CANNABIS IS LINKED TO RISING CHILD CRIME AND HARDER DRUGS

327,000 Hard-Drug Addicts in Britain

Higher Use Due to Falling Street Prices

Magistrates are calling for tougher laws on cannabis to halt a crime
wave among children who are stealing to buy drugs and graduating to
more dangerous drugs.

The demand for the Government to move the drug back to Class B from
Class C for young offenders came yesterday as two reports showed that
Britain's drug problems continue unabated.

The toll of hard drug abuse in England and Wales is now put at more
than UKP15 billion a year in economic and social costs, according to
Home Office figures.

The number of addicts has risen to 327,000 and Britain's illicit drug
market is now estimated to be generating UKP5.3 billion for
traffickers and dealers. Heroin and crack, seen as the most dangerous
of the illicit drugs, account for about half of the market's total value.

A second report published yesterday by the European Union's main drug
monitoring agency provided further alarming evidence of Britain's
inability to tackle its drug problems. It places Britain among the
worst European nations for drug misuse at a time when prices are
falling and addiction could rise further.

Despite record levels of drug seizures, officials admit they are
failing to hit the markets where users buy their drugs.

Against this backdrop, the call for changes to the cannabis
legislation came from 400 delegates at the annual conference of the
Magistrates' Association in Coventry. Roger Davy, a West Yorkshire
magistrate and a national spokesman on youth courts, said: "Children
- - and that's what they are - as young as 12, 13 and 14 are coming
before us for offences of theft and robbery, which they admit are to
raise money to feed their cannabis habit."

He said that cannabis use did not automatically plunge children into
a life of crime, but many children believed cannabis was now legal
and that nothing would happen if they were caught with it.

Mr Davy said that the downgrading of cannabis to a Class C category
had sent out the wrong message to vulnerable young people and he
cited the case of a 15-year-old boy who had come before Bradford
Crown Court accused of murdering one of his brothers in a frenzied
knife attack after drinking up to seven cans of lager and smoking
several joints.

Mr Davy said: "The message has been sent out that having cannabis is
not a serious offence, so more people have started to use it - who
knows how many. But I am convinced that for many of the vulnerable
youngsters I see in court it is a gateway to harder substances."

The magistrates voted for change as the Home Office report provided a
fresh estimate on the total costs of Class A drugs, detailing the
price of drug use linked to crime, healthcare and deaths. The report
put the cost at UKP15.4 billion in 2003-04, or UKP44,231 for each
problem drug user. It is an increase of UKP3 billion on the 2000
figure, but officials said the rise was due to changes in
calculations of the costs linked to crime and victims.

Drug-related crime accounts for 90 per cent of the overall cost of
Class A drug use. The overall illicit drug market in 2003-04 was
UKP5.2 billion, a fall from the UKP6.6 billion estimated for 1998.

The UKP5.2 billion drug market in cannabis, amphetamines, Ecstasy,
powder cocaine, crack and heroin is one third the value of the
tobacco market and 41 per cent the size of the alcohol market. The
size of the drug trade is comparable to British Airways' stock market
value of UKP5.5 billion and the brick and cement giant Hanson's stock
value of UKP5.3 billion.

The Home Office report said that the decline in the size of the
illicit market was a result of the sharp fall in the cost of drugs on
the streets.

According to last year's report of the European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction, published in Brussels yesterday, prices of
cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, Ecstasy and cannabis across Europe
have been steadily falling for the past five years.

The report says that, although drug use may have stabilised in
Britain and other countries, danger lies ahead, especially over
cocaine use. The drug is now the second most popular after cannabis.
It said: "In Europe, cocaine is at historically high levels and
studies suggest it is a common pattern for increases in problems
relating to a drug to lag some years behind increases."

The report shows that Britain is top of the league for cocaine use
among 15 to 34-year-olds, with 10.5 per cent of the population of
that age group trying the drug at least once. Britain also came top
of the 15-24 age group, with nearly 6 per cent having used the drug
in the past year.

In 2003, the latest figures available, Britain was also top for
heroin seizures, second for cocaine and cannabis seizures after Spain
and top again for Ecstasy seizures.

Vernon Coaker, the Minister responsible for drugs, said: "Record sums
invested in tackling drugs have helped to cut acquisitive crime,
which is largely drug-related, by 16 per cent in the last two years."

But David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, questioned government
policy. "This is the cost of Labour's failure on drugs, and it is
being met by the public. Labour must end its chaotic and confused
approach and get an urgent grip on this problem," he said.

Martin Barnes, chief executive of the charity DrugScope, said:
"Despite encouraging signs that drug use overall is stable and for
some drugs is falling, there is clearly no room for complacency."