ALARM AS MINISTERS DITCH PLAN TO OVERHAUL DRUG CLASSIFICATION

Plans to overhaul the 30-year-old scheme for classifying illegal
drugs were ditched by the government yesterday, drawing condemnation
from MPs and drugs charities. The scheme, which attaches higher
penalties to class A drugs such as cocaine and heroin than less
dangerous substances such as cannabis, a class C drug, was savaged in
July in a report by MPs, who denounced it as "ad hoc", "not fit for
purpose" and "riddled with anomalies".

The report particularly criticised the classification of the dance
drug ecstasy, quoting research by the thinktank Rand that the drug was
several thousand times less dangerous than heroin, yet both are
categorised as class A.

Professor Colin Blakemore, director of the Medical Research Council,
advised the committee that the scientific evidence suggested ecstasy
"should not be a class A drug".

The former home secretary, Charles Clarke, ordered a review of the
classification system in January to ensure that decisions were based
on the drugs' wider harm to society and not just a health assessment
of the clinical evidence.

In its official response to the MPs' report, the government announced
it was reclassifying the highly-addictive club drug crystal
methamphetamine from class B to class A, but dropping its commitment
to review the scheme. Plans to set thresholds for possession, above
which a person would be considered a dealer, were also abandoned.

The Home Office minister, Vernon Coaker, said: "I have spent the past
few months meeting police, victims of crime, drug addicts and others
involved in the criminal justice system. None of them have raised
[with me] the classification system as a concern that affects them."

The MPs' report, by the parliamentary science and technology select
committee and entitled Drug Classification: Making a Hash of It, found
no evidence that the sliding scale of drug classification deterred users
from taking more harmful drugs and claimed it was not based on
sufficiently rigorous scientific knowledge of the harm different drugs
can cause.

Phil Willis, chairman of the committee, said the government had
accepted only half the report's recommendations. "It is extremely
regrettable that not only have they rejected our suggestion of a more
rational scale of harm to inform policy, but the home secretary has
reversed existing government policy of reviewing the system of drugs
classification. This is very shortsighted," he said.

Home Office figures released yesterday revealed use of class A drugs
among 16- to 59-year-olds has increased since 1998. Overall drug use,
in particular cannabis, has decreased in the same period. Mr Coaker
said the government would continue to focus on tackling drug supplies,
getting users into treatment and educating young people about the
dangers.