09/01/2008 00:00:00
UK: Cannabis Clampdown
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Cannabis is to be reclassified as a Class B drug after an official
review this spring, The Times has learnt.
Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith are determined to reverse the decision to
downgrade the drug when the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
completes its report in the next few months.
While its recommendations are not yet known, ministers are already
making plain that the Home Secretary is prepared to overrule the expert
body if necessary.
Reclassifying cannabis as a Class B drug will mean that anyone found in
possession of the substance could face a five-year jail term and an
unlimited fine rather than a police warning and confiscation of the
drug. The penalty for supplying would remain the same, at a maximum 14
years in jail and unlimited fines.
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The advisory council, which rejected a previous attempt to reclassify
cannabis in 2006, has been told to take into account public attitudes to
cannabis as well as the medical evidence of its harm in reaching its
conclusion.
Ms Smith wants the council to acknowledge the signal that the
reclassification of cannabis from Class B to Class C in 2004 sent to the
public, including the perception that the drug was harmless and even legal.
“The sentiment from No 10 and the Home Office is very much towards
reclassification. It has to be as much about the message that is being
sent out as much as anything else,” a senior Whitehall figure has told
The Times. The growth of super-strength “skunk”, herbal cannabis that is
grown under lights, often by organised criminal gangs, is strengthening
ministers’ resolve to restore its Class B status.
New evidence on the harm to mental health that smoking stronger forms of
cannabis can cause helped to prompt the latest review of the law last
autumn.
In her letter to Professor Sir Michael Rawlins, the chairman of the
council, requesting a further review of evidence, Ms Smith said: “Though
statistics show that cannabis use has fallen significantly, there is
really public concern about the potential mental health effects of
cannabis use, in particular the use of stronger forms of the drug,
commonly known as skunk. This is in addition to the longitudinal studies
undertaken in New Zealand and the Netherlands that link cannabis use to
mental health problems.”
Suggestions that only the most potent forms of cannabis be reclassified
are rejected as impractical. Instead offenders may be allowed to use
evidence showing they were caught with milder forms of the drug in
mitigation, Home Office insiders contend.
Shortly after becoming Prime Minister Mr Brown signalled his desire to
reverse David Blunkett’s 2001 decision to reduce cannabis to a Class C
drug that came into effect three years later.
“It is the message you send out. Why I want to upgrade cannabis and make
it more a drug that people worry about is that we don’t want to send out
a message, just like with alcohol, to teenagers that we accept these
things.”
The council makes recommendations to the Government on the control of
dangerous or otherwise harmful drugs, including classification and
scheduling under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Its last review in came
down against tightening up the penalties for using cannabis, saying
there was too little information about the pattern of use of different
strength cannabis products by users to change the law.
The council has recently been highly criticial of parts of the
Government’s consultation paper on the future of its drug strategy. “It
is disappointing that the paper makes no mention of needing to improve
the evidence base of drug misuse and treatments nor makes use of
international evidence, for informing and guiding policy,” the council said.
The unpublished results of authoritative research into cannabis confirm
the “skunk” now on sale in England is stronger than it was a decade ago,
but demolish claims that a new “super-strength skunk”, which is 20 times
more powerful, is dominating the market.
The two studies due to be published this year, which together analysed
nearly 550 samples of skunk seized by the police, both conclude that the
average content of the main psychoactive agent in skunk strains of
cannabis, THC, has doubled from 7 per cent in 1995 to 14 per cent in 2005.
Another dilemma for the Government in defending a decision to press
ahead with reclassification is that the latest figures from the British
Crime Survey suggest a long-term fall in cannabis use. Figures from the
2006-07 British Crime Survey estimate that 20.9 per cent of 16 to
24-year-olds used cannabis in the last year. However, there has been a
decrease between 1998 and 2006-07 among 16 to 59-year-olds in the use of
cannabis from 10.3 per cent to 8.2 per cent.
Strong smokes
Afghan cannabis Afghan has a strong acrid aroma. The smoke is heavy with
a strong, almost numbing, buzz
Dutch dragon The aroma is very citrus and sweet, like tangerines, as is
the taste. The buzz is a lasting, clear high that allegedly increases an
appetite for music and pleasure
Herbal cannabis This is produced by drying the leaves and flowering buds
of the cannabis plant. It is smoked, usually with tobacco, in a spliff
or joint, or in a range of pipes
Skunk A very potent variant of herbal cannabis, both in its
mind-altering effects and its aroma. Skunk contain more
tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive agent in cannabis
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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3156255.ece
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=13121
Author:
the Times via UKCIA
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