LAW IN DISORDER

Control, Don't Fight, Drug Use

For some months we have been drifting towards a liberalisation of the law
on cannabis with some police forces operating a no-arrest policy for
possession. Last month the Home Secretary proposed that the drug be
reclassified from Class B to Class C and that possession be a
non-arrestable offence. Now things are moving faster. Senior police
officers are arguing for legalisation of cannabis. Some, including the
president of the Superintendents' Association, want 'shooting galleries'
where heroin addicts can legally inject. Most controversial is the argument
that the law should distinguish between addicts who commit crimes to feed
their habits and 'weekend' users of ecstasy and cocaine.

The police are right to point out the idiocies and dangers of enforcing the
law and their arguments on use of police time are unanswerable. We welcome
their pragmatic approach, even if, as Richard Ingrams points out on page
32, they are merely informing us of a policy they have been operating for
some time. None the less, two things concern us.

We cannot feel entirely comfortable with radical legislative changes being
decided in the police canteen. Second, parents concerned at the ease with
which their children can obtain ecstasy deserve more than an administrative
shrug that the police do not have the resources to uphold the law.

Unenforced laws bring all law into disrepute. The Home Secretary must act
on mounting evidence that our drugs strategy criminalises the foolish while
having little impact on the villains who run the UKP6bn drugs industry.
There are sound arguments - ideological and now pragmatic - for
decriminalising all personal drug use while carefully monitoring and
controlling supply. That is the way official practice is heading. The
Government should have the courage of its secret convictions.