LEAK CAUSED LABOUR TO GET COLD FEET

The cabinet first agreed to relax the penalties for cannabis
possession more than 30 years ago, but the then home secretary, Jim
Callaghan, took fright after a leak to the Guardian and overruled his
colleagues, according to recently released official papers.

The state papers show that in 1970 the Labour government came close to
fixing a maximum UKP 200 fine for cannabis possession after a revolt
by a "student faction" in the cabinet.

Instead, with the government facing a general election, Mr Callaghan
decided to "kowtow to public opinion" and fixed the maximum penalty of
five years in prison and an unlimited fine for unlawful possession
that has lasted for 30 years until today's changes.

The 1970 cabinet minutes also confirm that the original decision to
classify illegal drugs into three classes, A, B and C, was based on
political expediency rather than any scientific assessment of their
harm.

Indeed, the Whitehall minutes also show that a former minister,
Richard Crossman, was right to claim in his memoirs that, on the issue
of relaxing the penalties for possession, the cabinet had split
between those who had been students and those who had not.

The minutes to the cabinet's home affairs committee show that the
decision to create three classes of drugs followed a successful
internal cabinet revolt by the graduate faction. Mr Callaghan had
provoked the revolt after he proposed a two-tier system of hard and
soft drugs, with cannabis listed as a hard drug, alongside heroin.

The proposals were heavily criticised. "The home secretary was asked
to consider adding an intermediate category of controlled drugs to
which cannabis could be added.

In an echo of today's arguments over David Blunkett's remarkably
similar proposal to relax the penalties for possession, the minutes
record that most of the cabinet took the view that "a sharp
distinction between the penalties for possession of cannabis and
heroin would discourage users of cannabis from experimenting with the
more dangerous drug".

Mr Callaghan conceded and agreed to create an intermediate class B for
cannabis, with a maximum UKP 200 fine for first offenders. But a leak
of the plan to the Guardian's John Ezard under the headline "Cannabis
penalties to be eased", disturbed Mr Callaghan and the prime minister,
Harold Wilson.

They overruled the student faction and backed a maximum five-year
penalty for cannabis possession.