THE DRUG LAWS DON'T WORK

The Real 'Softies' Are the Politicians Who Refuse to Engage in a
Sober Debate on Cannabis

Fifty years ago, Lenny Bruce, the American comedian who was pursued
relentlessly by the police for his drug use, remarked that cannabis
would be legal soon, "because the many law students who now smoke pot
will some day become congressmen and legalise it in order to protect
themselves". Since then we have had at least two US presidents and
countless congressmen who have used drugs, but changes in the
punitive US drugs laws seem as remote as ever.

In Britain, many cabinet and shadow cabinet members have admitted to
using cannabis but, rather than relaxing the laws concerning the
drug, they are planning to tighten them. Today the Advisory Council
on the Misuse of Drugs is due to hear evidence on whether or not
cannabis should be reclassified from class C up to class B. The
council considered this issue in 2005 and concluded then that
"although cannabis is unquestionably harmful, its harmfulness does
not equate to that of other Class B substances either at the level of
the individual or of society". This time the hearings are pointless.
Gordon Brown and the home secretary, Jacqui Smith, have already
indicated that they are minded to reclassify the drug upwards,
whatever the council has to say. Brown has said that "drugs are never
going to be decriminalised". The received wisdom, inside the cabinet
and among much of the media, is that it was an error on the part of
the then home secretary, David Blunkett, to reclassify cannabis down
from B to C in 2004, because it "sent the wrong message". And the
increased strength of hydroponically grown skunk is cited as one
reason for the change. The sunny climate in which Rosie Boycott
launched a legalise cannabis campaign in the Independent on Sunday in
1997 has clouded over. The IoS itself has recanted and issued an apology.

There is no dispute that cannabis can cause significant harm.
Teenagers, heavy users and those with a predisposition to mental
health problems are at risk. No one denies that. Transform, one of
the most rational of the organisations monitoring UK drug laws, will
be submitting evidence to the advisory council, saying that "the fact
that [cannabis] is produced and supplied via a profit-driven
underground criminal market has been the driver for the increasing
prevalence of more potent strains, which deliver increased
profit-to-weight ratios".

Some senior former police officers, like Tom Lloyd, former chief
constable of Cambridge, have also argued for a change in the laws.
"This is about taking the control of drugs in this country out of the
hands of criminals and into the hands of responsible authorities,"
Lloyd has said. Many still in the police privately agree.

But it would take a brave politician to suggest a sober debate on
cannabis, let alone the whole basis of the drug laws. The Lib Dems
and the Green party still favour that debate. The former's policy is
to seek "to put the supply of cannabis on a legal, regulated basis,
subject to securing necessary renegotiation of the UN conventions".
It opposes the government's decision to reclassify regardless of what
the ACMD has to say.

But what of the two main parties? Shadow cabinet member Alan Duncan
wrote in the book Saturn's Children that "logic suggests that the
only completely effective way to ameliorate the problem, and
especially the crime which results from it, is to bring the industry
into the open by legalising the distribution and consumption of all
dangerous drugs, or at the very least decriminalising their
consumption". In 2002, the home affairs committee examining drugs
policy recommended that "the government initiates a discussion within
the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways - including the
possibility of legalisation and regulation - to tackle the global
drugs dilemma". David Cameron was a member of that committee. But
this is not Conservative policy now, nor will the party dare to offer
it for debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. It now backs
the government on reclassification.

It is time for politicians to take a deep breath and say in public
what many say in private: that the drug laws are not working, that
the illegal trade is responsible for much of our most corrosive
crime, and that it is time to have a debate nationally and
internationally about addressing the catastrophic effects of
prohibition. Reclassifying cannabis upwards is a grandstand gesture
with no relevance to those whose lives are damaged by drugs or by the
drug laws that compound and exacerbate that damage. The country does
face an urgent addiction problem. But the name of our addiction
problem is alcohol. If the government wants to send messages, the
first message should be in a bottle.

The real "softies" when it comes to drugs are the politicians who
refuse to engage in debate for fear of being called soft on drugs. So
now, instead of that debate, we appear to be heading towards Reefer Madness II.