30.10.03

MPs vote to downgrade cannabis

Matthew Tempest and agencies
Wednesday October 29, 2003

MPs today backed the downgrading of cannabis as ministers denied the move amounted to legalisation of the drug.

The reclassification of cannabis from class B to class C was backed by 316 votes to 160, a majority of 156, despite Conservative warnings that it would lead more young people into hard drugs.

The downgrading of cannabis is now scheduled to go ahead on January 29.

Junior home office minister Caroline Flint said the change was part of an "honest and credible" strategy to tackle the scourge of drugs, denying it was tantamount to legalising the drug or would increase cannabis use.

Under the switch, cannabis will be ranked alongside bodybuilding steroids and some anti-depressants.

Possession of cannabis will no longer be an arrestable offence in most cases, although police will retain the power to arrest users in certain aggravated situations - such as when the drug is smoked outside schools.

The home secretary, David Blunkett, has said the change in the law is necessary to enable police to spend more time tackling class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine which cause the most harm and trigger far more crime.

Ms Flint told MPs: "This Labour government is absolutely right to focus on the most dangerous drugs, to intervene most vigorously in the most damaged communities and to seek to break the link between addiction and the crime that feeds it.

"And to reduce harm that drugs cause by addressing the chaotic lifestyles of those users who are harming themselves and harming others."

Educating young people about the dangers of drugs, preventing drug misuse, combating the dealers and treating addicts were key elements of the strategy, she said.

Criticising the change, the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, said the government's drugs policy was now in a "dreadful muddle".

He called it a half-way measure aimed at short-term popularity rather than a coherent adoption of either the decriminalisation philosophy of the Netherlands or the more prohibitive stance of Sweden.

With most Tories absent from the Commons in order to attend the vote on Iain Duncan Smith's leadership, there were barely any MPs in the chamber, with those present complaining that only one and a half hours were allowed for debate.

Ms Flint told MPs it was important to have an "honest discussion" with children about drugs.

"They can see for themselves the different effects of drugs, and therefore if we are not having honest discussion they will not listen," she said.

"This is not about legalisation, it's about having to have a mature discussion about drugs, about the relative harms."

She went on: "The right strategy we must use is what works. We must be honest and credible and rely on science, not prejudice."

The treatment of all drugs as equally harmful and dangerous "lacked credibility" with young people.

"Individual police forces have developed disparate policies on the policing of cannabis possession based on their own view of the relative seriousness of the offence, leading to inconsistency and a lack of proper political accountability."

Ms Flint said that by upping penalties for dealing hard drugs to 14 years while at the same time reclassifying cannabis the government would be sending a "very strong message" to dealers.

Reclassification would provide police with an opportunity to put in place a "consistently and properly thought-out" approach to drugs and allow them to redeploy officers to tackle hard drugs.

But the powers of arrest in place for cannabis would not apply to other class Cs such as tranquillisers or anabolic steroids.

"The policing regime will ensure that action is properly taken by police against someone who is causing a problem or needs help whilst avoiding needlessly charging large numbers of young people," she said.

In a series of interventions from the back benches, MPs set out both sides of the argument for downgrading cannabis.

Labour's Martin Salter said the government would be doing young people a "grave disservice" by allowing them to think that all drugs were the same.

Fellow Labour MP David Cairns said heroin was "far more damaging, far more pernicious and far more destructive of communities" than cannabis.

And Tory John Bercow asked the minister to consider legalising cannabis as "it must be desirable to break the link between the soft drug user and the hard drug pusher".

But Tory Graham Brady claimed that cannabis was 10 or 15 times stronger than 20 years ago and that it was "perverse" to propose downgrading the drug.

Labour's John Robertson warned that the message going out to young people was that cannabis was no longer as dangerous as it was before.

Tory Ann Winterton insisted that "sophisticated measures do not wash" when trying to get the drug prevention message across.

And fellow Tory Angela Watkinson warned that downgrading cannabis would lead to an increase in use of the drug and act as a "gateway" to harder drug use.