SOFT OPTION ON DRUGS

The deaths of two young men after an all-night London "rave" last
week led police to make what was an extraordinary comment. They said
the dead ravers had "normal" levels of ecstasy - a class A drug - in
their bodies and had probably been killed by heat stroke and not a
contaminated batch of drugs. The superintendent in charge said
youngsters who go to raves should take lots of water, relax in
cool-down areas and take advice on "safer drug use". There had been
no change in the law, he stressed. Narcotics were "still illegal".

Really? That is what Tony Blair would like us to believe, and the
statute book supports him. But the truth is that the law is no longer
enforced in many parts of Britain. Police chiefs in London and
elsewhere have decided that prosecuting people caught with small
quantities of drugs, especially class B "soft" drugs, is no longer
worth the trouble. They say it takes an inordinate amount of time and
weakens their drive against serious crimes, which are the real cause
of public disquiet.

So the police have decided their time is better spent combating the
spread of class A hard drugs and the use of knives, guns, street
robbery and burglary, much of which is drug-related. What's the
point, they ask, of spending thousands of pounds of police time
taking young people found with cannabis to court when all the
magistrates do is fine the offenders an average of =A345? They are now
going to run an experiment in south London's multiracial Brixton
area, where young people will be ticked off instead of prosecuted. If
it works, other parts of Britain can be expected to follow suit.

Did anybody tell the prime minister? No 10's response to the police
decision in Brixton is to say there are no plans to decriminalise or
declassify cannabis. Indeed, Mr Blair laid great stress last week on
the government's decision to tighten the bail restrictions on people
who take drugs or deal in them. By that, he meant suspects arrested
for serious offences who are found to be drug users, even if the drug
is cannabis. That leaves us with the position, which those who
believe in "zero tolerance" must find absurd, of police going easy on
cannabis users who do not commit other offences while taking a much
tougher line on those who do.

But zero tolerance of all drugs has had its day, as Ann Widdecombe
learnt to her cost when she proposed it at the last Conservative
conference. The middle class does not want its children criminalised
for possession and is confused about the seriousness of the offence.
It was easier when experts insisted that cannabis abuse frequently
led to cocaine and heroin addiction. That is no longer the case.
Keith Hellawell, the government's globe-trotting drug czar, has done
a somersault and now doubts whether cannabis is the gateway to harder
drugs.

No wonder the war against drugs is being lost; some say it already
has been. We cannot afford the law to be made an ass in this area.
Too many lives are blighted and too many families are destroyed by
drugs. London's drug trade is reckoned to be the city's third-biggest
business after finance and tourism. Billions of pounds gush around
the criminal circuits that control the trafficking. Scotland's drug
enforcement agency busted 50 gangs last year, but nobody claims it
makes much difference.

The present strategy is in disarray. David Davis, a Tory leadership
candidate, has already called for an open debate and the government
should respond. It dismissed the Runciman report urging a new
approach, but the case for radical thinking is growing and may soon
be irresistible. Legalised cannabis would do more to disrupt gangs
that monopolise drug supplies than any current legislation. Quality
controls could be imposed, and a more persuasive campaign could be
launched against drug abuse. That has to be balanced against still
genuine fears that it would lead to wider use of those harder drugs.
Either way, Mr Blair must accept that liberalisation by stealth of
soft drugs is not the answer. The government needs to make up its
mind.