Blunkett the brave
A long overdue drugs law reform
Leader
Thursday July 11, 2002
The Guardian
David Blunkett’s statement to the Commons yesterday was far more than just a reclassification of cannabis. But it will be the downgrading of pot to a less harmful category that will hit the headlines. Tens of thousands of young people across all classes will benefit from this change. We have the most stringent drug laws in Europe, but we have the highest number of young users. An estimated 2.5 million people smoke cannabis every year. The current law has not deterred these young people, only criminalised them – as well as wasting huge amounts of police time. Reform of the law was long overdue.
Currently, some 90% of all drug offences are for possession and just 10% are for dealing. About 75% of possession offences involve cannabis, some 90,000 cases a year. Each arrest takes up to five hours of police time to administer. What happens to the offender remains a lottery; the caution rate ranges from 22% to 72% of cases depending on the police service. None of this has the approval of the public or the police. Opinion polls show almost 60% of the public think possession should not be a criminal offence and 99% want it at the bottom of police priorities. Senior police officers have been pressing for change, to give them more time to deal with hard drugs.
In future, people who are caught in possession of cannabis will in normal circumstances lose the drug but will not be arrested. The drug has rightly been reclassified within category C, the least harmful class. But, bending to noisy opponents, the home secretary will make provision for arrest in certain circumstances, such as when children are involved or when users provocatively puff cannabis fumes into a police officer’s face. Few people get sent to prison now for possession, but even fewer will do so in future; it should have been made a non-imprisonable offence. Dealers will remain liable to a category B sentence (14 years); this is too high, and could endanger students who share the weed.
Keith Hellawell, the former drug tsar, opposed the changes yesterday but made a fool of himself in doing so, claiming not to know where the reclassification advice had come from. Is he that out of touch? The Police Foundation’s national commission, which brought together two chief constables, leading lawyers and drugs advisers, recommended the change two years ago, before Mr Hellawell was deposed. Their view has subsequently been supported by the advisory council on drug misuse and the Commons home affairs select committee. It has been piloted in Brixton with such success (more dealers of hard and soft drugs arrested) that the Metropolitan police were already planning to roll it out across the capital even before yesterday’s moves. The Association of Chief Police Officers endorsed the change yesterday, leaving the Conservatives, who opposed it, somewhat flat-footed.
There are two other attractive parts of the new policy: an increase in treatment facilities and an expanded heroin prescribing programme, moving the addiction from a criminal offence to a medical need, an old and sensible approach. Traditionally, our drug policy has been hopelessly lopsided, spending 75% on enforcement (which does not work) and only 13% on treatment (which does). Since 1998, treatment numbers have increased by 8% a year, but there are still far too few places. Now a further £183m over three years will be invested. The balance will still not be right, but the move is in the right direction. The minister has declined to downgrade ecstasy from categories A to B, as reformers wanted, but Mr Blunkett has made a good start.
