PUBLIC SUPPORT RELAXING LAW ON CANNABIS

The Government will face mounting pressure this week to review the laws on
cannabis with the publication of two new studies backing reclassification
of the drug.

The Police Foundation, a research charity whose patron is Prince Charles,
and the Metropolitan Police are both expected to reveal overwhelming public
support for relaxed policing of the drug.

Their findings are based on the results of a six-month pilot scheme in
Lambeth, south London, where police warned cannabis users instead of
arresting them.

Both surveys have been carried out by Mori. Results are a closely guarded
secret but it is understood that as many as four in five people of 2,000
interviewed are "broadly" supportive of the initiative. A senior police
source said: "The report is going to say a substantial majority of people
in Lambeth support the use of the spare time to deal with more serious
crime and more serious drugs. They have also done a national survey and
that shows no significant difference. It is very positive."

The Met Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, is scheduled to tell the Met Police
Authority meeting on Thursday the findings of Scotland Yard's internal
study into the Lambeth experiment. However, Sir John is not expected to
roll the Lambeth programme out across London, but will instead wait for the
Home Secretary to decide on downgrading cannabis to a class C drug.

"There is an inevitability the Home Secretary is going to reclassify, so
Sir John is taking the line, 'why bother making it difficult for
ourselves'," said one police source.

Last week, The Independent on Sunday revealed that the Government's chief
drug experts, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, were also
backing reclassification which would enable police officers to focus on
class A drugs such as cocaine. The Lambeth project is understood to have
saved officers more than 2,500 hours and increased arrests of class A drug
dealers by 19 per cent.

On Monday, the Portuguese drug minister will also present evidence to the
British government showing that decriminalisation in Portugal has not
increased drug use. Drugs remain illegal in Portugal but people caught in
possession of all drugs for personal use are not arrested.

The Independent on Sunday has also been told that the Speaker of the
Commons, Michael Martin, has chosen a leading campaigner for the
legalisation of drugs to represent him at a major UN conference on
combating the international drugs menace.

Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, says he will use the platform at
the UN to call for the abolition of an international convention on the
prohibition of hard and soft drugs. Mr Flynn will be representing the
Speaker as a member of the all-party group on drugs misuse at the
conference in Tokyo.

He has warned Home Office ministers that the priority should be the
legalisation of cannabis for medicinal use. "The courts will no longer
convict MS sufferers who use it for medicinal relief. I have said to
ministers we are going to be overtaken if we don't change to medicinal
use," Mr Flynn said.

Mr Flynn is also behind a Commons motion backing the Home Office minister
Bob Ainsworth for "his courageous statement on reducing harm" from Ecstasy
by encouraging the use of "chill-out rooms" in clubs - a move attacked by
anti-drugs campaigners.