UP IN SMOKE

WAS THE GOVERNMENT RIGHT TO RELAX THE LAWS ON CANNABIS POSSESSION?

New figures on cannabis seizures will come as no surprise to the many
people who advised the Government against loosening the law on possession
of the drug. Since the Government re-classified cannabis in January of this
year, the number of people caught with cannabis by the Metropolitan Police
has risen by a third - suggesting a substantial increase in those using it.

When the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, first announced his intention to
loosen the law, community leaders in areas like Brixton spoke out against
reclassification - they knew the effects the change would have. Senior
police officers warned that it would send a confusing and mixed message,
especially to young people.

As an internal Met consultation noted, it also sent a confused message to
the officers who have to police the law every day: not surprisingly, it has
led to confrontations with youths who insisted that they were not breaking
the law by using the drug.

The effect has been to make it harder the enforce the law: possession of
cannabis is not normally an arrestable offence, yet it is no legal.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that cannabis reclassification was
largely political in its intention - a sop to the Labour left at a time
when Mr Blunkett, a man to whom personally drugs are anathema, was
offending them with security crackdowns and tightening up on asylum seekers.

Worse, it is very hard to see how the change has either helped police in
London or improved the neighbourhoods where it is now legal for people to
wander around puffing clouds of cannabis smoke.