MPs back plan to downgrade cannabis

[bongme]

hi

This is London

22 May Wed 2002

An influential panel of MPs has backed Home Secretary David Blunkett's controversial proposal to downgrade cannabis.

   

The Home Affairs Select Committee says the drug should be reclassified from class B to class C.

The committee's long-awaited report on Britain's drug laws says: "We accept that cannabis can be harmful and that its use should be discouraged.

"We accept that in some cases the taking of cannabis can be a gateway to the taking of more damaging drugs.

"However, whether or not cannabis is a gateway drug, we do not believe there is anything to be gained by exaggerating its harmfulness.

"On the contrary, exaggeration undermines the credibility of messages that we wish to send regarding more harmful drugs."

Reclassification puts cannabis in the same category as anti-depressants and steroids.

It would lead to the maximum jail sentence for supplying the drug being slashed from 14 to five years and for possession from five to two years.

Possessing cannabis would cease to be an arrestable offence, meaning police would no longer have the power to enter and search premises without a warrant.

The committee has also recommended the law be changed to allow the use of cannabis-based medicines if clinical trials were deemed successful.

Bongme