WIDDECOMBE FORCED TO BACKTRACK ON CANNABIS

Ann Widdecombe, the shadow home secretary, was yesterday forced to
backtrack on her pledge of zero tolerance against cannabis users after
seven shadow cabinet members mocked the policy by admitting they had
used thedrug in their youth.

In an extraordinary day of criticism from some of her most senior Tory
colleagues, Miss Widdecombe admitted she had erred in presenting her
much maligned pledge to have no truck with drug users.

As what appears to be a battle between social liberals and
authoritarians at the top of the Conservative party was being waged,
the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy added his fuel to the fire
by becoming the first party leader to call for the decriminalisation
of cannabis possession.

Miss Widdecombe's hand appeared forced as Sunday newspaper headlines
revealed top Tories - including the shadow foreign secretary Francis
Maude - had admitted smoking dope. She then experienced a very public
revolt within her party to her ideas.

Peter Ainsworth, the shadow culture secretary, said her policy was
"unrealistic" and suggested it was unhelpful that she had launched it
without discussing it with the shadow cabinet. The former prime
minister John Major also called for a rethink, while the Conservative
vice-chairman Steve Norris said it was a tall order to expect the
police to impose zero tolerance against a backdrop of falling police
numbers. He also accepted that most young voters would disagree with
Miss Widdecombe.

Yesterday Miss Widdecombe said she intended to give the police only
the option of imposing ?100 fixed penalty fines for drugs possession.
Such fines would not constitute a full criminal record accessible to
police. She stressed she would pilot her ideas of cracking down on
small or medium drug sellers in one city before attempting anything
nationwide.

Under her proposed regime designed to deter cannabis users, she said:
"The police could take you to court, as they can now, or they could
fine you, as they cannot now, or they could let you off with a warning
that is not an actual formal caution."

She admitted: "The use of the phrase zero tolerance in this area was
unfortunate because everybody has their own interpretation of what
zero tolerance is.

"I should have made it clear zero tolerance does not mean you come
down on every single instance of possession. It means you challenge
every instance, but the police have got to have the right to decide
whether they do go forward. I was trying to ensure that where they did
want to go forward, they have more teeth than now".

She wanted to replace the caution fordrugs possession with the fine
becausethe caution represents no real deterrentand few police wanted
to pursuepossession through cumbersome courtprocedure.

She said "It is a coherent policy that has come under such enormous
pressurebecause the media interpreted it as thepolice invading private
living quarters,raiding student premises and taking every joint."

She said one of her most severe critics - the Police Superintendents
Association - had "got completely the wrong end of the stick. "They
thought they would have to do it on present resources, and secondly
they thought it would remove all discretion".

She also stressed that a fixed penalty fine would not represent a more
serious criminal record than a police caution. It would not be a
record for use by employers.

She admitted the Conservative central office briefing paper
accompanying her speech stating the fixed penalty fine would
constitute a criminal record was technically correct, but "it would
have been more accurate if it added that the record would not show in
most checks in exactly the same way as a police caution. I am not
introducing something that does not happen at the moment".

Charles Kennedy, speaking on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme,
accused her of political hysterics, adding "she has performed a public
service in the past few days by showing how far public attitudes have
changed". He did not regard the shadow cabinet members or other
recreational users of cannabis as criminals. Asked if this meant he
believed the drug should be decriminalised, he answered: "Yes."

But the Liberal Democrat manifesto would not pledge to end the outlaw status
of cannabis. Instead, it will propose a royal commission to look into drugs
law reforms.