STRAW READY TO DEBATE DRUGS REFORM

Government urged to reclassify cannabis, LSD and Ecstasy, and scrap jail
sentences

Jack Straw offered hope to campaigners for drug laws to be relaxed when he
said he was ready for a debate on the issue after the release of a landmark
report.

The Home Secretary, who has taken a tough line on drugs, acknowledged that
there was a "coherent argument in favour of legalising cannabis". He
accepted that legalisation would not necessarily greatly increase addiction
to hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

Mr Straw wrote in a Sunday newspaper that he still believed the case for
legalising cannabis was "fatally flawed", but his willingness to enter a
debate will raise reformers' hopes. On the use of cannabis as a medical
treatment, he wrote: "I have no problem whatever with this in principle . .
. If the experts give the go-ahead it will become available on
prescription."

He also said there was a "borderline case" for softening the law on Ecstasy.

His comments follow calls for a rethink on the issue from establishment
voices, including the Daily Telegraph, which said cannabis should be
legalised. The Daily Mail urged a "mature and rational debate" on drugs in
response to the report by the Police Foundation charity, which recommended
decriminalising cannabis, and downgrading LSD and ecstasy from class A to a
class B drugs.

The Police Foundation team was chaired by Lady Runciman and included two
serving chief constables, Denis O'Connor of Surrey and John Hamilton of
Fife. Its report, the most comprehensive since the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act,
calls for the lifting of the threat of imprisonment faced by more than
70,000 people each year who are arrested for possessing cannabis, Ecstasy
and LSD, and for a cut in jail sentences for heroin and cocaine possession
from a maximum of seven years to 12 months.

Lady Runciman said the harm that drugs caused was not reduced by imposing
harsh penalties for possession and criminal records on young people, whose
occasional drug use could be tackled more effectively by more credible drugs
education.

Despite Mr Straw's comment, the Government rejected the reclassification
proposal. A Home Office statement said: "The Government has a clear and
consistent view about the damage which drugs can cause to individuals, their
families and the wider community, the link between drugs and crime, and the
corresponding need to maintain firm controls."

The drugs tsar, Keith Hellawell, warned that reclassifying the drugs would
do nothing to help the fight against illegal substances, and said the
proposed penalties for cannabis use were nothing more than a "slap on the
wrist".

The Association of Chief Police Officers said it did not believe there was a
need to relax drug laws. The Police Superintendents' Association of England
and Wales warned that many of the measures would send the wrong message to
young people.

However, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, said that
although he was opposed to legalising cannabis, his officers could work
within a framework of decriminalisation. "We are, as police officers, all
about enforcing the law. In London, with robberies and murders up, cannabis
cannot be a priority. If cannabis was legalised we'd be fine with it,
because that's a policeman's job. I'd work with it."