EASE UP ON ECSTASY, BRITAIN'S TOP POLICE SAY

LONDON, Oct 28 (Reuters) - The body representing Britain's top police said
on Sunday it wanted the law on ecstasy relaxed to allow law enforcement to
focus on heroin and cocaine.

The proposal from the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) came days
after Interior Minister David Blunkett said the the rules governing
cannabis' possession would be eased.

"We need to achieve a balance of police resources focusing a greater
priority on class A drugs," the chairman of ACPO's drugs committee Andy
Hayman told The Observer newspaper.

"ACPO's submission to the Independent Inquiry into Drugs, based on the most
up-to-date medical and scientific research, was that some drugs seem to be
in too high a class, including ecstasy," said Hayman, who is a Deputy
Assistant Commissioner in London's Metropolitan Police.

But ACPO would insist on a further review of the medical evidence on
ecstasy before the law was changed.

A member of the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Roger
Howard, also said the council had seen new evidence suggesting the laws on
ecstasy could be relaxed.

"We have reached no conclusions but this evidence lends support to the view
that some drugs have not been appropriately classified, and that's not just
cannabis," Howard, who runs narcotics charity Drugscape, told The Sunday Times.

However, anti-drugs campaigner Paul Betts, who's daughter Leah died after
taking ecstasy at her 18th birthday party six years ago, said the
suggestion was deplorable.

"I saw Tony Blair...in February last year and I was told face-to-face that
there was no way that this government was going to go soft on drugs or
reclassify," he told the paper.

Britain classifies drugs into three categories A,B and C, with the first
carrying the harshest penalties and the last the least severe.

Class A drugs include heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine, amphetamines,
ecstasy and LSD. Cannabis is to be reclassified as a class C drug from class B.

The downgrade means people caught with small quantities of cannabis for
personal use will escape with only a police caution and would put cannabis
in the same drugs category as anti-depressants and steroids.

Ecstasy is popular among clubbers and has been closely associated with the
dance music scene since the late 1980s.

Sometimes known as MDMA or by its chemical name
3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, ecstasy can cause dramatic changes in
heart rate and blood pressure.

It can also lead to dehydration and has been shown to cause lasting changes
in the brain's chemical systems that control mood and memory.