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Disowning success
Reasonable article from The Guardian (UK):
Disowning success
Leader
Monday October 29, 2007
When evidence crops up to support a controversial policy, ministers normally shout about it. But there was no megaphone announcement of last week's figures revealing that since the 2004 liberalisation of the cannabis laws the proportion of young people using the drug had fallen from 25% to 21%. The British Crime Survey also showed the number of youngsters smoking regularly was down almost a third, and that there were fewer users across the population as a whole. Ministers are coy about the success of their policy because they are preparing to ditch it. In defiance of the evidence, they have to moved to follow the reactionary lead of the Conservatives and revert to the familiar but failed stance of the crackdown.
In July Gordon Brown launched a review to consider restoring cannabis from class C to class B, so stiffer penalties would again apply. He pointed to stronger strains of the drug and to the link with mental illness. That link must be acknowledged - the research suggests an increased risk of psychosis, and the growing consensus is that this is not just because users are more troubled to start off with. It is also true, though less remarked on, that unfiltered, deep and prolonged inhalation means one joint harms the lungs more than one cigarette.
Though real, these risks need to be stated calmly. Scaremongering stories are so at odds with most users' experience that they have actually encouraged the misguided belief among much of the middle class that dope is entirely benign: a Rowntree study last week showed youth professionals are less alert to the dangers than heavy cannabis smokers they work with. Cannabis is not, as is sometimes claimed, 30 times stronger than it was - police figures last week showed most seizures are still of ordinary resin; even the infamous "skunk" is only twice the traditional strength. And while desperately serious, grave mental illness is caused only rarely. While there are 3m users, this summer the Lancet suggested 800 cases of schizophrenia a year might be prevented if cannabis were completely eliminated. Tougher laws, of course, will never achieve that. Indeed, they may make the police more passive. The reforms have made it easier to caution and confiscate on the spot, and last week's figures show this now happens more. Harsher penalties would have no impact on most users, but an unlucky minority would be landed in jail, which is more harmful to prospects than any known drug. Like David Cameron, home secretary Jacqui Smith has owned up to using cannabis in the past. Unless she believes a sentence of up to five years would have been reasonable in her case, she has no business in imposing it on others who indulge the same vice.
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30-10-2007, 12:41
Hybrid Mode
