STAY COOL ON CANNABIS

Michael Howard signalled his wish this week to divert a wide swathe of
police officers from serious offences to the trivial; to wage war on
50% of young people; and to ensure that tens of thousands of them
should be given a criminal record, and some a prison sentence, for an
activity that more than two million of them engage in quite safely
during the year. He did not quite put it this way.

Indeed, with his usual eager eye for an opportunistic response to a
policy change, he clearly thought he was on to another populist
winner. He pledged that a future Conservative government would reverse
the new drugs policy that starts next week, under which cannabis is
made a less serious offence. The pronouncement came as rumblings
against the change, that was debated at length and passed into law
only last year, continued to roll.

Mr Howard ought to have been more circumspect. His opposition to the
change will not be as popular as he believes. Opinion polls have shown
widespread public support: 60% believing cannabis should no longer be
treated as a criminal offence; and 99% placing arrests for cannabis
possession in the lowest police priority. The policy change still
leaves use of the drug as an offence, but downgrades the drug from B
to C, the lowest category, making it a non arrestable offence for
over-18s, that will normally be dealt with by an informal warning.

There are two ways to make drugs policy. The first is to follow
political instincts as Mr Howard did this week. The second is to allow
experts - medics, pharmacologists, treatment specialists - to place
drugs into the three categories of harmfulness that the Misuse of
Drugs Act of 1971 set out. This is the road which, to his credit, the
home secretary is following. The proposal to downgrade cannabis was
not some whim of David Blunkett's, but the recommendation of an
independent commission in 2000. They rightly concluded that the
decision to place cannabis in the middle category of harmfulness 30
years ago did not reflect current scientific, medical or sociological
findings. They did not say it was risk free. There is a danger with
all drugs. But they concluded: "When cannabis is systematically
compared with other drugs against the main criteria of harm
(mortality, morbidity, toxicity, addictiveness and relationship with
crime), it is less harmful to the individual and society than any of
the other major illicit drugs, or than alcohol and tobacco." The
policing of the old law - 300,000 stop and searches a year - has done
far more harm than the drug.