WHY ARE THEY SO AFRAID? WISE ADVICE ON CANNABIS IS BEING IGNORED

Who says this is a populist government? Almost half the public believes
cannabis should not be illegal and 99% of us think it should have the
lowest policing priority. Yet pot continues to dominate the policing of
drugs: more than 90% of all offences are for possession, of which 75%
involve cannabis. It drives police stop and search operations - more than
1 m in four years - with 90,000 people a year nicked for possession of pot.
And yet this week ministers have once again refused to reclassify the drug.

This government also claims to believe in evidence-based policy making. A
two-year study by the Police Foundation's national commission on the misuse
of drugs showed the classification of harmfulness by the 1971 Act no longer
reflected scientific, medical or sociological evidence. The commission
included a leading pharmacologist, two chief constables, and eminent drug
advisers. they documented the degree to which cases involving the drug
distort the criminal justice system, with huge variations in police
cautions (from 22% to 72% of all cases depending on the force) and equally
large disparities in sentencing. So much for improving young people's
respect for the law. Far from creating the certainty that good laws
create, cannabis has become a legal lottery. The commission urged
ministers to down-grade cannabis from B to C class, making it a minor
non-arrestable offence.

It has taken the Commons select committee on home affairs to prompt this
week's ministerial response to the report's 80 recommendations. Only two
concessions have been made. The 50% of offenders who get cautions will no
longer have to declare them to prospective employers; and new guidelines
will urge a more lenient approach to people caught supplying friends. Even
the Daily Mail found this a totally inadequate response. There will be no
sensible debate this side of the election, but will ministers please be
bolder post voting day.