NO CANNABIS CAFES FOR UK

The government's decision to ease the laws on possession of cannabis will
not lead to cafes selling the drug in the UK, a senior Home Office official
has insisted.

Home Office director of drug strategy Sue Killen was pressed repeatedly on
the issue by MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee. The questioning
comes in the wake of Home Secretary David Blunkett's statement that he
wants to ease the UK's drugs laws so cannabis possession will no longer be
an arrestable offence.

Ex-drugs tsar Keith Hellawell was another key expert who gave evidence to
the committee, arguing he had neither real power nor real support in his
previous post.

Policy shift's implications The implications of what was seen as a major
shift in the government's stance on drugs were the focus of much of the
first session of the committee's inquiry into drugs policy.

Ms Killen stressed that supplying cannabis will remain illegal because the
evidence suggested that allowing commercial sales increased the amount of
users.

"We are not talking about decriminalisation in any way, shape or form. All
the sanctions will remain criminal.

"Within the civil system, it tends to be quite rigid, whereas within the
criminal justice system, there is some discretion that remains."

Committee chairman Chris Mullin suggested Home Office officials were "in
denial" over what the public were really discussing. He told Ms Killen:
"There's a huge debate raging in the outside world about whether
decriminalisation is or is not a good thing." Radical options And
Conservative MP David Cameron said it was be disappointing if the radical
options were not at least examined.

Ms Killen told the committee: "To my knowledge, we haven't sat down and
done a major study on decriminalisation of all drugs, including Class A."

Another Home Office drugs unit official, Vic Hogg, said successive
governments had seen the harm caused by drugs as "extremely serious". The
UK was signed up to conventions that said drugs supply and production
should be a criminal offence, he added.

But Mr Mullin asked the officials to return to the committee by next
Thursday with a set of arguments to rebut such ideas as decriminalising
drugs. He continued: "If no-one will address these issues from among our
official witnesses, how are we to proceed?" 'No decriminalisation' Former
drugs tsar Mr Hellawell said in his evidence that he had yet to meet a
heroin user who had not started on cannabis, although the same was true of
normal cigarettes.

Rebutting media reports earlier this year, he continued: "I have never said
that I do not believe cannabis to be a gateway drug. I do not know where
this story has come from." The committee did not ask Mr Hellawell if he
agreed with the decision to reclassify cannabis from a Class 'B' to a Class
'C' drug. 'No sideliniining' Mr Hellawell has now been moved to become the
government's expert adviser on drugs policy.

He denied reports that he had been sidelined by Mr Blunkett, claiming he
had neither real power nor real support in his previous post. Mr Hellawell
revealed his dislike for the title "tsar". "It did not reflect in any way
the job that I had or the powers or responsibility that I did not have," he
said.

"If, as has portrayed, I was there to change the world single-handedly then
clearly my critics would say I failed to do that."