In Britain, Seismic Shift Toward Cannabis Decrim
Shakes
Blair's Anti-Reform
Policies
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/157.html#britainThe
political rumblings began after a Conservative conference on
October 5th,
when the party's hard-line crime spokesperson, Anne
Widdicome, announced
proposals for on-the-spot fines, a permanent
criminal record, and even blood
tests for cannabis smokers.
Now, however, Conservatives wish they had
turned a blind eye to
Widdicome. Within days, London tabloids found
eight of her
fellow Conservative "shadow cabinet" members who confessed
to
past marijuana use; one even "enjoyed" it. After three weeks
of
uproar, her proposal has been shelved by party leaders, her party
has
been thrown into disarray, and the whole affair has become a
boost for
Britain's growing legalization movement.
Social service and police
organizations, including the
prestigious Police Superintendents' Association,
immediately
attacked Widdicome's plan as draconian, unworkable, and
"a
backward step."
"I have spent years fighting the drugs trade at
Heathrow and on
the streets of London and my direct experience has convinced
me
that legalization, not prohibition, is the only viable option,"
former
Scotland Yard drug squad chief Edward Ellison told
Reuters.
Another
former police superintendent, Francis Wilkinson of Gwent,
seconded that
opinion. "Cannabis needs to be moved across to the
legal drugs side and
leave things like crack cocaine and heroin
on the other side... so cannabis
is not a gateway through the
same suppliers into harder and more dangerous
drugs," he told BBC
Radio.
The Tories also left an opening for the
Liberal Party, the
country's third strongest political force. Within
days, party
leader Charles Kennedy took the occasion of a
nationally
broadcast interview on ITV to announce that he
favored
decriminalizing cannabis. Kennedy becomes the first head of
a
major British party to take such a position.
The Conservative
misfire appears to have blown out of the water
any attempt at imposing a
hard-line approach to cannabis on the
estimated six million Britons who have
tried it. It has also
provoked strong, but hitherto silent voices from
within the ranks
of the police, the press, and the political class to stand
for
decriminalization or even outright legalization:
* Public
Health Minister Yvette Cooper became the third minister
of the Blair cabinet
to confess to having used cannabis, joining
Mo Mowlam and Charles
Clarke.
* Professor Toby Moffat, chief scientist of the
Royal
Pharmaceutical Society (RPS), predicted that medical marijuana
would
be approved within two years and that total legalization
would soon
follow. His remarks came as he reviewed the results
of the first
British clinical trials of cannabis, which found
that "there were no safety
concerns" about the drug's use. The
clinical trials, conducted by GW
Pharmaceuticals and monitored by
the RPS, are testing cannabis' efficacy as a
pain reliever and in
treating multiple sclerosis. A preliminary report
said that
cannabis was "well-tolerated" by volunteers.
* Dr.
Leslie Iversen of the Oxford University Department of
Pharmacology, published
the results of his cannabis research in
"The Science of Marijuana."
Iversen, a fellow of the prestigious
Royal Society, found cannabis to be an
inherently "safe drug,"
with an impressive record compared to heroin,
cocaine, alcohol,
and tobacco. Iversen wrote that "alarming claims
about long-term
exposure to marijuana" should be "put to rest." The
story
appeared under newspaper headlines such as, "Taking Cannabis
'Safer
Than Aspirin.'"
* A revitalized Legalise Cannabis Alliance
announced it would
run candidates for at least two parliament
seats.
* Professor Donald Macleod, principal of the Free Church
College
in Edinburgh and one of Britain's most well-known
and
controversial churchmen, joined the chorus of decriminalizers.
"A lot
of police time is being wasted on enforcing the current
law on the
drug. I would decriminalize cannabis now and I would
not rule anything
out -- including legalization -- in the future,
once the experience of
decriminalization has been monitored," he
wrote in the West Highland Free
Press.
* The European Union drug survey showed 10% of adult Britons
had
smoked in the last year, and that the country had the highest
rates of
teen use in all Europe.
* The most recent public opinion poll,
conducted for the
Guardian (London) last week, found that 73% thought
smoking
cannabis should not be a criminal act, with a record high
43%
calling for outright legalization. Fewer than one in five
voters
thought possession should remain a crime. Citing "a far
higher
proportion than previously recorded on Guardian/ICM opinion
polls"
in favor of legalization, the Guardian wrote that "the
findings confirm the
view that a change has taken place in
British public opinion about the future
legal status of
cannabis."
* Accountancy Age magazine published
a survey of chief financial
officers of British corporations in which one
third admitted to
having used cannabis and a majority said the Tory
"zero
tolerance" policy was unenforceable. Eager tabloids
ran
headlines such as "Yes, We've Smoked Cannabis, Say Third of
Financial
Bosses."
Ruth Lea, head of policy for the executives' organization,
told
the magazine, "It is clear from this and other surveys that
current
policy on cannabis is unworkable."
In what in hindsight was a political
miscalculation of epic
proportions, the Tories let the genie of
cannabis
decriminalization out of the bottle. But now it is the
governing
Labor Party of Tony Blair that is feeling the pressure.
Last
weekend Blair reiterated his opposition to any change in the
cannabis laws,
and Home Secretary Jack Straw, the cabinet officer
in charge of criminal
justice, also remains adamantly opposed.
On October 17th, his spokesman told
reporters, "The Government
has a 10-year anti-drugs plan. We have a
report out soon and our
policy on cannabis remains the same. It is
illegal and a
criminal offense."
Straw has, however, only inflamed
opponents with arguments
seemingly derived from "Reefer Madness."
"The
long term effects include a very severe exacerbation of
mental illness and
also include cancer," he told the Guardian
Weekly. "It is reckoned that
cannabis is between two and four
times more carcinogenic as
tobacco."
Those remarks sparked a heated denunciation from Dame
Ruth
Runciman, who chaired the Police Foundation's investigation into
drug
law reform last year, and whose March recommendations for
decriminalization
of cannabis were promptly ignored by the Blair
government.
Runciman
insisted that cannabis was less dangerous than alcohol
or tobacco, and used
her commission's report as ammunition. "The
acute toxicity level of
cannabinoids is extremely low; they are
very safe drugs and no deaths have
been directly attributed to
their recreational or therapeutic use," she
quoted.
Even as Straw was defending his science, opposition
emerged
within the cabinet, and Prime Minister Blair seemed to wobble
with
some offhand remarks on being out of touch.
The Mirror (London) quoted
Labor parliamentarian and lawyer
Helena Kennedy as supporting cannabis
decriminalization. "There
are a lot of people in the cabinet who take
the same view as
myself," she said.
Blair's confused comments came on
October 15th, when a BBC Radio
4 interviewer asked whether he would prefer
his children to "get
drunk" or have "the odd spliff."
Blair
replied: "I really would prefer my children to have
nothing to do with
drugs at all and I think most -- maybe, I
don't know, I am wrong in this and
other parents feel differently
-- but that is how I feel."
In the same
interview, Blair downplayed past cannabis use by
cabinet members or
opposition shadow cabinet members. "I think
what is important is not
what happened on some university campus
years ago in respect of particular
ministers or opposition
spokesmen."
Blair seems to be feeling the
heat, and there is more to come.
The House of Commons home affairs select
committee has ordered
Home Office ministers to testify about their rejection
of the
Police Foundation report recommending decriminalization.
In
responding to Blair's comments, a spokesman for the
Association of Chief
Police Officers rejected softening the
cannabis laws. "We do not
believe there is any need to change
the current legal framework," he told the
Sunday Times. "We are
not persuaded of any need to change
matters."
In Great Britain these days, that is an increasingly
isolated
position.