POLICE URGED TO FOCUS ON FIGHT AGAINST HARD DRUGS

THE police should focus their attention on hard drugs rather than
allow scarce resources to be diverted into dealing with soft drugs,
said Keith Hellawell, the Government's drugs co-ordinator.

Mr Hellawell said he believed that the use of marijuana should remain
a criminal offence, but suggested in a newspaper interview, that the
Government would not hit its drug crime targets because the police
were arresting too many people for possession of small amounts.

He told the Observer: "What I have done is lift the stone on the hidden
truth about drugs in Britain, which is that we need to discriminate between
different drugs and the relative harm caused and then talk openly about the
difference we can make."

Mo Mowlam, the Cabinet Office Minister, said no one was yet calling
for cannabis to be legalised. She told GMTV's Sunday programme: "At
the moment there is no intention so to do". Miss Mowlam maintained
that Mr Hellawell's comments were fully in line with the Government's
10-year strategy. She added: "I think before we change the strategy
we've got, we should give it a little longer to see if it works."

The Liberal Democrats have called for a Royal Commission to examine
the case for decriminalising cannabis and a forthcoming report from
the Police Foundation is expected to call for changes in the 1971
Misuse of Drugs Act.

But William Hague, the Tory leader, said he was worried by the
implications of Mr Hellawell's remarks. "I think we should not take
our eye away from cannabis and other soft drugs because it is clear
from talking to police that they often lead on to hard drugs," he told
the BBC's Breakfast With Frost. "This is a serious crisis in this
country, in many parts of the country where you would not expect it or
suspect it, and we have got to take new action to deal with it."

Meanwhile, under proposals to be announced by the Conservatives this
week, schools should be required to stage anti-drugs classes. The
party will toughen its policy on drugs and schools by adopting plans
to revise the guidelines for the national curriculum to ensure that
the danger of drugs is put on the timetable as a subject in its own
right.

The Tory move reflects growing fears that the Government is seeking to
prepare the ground for the decriminalisation of cannabis. Teresa May,
the Tories' education spokesman, will also call for sentencing to be
toughened so that anyone caught with drugs within 400 yards of a
school should be automatically jailed.