DOWNGRADE ECSTASY TO CLASS B DRUG, SAY MINISTERIAL ADVISERS

Advisory Council Has 'Pro-Drug' Agenda, Say Critics, Raising Questions
Over Its Fitness To Advise Ministers

An independent committee that advises ministers on drug classification
is poised to recommend the controversial downgrading of ecstasy to a
class B drug. The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) is
expected to call for ecstasy, a drug blamed for the deaths of at least
30 people a year, to be changed from its top-rated class A category
when it reports later this month.

The proposal will bring the council into direct conflict with the Home
Secretary, Jacqui Smith (below), who is expected to veto any such
move, and propel the Government into a row over its treatment of
expert bodies charged with advising ministers on key issues. The
controversy comes just months after the Home Office ignored ACMD
opposition to the decision to move cannabis from class C to class B.

Senior Home Office sources said they "fully expected" the ACMD to call
for the relaxation of ecstasy's classification. Professor David Nutt,
chairman of the committee, which is reviewing ecstasy at the request
of MPs, has suggested it is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco,
and stated that it is "probably too highly classified".

Downgrading the drug, which is popular with clubbers, to class B would
reduce the maximum prison sentence for possession from seven years to
five, while the maximum prison sentence for dealers would fall from
life in prison to 14 years. It shares its current classification with
drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine.

Anti-drug campaigners have attacked any move to downgrade ecstasy. The
shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "Drugs wreck lives and
destroy communities. Ecstasy is a drug that is very damaging."

Critics have also called into question the ACMD's fitness to advise
ministers. David Raynes, a member of the National Drug Prevention
Alliance, said the ACMD should be "an impartial centre of expertise
carefully weighing evidence and public good". He added: "Recent
behaviour leads me to believe it is being controlled by a few
ideologues, pursuing a broadly liberal and pro-drug, legalisation agenda."

Mary Brett, spokesperson for Europe Against Drugs, said: "The present
ACMD includes few members who take a definite drug-prevention stance.
It is imperative that a committee of this importance needs to be
properly balanced."

Professor Andy Parrott, an experton ecstasy, said he was concerned
that there were insufficient scientists on the committee. "It is quite
an odd committee. It is not very scientific. This issue should not
just be about opinions - it should be about the actual effects this
drug has on people's brains and bodies. I have conducted years of
research into ecstasy and I can tell them that it is not possible to
take this drug without being damaged by it."

In a critical report on drugs policy in 2006, MPs on the Science and
Technology Select Committee accused the ACMD of a "dereliction of
duty" over its failure to alert the Home Office to serious doubts
about the system's effectiveness. The MPs also expressed "surprise and
disappointment" that the ACMD had never reviewed the evidence for
ecstasy's class A status.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the ecstasy review was "hugely
unwelcome". She added: "Ecstasy can and does kill unpredictably; there
is no such thing as a 'safe dose'. The Government firmly believes that
ecstasy should remain a class A drug."