CANNABIS A STEP CLOSER TO DOWNGRADING

MEDICAL experts cleared the way yesterday for Home Secretary David Blunkett
to in-troduce the first relaxation of British drug laws for 30 years.

Following a five-month re-view; the influential Advisory Council on the
Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommended that cannabis should be downgraded to a
class-C drug, putting it in the same category as steroids and prescription
tranquillisers such as Valium.

It would mean possession of small amounts would no longer be an arrestable
offence, al-though cannabis would not be decriminalised officially.

When Mr Blunkett asked the ACMD to review the status of cannabis in October
last year, he said he was 'minded' to re-classify but he wanted to hear
from the experts. Their verdict, which was never seriously in doubt, brings
reclassification a significant step closer.

It would be a remarkable turnaround for Labour, which came to power in 1997
promis-ing "zero tolerance" on drugs.

The Government is keen to show that it is relying on the best scientific,
medical and police advice to make the de-cision and Mr Blunkett still wants
to wait for the conclusion of a Commons home affairs select committee
inquiry on drugs strategy before making his announcement.

He is also waiting for an. evaluation of the policing pilot scheme in
Lambeth, south Lon-don, that began in July last year. There, people found
with small amounts of cannabis are not prosecuted.

This means any announce-ment by Mr Blunkett on re-classification will have
to wait until summer at the earliest.

It was announced last month that the Government's clinical watchdog is to
study the medical use of cannabis in a move that could see the drug
prescribed as a painkiller on the NHS within two years.

Health Minister Lord Hunt said then that the use of cannabis derivatives to
relieve pain in multiple sclerosis suf-ferers and post-operative patients
was being referred to the National Institute of Clinical Excellence.

In yesterday's report, the ACMD advised that cannabis "is not associated
with major health problems for the indi-vidual or society".

It said the current classi-fication as a class-B drug was "disproportionate
in relation both to its inherent harmfulness and to the harmfulness of
other substances such as am-phetamines, that are currently in class B". But
it also advised that cannabis was "unquestion-ably harmful".

Occasional use of cannabis did pose significant dangers for people with
'heart or circulation disorders' or mental-health problems such as
schizophrenia, but all were at much greater risk from amphetamines.

Regular heavy use of cannabis could result in dependence, but the potential
for that was sub-stantially less than was the case with amphetamines,
tobacco and alcohol, the report said.

It was not possible to state with certainty whether cannabis use
predisposed users to de-pendence on class-A drugs.

Roger Howard, chief exec-utive of DrugScope, welcomed the announcement,
saying: "It is refreshing to have a Home Sec-retary who is at last willing
to open up the debate on drugs."

But it was criticised by Paul Betts, the father of Ecstasy vic-tim Leah
Betts, who said the Government had reneged on its promises to be hard on drugs.

"This has just proved they are liars," he said. 'This is the start of the
slippery slope."

Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith attacked plans to down-grade cannabis as an
ill-thought-out way to tackle a complex issue.

A spokeswoman for the British Lung Foundation said: "It isn't clear that
smoking cannabis is less dangerous to lung health than smoking to-bacco and
we would be failing young people if we tell them that it is without being sure."