SOFT SPOT

Even before it came out, a drug policy report from the Police
Foundation, a think tank funded partly by the British government, was
making politicians squirm. Released in late March, the report
recommends downgrading the legal status of LSD and MDMA (a.k.a.
Ecstasy) and eliminating jail time for marijuana offenses.

The authors, who include law enforcement officials as well as
academics, call this policy "depenalization"--not "decriminalization,"
which apparently has too radical a sound to it. Clare Short, currently
Britain's secretary for overseas development, was harshly criticized
several years ago when she used the latter word, and now only Charles
Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, is still tossing it around.

In February, British drug czar Keith Hellawell declared himself firmly
against "legalization, decriminalization, or depenalization." But he
added: "We need to discriminate between different drugs and the
relative harm caused. ...The focus is going to be on the drugs that
cause the major harm." According to The Observer, "this means that
cannabis use and even the recreational use of Ecstasy and amphetamines
is a low priority."

Hellawell got backup from his boss, Cabinet Office Minister Mo Mowlam,
who admitted in January that she had smoked pot as a graduate student.
Asked about the possibility of changing the marijuana laws, she said,
"I never cancel anything in or anything out, but at the moment there
are no plans or intentions so to do."

Even that was too much for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who seems
determined not to let the Conservatives portray him as soft on drugs.
He arranged a meeting with two leading anti-drug campaigners to
reassure them that his government wouldn't listen to what the Police
Foundation had to say. But according to subsequent reports in the
British press, Blair is prepared to approve the medical use of
marijuana, so long as Mowlam gives up the idea of going further.