The Home Office slipped out an announcement last Friday that it was asking the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to reconsider the decision to place cannabis in the least dangerous category of Class C drugs, in the light of 'fresh evidence' that it could cause psychosis and was being marketed at record strength as 'skunk'.

The rush to interpret this move as a reversal by the government seems to me to be distinctly premature. It is true that the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, takes a far more robust view about the danger of cannabis than his predecessor David Blunkett who reclassified the drug downwards, a decision with which Clarke has reportedly said he does not agree. However, the ACMD will not even meet to discuss this until weeks after the general election in May. And when it does, its conclusion is far from certain since it has form on this matter: it is stuffed with drug policy flakes, and was calling for cannabis to be downgraded even before Blunkett did the deed.

The fact is that evidence about the record strength of 'skunk' and the terrifying increase in cannabis-induced mental illness was well known at the time that the government recklessly downgraded the drug to the same category of dangerousness as steroids and painkillers. The Home Office simply brushed this evidence aside because it was -- and remains to this day -- in thrall to the 'harm reduction' legalisation lobby, which dominates virtually every institution which deals with drug use and has utterly skewed public debate. The extent of this ignorance and confusion are on display today in both a wet leader and idiotic column in the Times, which labour under the delusion that the 'new' evidence really is new.

The downgrading of cannabis has thrown fuel onto an already exploding fire. The mixed messages previously being given by the shameful retreat of the police from policing cannabis --a 'zero intolerance' policy towards the drug, you might say -- plus the rising nhilistic chorus that it was not the drug but the law that was killing people and causing crime, had already helped normalise cannabis use in the eyes of many. Reclassification then further confirmed this trend, encouraging many young people to believe that cannabis use was now legal, or at the very least that the authorities would give a nod and a wink to its use.

The effect has been horrific in terms of rising use of cannabis and other drugs, more drug-related crime and psychiatric wards overflowing with cannabis users. Undoubtedly Charles Clarke is genuinely concerned, as are other members of the government. Nevertheless, last Friday's announcement does not start to address this crisis so much as kick it into the long grass (to coin a particularly apposite phrase) where the Tories cannot exploit it during the election campaign. What happens after that is anyone's guess -- but we can be sure that the legalisation lobby will now be going into overdrive to sow more confusion in pursuit of their lethal objective.

Posted by melanie at March 21, 2005