MP BACKS CALL BY JUDGE FOR COMMISSION ON DECRIMINALISING USE OF CANNABIS

A BRITISH Labour MP yesterday publicly supported a call from a senior
Scottish judge for a Royal Commission to look at the decriminalisation of
cannabis and the sentencing of drugs offenders.

Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West and a member of the Welsh assembly,
welcomed the call by Lord McCluskey, claiming: ‘‘The judge is saying in
public what most informed experts say in private that cannabis laws
needlessly criminalise the majority of young people.’’

And the MP declared: ‘‘Even the Drug Czar, Keith Hellawell, has admitted
that cannabis use is ‘normal’ among young people.’’

Lord McCluskey’s call was made at a Law Society conference in Edinburgh
where he said prison sentences were failing to deter drugs offenders and
decriminalisation should be considered to free up police resources.

‘‘If you import cannabis you get 25 years, is importation of cannabis four
times as bad as rape?’’ he asked delegates. ‘‘There is a vast amount of
evidence that suggests cannabis is not a danger to life. It’s certainly not
the same kind of crime that rape is.”