'CANNABIS POLICY CANNOT CONTINUE'

Licensed Outlets Should Sell Cannabis, Says Lilley By Bbc News Online's
Ollie Stone-Lee

Cannabis could be sold legally in the UK within 10 years because the
government's drugs policy is unsustainable, says former Conservative deputy
leader Peter Lilley.

The ex-cabinet minister, who has called for cannabis to be legalised, says
ministers' plans to reclassify cannabis as a Class C drug will make it
easier to deal in more dangerous drugs.

In an interview with BBC News Online, Mr Lilley, who backed Michael
Portillo's leadership challenge, also argues attitudes to his party are
beginning to change.

He suggests Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith could prove better placed to take
forward Michael Portillo's reform agenda for change than Mr Portillo himself.

The Conservative leadership is a long way from endorsing Lilley's call for
licensed outlets to be able to sell cannabis legally. His argument is that
this would break the link with hard drug suppliers.

Soon after Lilley added fuel to the drugs debate with the proposal last
summer, Home Secretary David Blunkett signalled he wanted to reclassify
cannabis from Class B to Class C.

Hard drug dangers

Mr Lilley says: "It is a step in the right direction but it creates an
unsustainable situation where cannabis use and supply remains criminal but
won't be effectively enforced.

"Therefore people would still only be able to get their supplies from
illegal outlets who will also tout hard drugs."

Efforts to crack down on cannabis dealers are likely to be downgraded, he
says, making it easier for those suppliers also selling hard drugs, he argues.

Legalisation is inevitable over the course of time, predicts Mr Lilley, who
says it is "certainly not unlikely" licensed suppliers will be selling
cannabis in a decade's time.

He is pleased by the "depth and breadth of support my call has had within
the Conservative Party".

His party leader remains opposed but Mr Lilley welcomes other shifts
towards policies more in line with "setting people free" than locking them up.

Echoes of Nixon in China

As one of the Portillistas who wrote of the need for "deep changes of
attitude and outlook" in the aftermath of the leadership poll, Mr Lilley
admits he naturally had reservations about Mr Duncan Smith and Mr
Portillo's other opponents.

Now he appears pleasantly surprised by the way the Tory leader has begun
the "immense task" of building a Conservative comeback.

As a right-winger, Mr Duncan Smith could prove better suited to "bring the
Conservative Party kicking and screaming into the 21st century", he argues.

He says: "Iain Duncan Smith does seem to be setting about doing the very
things I wanted to see done and I initially supported Michael Portillo
because I thought he was as committed to them.

"He may be better placed to do it than Michael was - I have to confess that
- - just as only Richard Nixon could get the Americans to recognise Communist
China."

The scale of the transformation required was underlined recently by shadow
cabinet minister John Bercow, who said the Tories were still seen as
"racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-youth".

Mr Lilley acknowledges the problem but is optimistic: "We have certainly
still got some way to go to change those perceptions but clearly the
general approach that Iain Duncan Smith has been adopting is helping."

'No xenophobes'

He sees two definite phases to a Tory recovery: first, the policy review
focusing on public services; second, demonstrating that although the
decision on the euro will be taken at a referendum, the party is pro-European.

The decision to look abroad to solutions for the UK's public service
failures has "dramatised the fact that we are not xenophobes".

But, as the man who in 1999 infamously urged his party to recognise the
limited role for "privatisation" in public services, surely Mr Lilley
should be worried the Tories are examining social insurance healthcare models?

Mr Lilley disagrees, predicting the lessons that will be learnt from the
Continent will centre around providing local autonomy, choice, and
diversity of provision.

He accuses Labour of stealing Tory rhetoric on such issues while doing the
opposite.

Sometimes the way taxpayers pay for healthcare abroad is called social
insurance "but what's in a name?"

"It is effectively a tax which comes from people according to their income
and is spent on patients according to their need."

The Conservative message must be that no one will be expected to need their
credit card to be treated in a casualty ward.

And most health and education provision should continue to be collectively
financed, he argues, countering the accusations Labour will pursue as the
next election approaches.

Task ahead

Mr Lilley believes victory in that election is "absolutely" possible, but
amid talk of a Tory revival stresses it would be foolish to imagine the
changes already made are anything more than the first steps.

He knows the difficulty of reform. His stewardship of the post-1997 policy
renewal came to an abrupt end when he was asked to resign from the front
bench in the aftermath of that 1999 speech on public services and the
Thatcherite backlash it caused.

Three years later, he warns that only a sustained campaign can provide a
real breakthrough and, showing his well-known love of verse, quotes EE
Cummings: "You shake and shake and shake the bottle, first nothing comes
and then the lottle."

With his belief the public are losing faith in Labour and looking for an
alternative, Mr Lilley is hopeful electoral history will not rhyme for a
third time.