WHY BRITAIN IS GOING DUTCH

Police, drug specialists and public alike had all called for drugs law
reform. But given recent changes in police practice, does it go far enough?

Has David Blunkett taken the first step down the road to decriminalising
cannabis? He insists that he has not.

In his statement to the House of Commons home affairs select committee on
Tuesday, Blunkett announced that he wanted cannabis reclassified from a
class B to a class C drug, making possession a minor non- arrestable
offence. He argued that this would be quite different from
decriminalisation, explaining: "Cannabis would remain a controlled drug and
using it a criminal offence." Indeed, he could have reminded MPs that
cannabis possession would still be an imprisonable offence with a maximum
sentence of two years.

And yet it is not quite that simple. As the chart illustrates, even before
the proposed new change, there has been a massive increase in the
proportion of offenders cautioned over the past 25 years. Formal cautions
now account for half of all sanctions against arrested drug offenders,
compared with just 3% in 1974. Fines have dropped from almost 60% to just
over 20%. Imprisonment has fallen from just above 10% to just below.

The large shifts relate to the huge proportion of drug offences linked to
possession. Over 90% of all drug charges relate to possession, cannabis
accounting for 75% of these. As the number of drug offences climbed from
12,500 in 1974 to 113,000 in 1997, cannabis possession continued to
dominate, making up some 86,000 cases in 1997.

Big police forces, like the Met, used cautions to divert people from the
courts. Without this initiative, courts would have ground to a halt, as the
Police Foundation's independent inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act noted
last year. But even cautions, which have to be recorded by the police, eat
up police time: an average of three hours for each arrest for possession.

This is one reason why the police were so keen to see a change in the law.
Under the Blunkett proposals - which have been piloted for the past six
months in the Brixton area of London - police officers would no longer have
to arrest people caught for possession. Instead, they would be able to give
them an informal warning rather than take them to the police station for a
formal caution: a major saving in police time.

In the words of Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan police commissioner:
"Reclassification could reduce the time spent by officers dealing with such
offenders, enabling them to concentrate on tackling more serious crimes
such as street robbery, which has increased in London in recent months."

One problem with the current system, which could affect the new one, is the
huge variation between forces in the use of police discretion. It narrowed
over the 1990s, but in 1997 cautions as a percentage of arrests still
ranged from 22% to 72% . Under the new proposals, police discretion would
extend to three options: informal warning, formal caution or a prosecution
recommendation. The current disparities in the use of cautions, which
critics argue undermine the respect for the criminal justice system because
of its uneven handedness, could continue.

Viscountess Runciman, who chaired the Police Foundation's inquiry, echoed
earlier reports on the need for cautions (and now informal warnings) to be
placed on a statutory footing, reinforced by guidelines.

The UK has not decriminalised, but it is heading towards the subtle Dutch
approach, which was designed to separate soft from hard drugs. Its policy
dates back to 1976, when it formally declared people would not be
prosecuted for possessing small amounts of cannabis, and was widened
further in 1980, when the sale of cannabis at coffee shops became tolerated.

Despite their more liberal approach, the Dutch have fewer people using
cannabis than the UK; smaller increases in its use; a more stable and less
serious hard drug problem; and fewer drug-related deaths.

The independent inquiry noted that cannabis was not harmless. It can slow
reactions for 24 hours, affecting the ability to drive and concentrate.
Heavy use can produce temporary acute psychosis and exacerbate
schizophrenia symptoms. If smoked on a heavy and regular basis, it has all
the long-term effects of tobacco. But what persuaded the independent
commission of the need for change was that the current law was doing more
harm than the drug.

The UK has the toughest laws in Europe, but they have neither reduced
supply nor demand. There has been a substantial increase in drug use, with
no problems of getting access. The independent inquiry accepted the current
legal framework, a hierarchy of drugs depending on their harmfulness, but
concluded that the current classifications no longer reflected current
scientific, medical or sociological evidence. It called for a rescheduling,
reducing cannabis from class B to C, and ecstasy and LSD from class A to
class B.

Mr Blunkett only accepted the first proposal. Moreover, the inquiry wanted
drug use to be seen as a health rather than a criminal problem, suggesting
imprisonment should no longer be a penalty for possession of class B or C
drugs. Imprisoning users does more harm than good.

Mr Blunkett may feel he has done enough - and that he has shot the home
affairs committee's fox by changing the policy just as it was about to
conduct its inquiry into the effectiveness of the current law. But the
opposite is just as likely. Given the public, police and drug specialists'
support for change, the committee's hearings could generate wide support
for even greater modifications.