'ILLOGICAL' DRUGS GRADING UNDER FIRE

Classification system should be changed to reflect more up-to-date
knowledge, says report by MPs

The system for classifying illegal drugs in Britain, which determines
how users are punished, is unscientific and illogical and should be
completely overhauled, according to a report from MPs to be published
this week.

It will call for sweeping changes that could see substances such as
ecstasy and magic mushrooms, which campaigners have long argued are
in the most serious Class A with little reason, downgraded, and drugs
assessed more realistically according to the harm they cause.

The House of Commons select committee on science and technology will
also demand the publication of a paper prepared by Professor David
Nutt, a senior member of the government's advisory committee on drug
misuse, which makes radical recommendations to ministers about how
drugs should be classified.

Nutt is understood to have argued for an entirely new way of
assessing banned substances based on sound science rather than - as
is the present case - historical quirks, political opinion or
research that could be 30 years old. His findings remain confidential so far.

The issue hit the headlines after Charles Clarke, the former Home
Secretary, agreed to review the decision taken by his predecessor
David Blunkett to downgrade cannabis from Class B to Class C,
prompting complaints from police that people no longer understood it
was illegal and from doctors that its possible impact on mental
health was not being taken seriously enough.

Clarke eventually decided not to reclassify cannabis but ordered a
review of the whole system - which had been virtually completed but
had not been published when he quit the cabinet in May. His
successor, John Reid, has not published the report and officials are
concerned that it may be shelved.

A source close to the committee inquiry said that the issue was too
important to ignore. 'Given the evidence, the committee had no
conclusion other than to call for sweeping changes,' the source said.

Drugs are currently ranked either A, B or C depending on the severity
of the harm caused. But scientists testifying before the committee
argued that in some cases, such as ecstasy, while it was known that
users died it was still not clear what caused the deaths. Meanwhile,
deaths from magic mushrooms were so rare as to be almost unknown. Yet
both were classified alongside heroin, which regularly causes fatal overdoses.

Ecstasy was classified in 1977, when little was known about it, while
fresh magic mushrooms - as opposed to the dried form, in which they
become hallucinogenic - were not even illegal until last year. The
committee heard there was little evidence that the classification
level of a drug served as a deterrent to users. There was some
evidence from the US that classifying a drug in Class A simply
encouraged the price to be driven up, making it more profitable for
organised criminals to become involved in smuggling it.

The select committee report will pose a challenge not only to the
Home Office, where Reid takes an instinctively tough line on drugs
policy, but to the Tories. Some members of the shadow cabinet are
understood to be anxious to reopen the debate about drugs and to
support a thorough overhaul of classifications, but the shadow Home
Secretary, David Davis, takes a hard line on drugs.

David Cameron did suggest during his campaign for the leadership that
he supported a broader review of drug classification - as a
backbencher, he signed up to another committee report suggesting the
classification of ecstasy should be reviewed. He is thought, however,
to have agreed with Davis when reappointing him to his shadow post
that he would have free rein to be tough on drugs policy.