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| Dealers 'exploiting' cannabis change Government plans to relax the laws on cannabis are being exploited by dealers trying to sell harder drugs, warns the Police Federation. The federation is giving evidence on Tuesday to the Commons home affairs select committee, which is conducting an inquiry into drugs policy in the UK. Home Secretary David Blunkett last year announced he was proposing cannabis be reclassified as a class C, rather than class B, drug. That would put cannabis on the same legal footing as anabolic steroids but is a step short of legalising the drug. Fred Broughton, chairman of the Police Federation, said the vast majority of specialist drug officers nationwide were opposed both to decriminalising and reclassifying cannabis. Moves towards reclassification had caused confusion in many places, argued Mr Broughton. "Young people were telling everybody that cannabis is now OK, that it is OK to possess in the streets, in schools," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. "It seems the wrong message went out to those young people. "The street dealers seem to be exploiting the situation in many places by basically carrying small pieces of cannabis and using that as a cover for dealing in more dangerous drugs." Under a pilot project in Brixton, south London, people caught in possession of small amounts of cannabis are being cautioned rather than arrested. Mr Broughton said before the reclassification plans police and courts nationwide had begun to see cannabis possession as less serious than other drug offences in a move towards "policing by consent". But the mood now, with more radical proposals being considered by the Commons committee, had led to confusion, he said. MPs on the committee will also hear evidence from the National Drug Prevention Alliance, which opposes relaxing drug laws, and Baroness Susan Greenfield, professor at the Oxford University's Department of Pharmacology. 23rd January 2002 |
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