spent over the last five years, the UK contributing UKP262 million, the US about $1.6 billion (UKP800m) . Yet UN figures show that opium production increased by 34 per cent last year and more than doubled in the last two years. In Helmand, where the British are based, poppies have spread like a cancer. The province now produces half of Afghanistan's opium. [continues 515 words]
The flagship government scheme for treating drug addicts faces swingeing budget cuts of UKP50 million, it can be revealed today. Drug treatment programme: Gordon Brown cuts UKP50m from drugs work Spending on drug treatment programmes faces cuts Plans to slash total funding by more than 12 per cent, outlined in an email leaked to The Sunday Telegraph, come less than a fortnight after Gordon Brown tried to show off his anti-drug credentials by signalling his desire to reclassify cannabis from Class C to the more serious Class B. [continues 560 words]
Barack Obama's frank admissions of youthful drug abuse, helped establish him as a refreshingly different front-runner for the US presidency. The confession that he smoked marijuana and snorted cocaine presented the American public with a candidate prepared to tackle, head-on, questions usually ducked by senior politicians. But now his candour has been questioned by some of those who knew him best. Sen Obama's self-portrait of an angry young black man who became a "pothead" is scarcely recognisable to those who knew him during his formative years in Hawaii. [continues 1149 words]
David Cameron was disciplined as a pupil at Eton College when he became embroiled in a drugs scandal. David Cameron has always refused to confirm or deny suggestions that he took drugs when young The disclosure is a potential embarrassment for Mr Cameron, 40, who has had a scandal-free personal life since he was elected Tory leader 14 months ago. The incident happened in June 1982. It is understood that the school carried out an internal inquiry into drug-taking after police said Etonians had been going to nearby Slough to buy cannabis. The then 15-year-old Cameron was suspected of smoking the drug and, when questioned by a senior teacher, the future Tory leader is understood to have admitted it. [continues 128 words]
The recent murders of five women in Ipswich, Suffolk, have ignited a blaze of publicity that has briefly illuminated the grim reality of a career in street prostitution. An even more depressing reality, however, is that prostitutes are routinely murdered in Britain and hardly anyone pays much attention. It is estimated that 90 such women have been killed in the last 12 years: only a small minority of the cases have been solved. The public tends to accept the one-off murder of a "vice girl" much more easily than that of a suburban housewife or a schoolgirl. Somewhere in the murky depths of the communal subconscious, prostitution and death already go about arm in arm: the killing of a prostitute is merely confirmation of their togetherness. [continues 901 words]
The killings in Ipswich have shone a dismal light on the extent of prostitution in Britain today. The figures are horrifying: more than 100,000 girls working in brothels, massage parlours and on the streets, while the number of men using their services, particularly in younger age groups, has doubled. As David Harrison reports, the stark truth behind the sex trade is abuse, violence, exploitation and addiction The Evening Star in Ipswich summed it up succinctly: "Things like this are not supposed to happen in our part of the world." Serial killers are meant to strike in big, edgy cities, not in an unassuming agricultural town whose last claim to national fame was the fleeting success of the local football team 25 years ago. [continues 1844 words]
Health campaigners have accused the Government of creating "dangerous confusion" over the mental health risks of smoking cannabis after it scrapped a multi-million pound publicity campaign. The Home Office announced in January that the publicity drive would launch in the spring but, six months later, it has been quietly pushed to one side. The scheme was recommended by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, a Home Office committee made up of scientists, medical experts, drugs charity workers and police. It said that a major campaign was required to let people know about the mental health risks and to combat confusion about the drug brought about by the change in its classification, from class B to class C. [continues 250 words]
A pensioner who is facing jail because she refuses to pay her council tax until her local authority cleans up her street said she felt "completely vindicated" yesterday after 1,100 used needles were found there in one weekend. Josephine Rooney, 69, said that despite years of drug addicts hanging around Hartington Street in Derby even she was shocked at the quantity. She said: "It just goes to show I'm not talking rubbish. For six years I have campaigned for the council to clean this area up and I think the number of needles found speaks for itself. [continues 376 words]
