BRITAIN RELAXES LAW ON USE OF CANNABIS

LONDON - The British government, in a landmark policy shift, yesterday
announced a new, long-awaited "softly-softly" approach to cannabis,
effectively decriminalising limited use of the drug.

At the same time, it outlined tougher punishments for dealers and promised
more treatment and rehabilitation of abusers and more education programmes
on the dangers of drugs.

"The message is clear - drugs are dangerous," Home Secretary David Blunkett
told parliament as he announced the strategy.

But he drew a clear distinction between the most serious narcotics such as
cocaine and heroin, which are categorised class A, and other substances
which, while potentially harmful, are regarded as less dangerous.

He said the government wanted to have cannabis downgraded from a class B to
a class C drug, thus ranking it beside steroids and anti- depressants, by
next July.

It would mean that possession of small amounts of cannabis would no longer
be an automatically arrestable offence, although still technically illegal.

Instead, in the vast majority of cases, police would simply confiscate the
substance and issue warnings.

A separate proposal to downgrade Ecstasy from class A to class B was ruled out.

The announcement was heralded as the biggest shift in drugs policy in three
decades. Predictably, it also met a storm of criticism.

One of the main critics was Keith Hellawell, a former police chief who was
the government's senior drugs adviser until last year.

Drug dealers will be "euphoric," he said.