CALL TO OVERHAUL DRUG LAWS IS REJECTED

RADICAL reforms of the drugs laws were ruled out by the Government last
night hours after an independent inquiry recommended scrapping jail terms
for possessing ecstasy, LSD and cannabis.

Keith Hellawell, who was appointed the drugs "tsar"in 1997, said the
proposals from the Police Foundation - which spent more than two years
assessing the effectiveness of Britain's 30-year-old anti-drugs law - would
make it more difficult to prevent abuse. The report was criticised by
anti-drug campaigners and the parents of Leah Betts, the teenager who died
after taking ecstasy. But others said it was a "breath of fresh air".

The inquiry, chaired by Viscountess Runciman, a former member of the
Government's advisory council on the misuse of drugs, said cannabis should
be downgraded from a class B to a class C drug and possession should be
punishable only by cautions or fixed fines.

Ecstasy and LSD would be reclassified from A to B and penalties for
possession cut from five years in jail to a maximum UKP1,000 fine. Prison
terms for those caught using class A drugs, including heroin and cocaine,
should be cut from seven years to one, and imposed only if treatment and
community-based programmes had failed.

However, there would be tougher penalties for traffickers, including a
greater use of powers to confiscate the assets of convicted dealers. But
while ministers agreed to look at the report "carefully", the Government's
reaction was lukewarm. Mr Hellawell said: "There will be no change in the
categorisation of cannabis and ecstasy. We see no justification for it. It
would not improve the situation, it would make it worse."

He viewed the proposed "depenalisation" of cannabis as a short step from
decriminalising the drug. He said: "Some people think if we legalise
cannabis then things will get better. That is a vain hope. However you
twist and turn it, the attraction to drugs is there and that is what we are
dealing with Very few people go to jail for cannabis. But if people
continue to flout the law, prison must be the final sanction."

The Police Foundation, a research organisation whose president is the
Prince of Wales, set up the inquiry in 1997 with the help of the Prince's
Trust. Panel members included lawyers, drug treatment specialists and two
senior police officers, John Hamilton, chief constable of Fife, and Denis
O'Connor, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Mr O'Connor, the newly appointed Surrey chief constable, expressed
reservation over the proposals on cannabis. He said making possession a
non-arrestable offence would create practical but not "insurmountable"
problems for police.

The committee made more than 80 recommendations. It acknowledged that the
eradication of drug use was not achievable and was not a sensible goal of
public policy. It also ruled out the legalisation of proscribed drugs. But
its report said there was scope for an overhaul of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs
Act to reflect the increasing social acceptability and relative
harmlessness of drugs such as cannabis.

The committee said tobacco and alcohol caused greater harm than cannabis.
If they were beginning a classification of controlled drugs anew, alcohol
would be a class A substance, tobacco class B and cannabis class C.

Lady Runciman hoped the report would generate a vigorous public debate and
produce a law "which is far more credible, more effective and more robustly
enforceable than the one we have at present". She said: "There is no
question of our recommending legalisation of any of these drugs. We are
only suggesting changes to classifications and penalties. But there is a
real danger in suggesting to young people that all drugs are equally
harmful when they know from their own experience this isn't true."

Janet Betts, whose daughter Leah died after taking ecstasy at her 18th
birthday party, said: "I hope to God that the Government does not implement
these recommendations. If they do it will be the last nail in the coffin.
We will lose it with the drug dealers and the children."

Those who favour legalisation felt the report had not gone far enough.
Danny Kushlick, of the pressure group Transform, said the committee had
ducked the issue of supply and the criminality surrounding it. He said:
"Drugs need to be legalised because they're dangerous, not because they're
safe. The way to control and regulate drugs is by bringing them back into
the economy and not pushing them underground."

However, Roger Howard, chief executive of the Institute for the Study of
Drug Dependence, called the report a "breath of fresh air". He said: "For
too long the drugs agenda in the UK has focused too heavily on the criminal
aspects of drug use with the health consequences coming a poor second."

Simon Highes, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said the Government
was wrong to dismiss the suggestions so quickly. He said: "Knee-jerk
defence of the present law is an unacceptable response. Only stupid
governments say that the law on drugs cannot be improved."

But Ann Winterton, Conservative spokesman, said: "The Government must not
bow to pressure to liberalise the present laws on illegal drugs. To do so
would send a message to our young people that drug use is safe and
acceptable." Viscountess Runciman, asked whether there should be a Royal
Commission on drugs, said the inquiry was a Royal Commission in all but
name.

Certainly the membership was a familiar mix drawn from academia, the
police, the legal profession and the media. Furthermore, their report reads
like that of a Royal Commission, recommending major changes in the law and
dealing with issues on which there are big differences of opinion. But the
similarities do not end there. In the tradition of Royal Commissions, the
report of the Police Foundation inquiry will be placed on a Whitehall shelf
to gather dust. The report caused the usual broohaha that accompanies any
debate on drugs.

Yet it ducked the biggest question of all: would the appalling levels of
crime that surround the supply of drugs be eradicated if they were legal?
Given the reaction of both the Government and Conservative spokesmen to the
Runciman committee's more modest proposals, that subject is clearly
off-limits for many years to come.